Photo Thanks to Julia Caesar

James Loder wrote that “we all have a root of nonconformity, an urge to break away from the common practice of our everyday world.” James Loder was brilliant in his summary of the developmental stage he was writing about.

We all want to break away from the common. We don’t necessarily want to reject the known. We aren’t necessarily exhausted by the everyday world. But we have a root in us to extend beyond it.

I think that’s true for a lot of life. We’re made for the paradox. We’re here for the commitment, the comfortable, and the common. And we’re here for the edge.

I hope that you have the room to appreciate the common and to push against it. I’m not the best at giving you that room, but I know you need it. I know you need that constructive, creative space to water those roots of nonconformity.

It’s hard to raise you in a world that wants to wipe those roots out. It’s hard to know you need to conform enough to be safe; to conform enough to have options for freedom. It’s hard to know that balance. Of course, it’s a part of my walk of faith. I’m called to believe in the balance or in the paradox and the beauty beneath all those roots.