Being Giddy is OK

A friend of mine recently used the word, giddy.  I have heard that word all my life and actually like it.  No doubt, most folks would assume they know what it means and I suspect they are generally correct.  To most of us, to be giddy is to be silly.  When I think about it, I think about a young adolescent.  They can get the giggles over almost anything.  I enjoy seeing someone who is giddy, because in the moment life is hilarious.  Sometimes I find myself laughing with them, but I have no clue what is funny!

Since I am fascinated with words, I looked up the word.  The first three definitions I landed on as I checked one site were insane, mad, stupid.”  This made me laugh.  I can see the connection between these three descriptors and some person who is giddy.  Those three descriptors are normally seen in a negative fashion.  No one wants to be called stupid or insane.  It is the same with a more normal word, like mad.  Obviously, we associate being mad with anger, too, so it may seem less directly tied to being giddy.  

It was when I came to the fourth definition that I became intrigued.  The site I checked said being giddy can describe someone “possessed by a spirit.”  In fact, inherent in the word, giddy, is an old English and German root word for “god.”  Therefore, to be giddy can become wrapped up with some idea of God.  As we know, sometimes spirit-language or God-language can be used of things not really God.  Here I am thinking of evil spirits and that whole arena that can sound archaic or medieval.  Most folks I know would say they don’t believe in evil spirits.  Fair enough, I think, but then I also think about people like Hitler and all the rest like him.  It is ok to explain him as psychologically sick and that sounds more sophisticated (and it is).  But is this any better explanation that simply saying the guy was insane and leave it at that.  Either one does it for me. 

If I go with my own sense of God---the real God, as I like to think---then being possessed of the spirit is actually a good thing.  In my theology I am good with the idea that Jesus was possessed with the spirit.  If you are into biblical passages, it is easy to cite his baptism which happened just before his ministry began.  In the biblical accounts, he shows up at the Jordan River and was baptized at the hands of John.  We then read that the Spirit descended from the opened heavens and took possession of his soul (translating loosely).  I wonder if at that point, we can now say Jesus probably was becoming giddy!

I don’t think I ever heard anyone suggest that Jesus was giddy.  But if we read the biblical accounts carefully, he certainly was thought to be mad at times.  I am sure some of the Jewish leaders and the Romans hot shots thought he was insane.  If you look at some of his sayings, they seem on the surface to be statements of a crazy guy.  He talked about moving mountains.  Some of his miracles were either crazy or fabricated.  Maybe he was giddy because he was possessed by the spirit.

Many of us claim to be his followers.  But we who see ourselves as normal, upright folks are not likely also to see ourselves as giddy.  I certainly have known folks who make fun of the religious traditions where people claim to “get the Holy Spirit” and speak in tongues and things like that.  Often, we are implying, “there is no way I’m going to be caught doing that stupid stuff!”  I wonder if this is not a statement that effectively says, “There is no way I am going to let the spirit into my life so that I do stupid stuff!”  By taking this stance, we might be placing ourselves outside the realm of God’s Spirit, but at the same time we might claim theologically “to believe.”  It is easy to believe things.  I can say I am a Christian, but there is no tension or threat to my preferred way of life.

If we read the biblical accounts closely, I do think some of the disciples were so caught up in the spirit that they became giddy.  They had to be crazy to confess to being Christian when they knew it could cost them their lives.  And yet, they held firm and paid the price of their belief.  For too many of us, there is no price at all to pay for our belief.  We can be people of the faith with no insanity at all.  We are always in control and perfectly rational.  And maybe that is our trouble.  

To refuse to be giddy is potentially to choose to become irrelevant.  When I think about the work of the Spirit to do in our world in the face of all our problems, perhaps the real craziness is to assume I don’t have to change how I see or do things.  In fact, one of my fears is that I am so in control and sane, that I am missing out on what the spirit really wants from me.  Am I so invulnerable that I actually am choosing to be crazy and think that it is perfectly normal.  

When Jesus asks me to sell all that I have and pick up my cross, I want to pretend I get what he is asking for me.  But deep inside of me, I want to say, “Are you kidding me?  You gotta be nuts!”  I hope he is not asking for me literally to sell everything, but I have to admit I do think he wants my “all.”  Maybe that is where God and I are right now.  God and I continue having this discussion about what my “all” really means?

I am willing to guess that if I wind up being giddy, I am probably on the right path.  Being giddy is ok.