http://www.the-next-wave-ezine.info/issue91/index.cfm?id=14&ref=ARTICLES%5FESSAY%5F234

I know, I know...it's a link- to a very interesting essay on "health" of the spiritual variety- I just find it fascinating and I am relieved to find I am not the only one pondering this issue in our culture of megachurches and "beautiful people." Seriously- read the essay- here's a glimpse....

Dallas Willard writes, "So we must see from our heart that: Blessed are the physically repulsive, Blessed are those who smell bad, The twisted, misshapen, deformed, The too big, too little, too loud, The bald, the fat, and the old- For they are all riotously celebrated in the party of Jesus."

also...

"Picture again the coffee-clutch: twelve beautiful people sitting in a comfortable room talking about God. A group of twelve healthy persons who are only healthy because they purposely exclude any persons with messy lives is not a healthy community. The cliché is that “the dead sea is dead because it has no outlet.”

Amen.