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Trust 30, Day 31 (prompt by Matthew Stillman)

Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mess up your hair. If you are wearing makeup – smudge it. If you have a pair of pants that dont really fit you – put them on. Put on a top that doesn’t go with those pants. Go to your sock drawer. Pull out two socks that don’t match. Different lengths, materials, colors, elasticity.
Now two shoes. You know the drill.
Need to add more? Ties? Hair clips? Stick your gut out? I trust you to go further.
Take a picture.
Get ready to post it online.
Are you feeling dread? Excitement? Is this not the image you have of yourself? Write about the fear or the thrill that this raises in you? Who do you need to look good for and what story does it tell about you? Or why don’t you care?

I fall in the category of "I don't care." If you've read much of my blog you know by now that one of my biggest frustrations in life is the masks people wear. Appearances. My deep desire is to relate to people more sincerely and more deeply than appearances can take me.

I'm going on a mission trip to Brazil in less than a month. Where I'm from, our in-state college football rivalry is a big deal. A really, really big deal. People are so serious about it they name their kids after coaches and players. So when a friend donated some cash to the trip and gave me a hat from the "other" team (the one I didn't graduate from), what did I do? I took a picture of me in the hat and posted it on facebook. That's kind of the okie equivalent to mismatched shoes or smudged makeup in other circles. Yet I do it with joy...if it can help break down artificial walls, I'm all about it. If I can do something counter-cultural as a way to point out the silly things we tend to idolize, bring it on. Image is nothing, show me your heart. That's where things get real. That's where things actually matter.