Often you can recognize something right away from it’s shape. If I drew on a chalk board the “normal” shape of a hammer, you’d have no trouble knowing what it was, unless I was a really bad artist. Same with a mailbox, dog bone, heart, or the planet Saturn. Of course some things change over time – the symbol for phone I see now and then in public places is nothing at all like the phone anyone has in their house anymore - yet the shape becomes universally recognized. I have to laugh at the signs of children at play or on mens/ladies room doors in various restaurants. The drawing often depict a boy with suspenders/short pants or a girl in a modest summer skirt, either is something I haven’t seen in decades except for school children who wear uniforms.

In any case, shape is so important that it’s often trademarked. Coke has that wasp-shaped bottle, for instance. And if you were a pop company that wanted to make fun of Coke, well, don’t fool with their trademark or they’ll get ya! So when 7-Up arrived they looked at the traditional, “un-trademarked” shape of a cola glass and turned it upside down! You may recall, big on the bottom and tapered to a smaller opening at the top. These, along with their “uncola” marketing, was all over in the 70’s and 80’s. Don’tcha feel good about it? As Geoffrey used to laugh.

So it was to this analogy my mind went the other day when someone was complaining at a “global” meeting of the “ungodly hour.” See, I attend these meetings with people from California, India, China, St. Petersburg, Prague, and of course here, all on the phone at once. Usually it’s bad enough for me, often going on to midnight, but the folks in Russia have to have it the worst. I think it’s like 4AM sometimes when we meet, yet they still wake up, dial in, and then go back to sleep. It was someone in CA though who made the comment, someone for whom it was only about 7:00pm at the time. And I thought hey, the rest of us have it a lot worse off so get over it!

But before I could make some silly remark one of the Russians piped up and said “You don’t know what ungodly is” to which I thought you got that right! And what is ungodly? Why, it’s when you take Godliness and turn it upside down! In the bible, people were complaining that this troublemaker Paul was preaching something new, some strange doctrine that was “turning the world upside down” yet what they didn’t grasp was that the world was full of ungodliness – the world was already upside down! All Paul was doing was trying to set it right side up, at least as much as he could for those who would listen.

I confess when I heard the Russian I laughed out loud, along with everyone else, yet I was laughing for more than the humor of the situation. I was also laughing with the happiness of knowing that my eyes had been opened and that I now do see things right side up, and that if we look for him God is all around us. He’s in nature, in the faces of smiling children, and in our hearts. But he’s also there in a silly moment in the middle of the night, among people who probably had no real thought to his presence other than myself. And I hope, inside and out, my shape depicts his image!

Randy