The Gospel According to Fools and Fractures

The Gospel According to Fools and Fractures

I met God in a laundromat once.

The dryer was broken, the air smelled of static and second chances, and some kid was crying because he dropped his favorite shirt behind the machine. I sat there, watching the spin cycle like it could hypnotize away my doubts.

Across from me, a woman folded towels with the calm of a saint. She smiled at the child, then at me. Her t-shirt said, “Jesus loves you,” and for the first time in years, I didn’t roll my eyes.

Because I could tell, she meant it. Not in the cloying way, not as bait. Just... as fact. Like gravity.

I’ve spent years unraveling the doctrines. I know how they contradict, how they exclude, how they prop up empires more than they soothe souls. I’ve read the early councils, the redactions, the Greek roots of words like “hell” and “repent.” I’ve seen how love got legislated. How mercy turned into bureaucracy.

And yet, there in that tiny laundromat, amid the rumble of machines and the clink of quarters, I felt something pure. Something unbranded. A glimpse of divinity unclothed.

So, what do I do now?

I’ve spent so long deconstructing the house, I forgot some rooms still glow. The stained-glass kindness. The warmth of potlucks. The shared weeping at funerals.

If this is foolishness, I’m ready to be a fool.

I don’t want a God who crushes me with doctrine. I want the one who sits on cracked pavement, legs folded, eyes soft, whispering, “I know it hurts.”

They say Jesus flipped tables. Maybe we should too. But only the ones that block the doors. Let love be the invitation, not the fee.

I can’t quote all the creeds. I forget the order of the Ten Commandments. But I know how to sit with someone when they’re falling apart. I know how to bless a stranger under my breath. I know how to apologize like a psalm.

Maybe that’s what worship is now: recognizing holiness in the unwashed and unready.

The Gospel According to Fools and Fractures isn’t a book, it’s a breath. It’s a child’s laugh. It’s a friend who doesn’t flinch at your darkest thought. It’s an aching heart that still chooses to sing.

God doesn’t need better PR.

He needs better mirrors.

So here I am, cracked but reflecting.

Still learning how to love without armor.
Still building a temple out of shared grief and bread crusts.
Still whispering prayers, I no longer understand, but feel anyway.

They say the world will know us by our love.

Let that be true.

Let that be enough.