Get Weird

The word weird, which now means strange or peculiar, comes from the Anglo-Saxon concept wyrd. Wyrd often gets roughly translated into fate or destiny, but the idea of fate conveyed by Wyrd is not so much the usual notion of a predetermined course like a river with a strong current dragging us inexorably towards our final fate no matter what we do. Wyrd is less like a river and more like a calm, still pond on which we make ripples that go out and interact with all of the other ripples made by everyone else. All of us are shaping our wyrds, our destinies, all the time. This is as it should be. God did not place us on this Earth to be dragged along by fate kicking and screaming, with no hope of altering the courses of our lives. God made each of us our own agents, with the freedom and responsibility to shape our own destinies. The more and more we take on that responsibility, the more we live up to our fate or destiny or wyrd. Our wyrd will look weird to everyone else. God never intended for us to follow the same tired path that everyone else seems to be taking. God will have a peculiar people, a weird people. The word wyrd comes from the same root word as the word worth, in the original Anglo-Saxon. The more fiercely we embrace our wyrd, the more we will discover our true worth, which may at times seem to be small in the eyes of the world, but the worth of each weird soul is great in the eyes of God.