Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,

so that you may be able to prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12, 2.

This is resistance and reformation on the fight, laugh, feast, a paradox is the art of combining seemingly contradictory propositions to declare a profound yet

overlooked truth.

It is a statement that seems to be opposed to common sense and yet is uncommonly true.

Its purpose is to reveal the wonder of truths that have been hidden from view.

The word comes to us from the Greek paradoxos, an adjective

meaning contrary to expectation. It combines the prefix para, meaning beyond or outside of,

with the verb dookine, meaning to think. Latin borrowed the word, using it as the basis for a noun paradoxum,

which was brought into English in the 16th century as paradox.

Carl Sandberg declared that paradox is the secret doorway to truth. It is most often used to startle us, to awaken us,

to stir afresh our sense of wonder in a world where the most extraordinary things

are the most common, mundane, and ordinary things. The engineering of elbows and knees, the changing of the seasons,

a baby's laugh, the greenness of grass, a puppy's breath, the morning fog, the smell of bacon,

sunrises and sunsets, old love, the foolishness of worldly wisdom, the power of a simple word of encouragement,

a snowfall at midnight, and the peeling of church bells on a Lord's Day morn.

The world is full of incongruous juxtapositions that point to a deeper, richer, more enduring truth.

Paradoxes abound in the Bible. The first should be last and the last shall be first.

He who loves his life shall lose it. He who humbles himself shall be exalted. Blessed is the meek,

for he shall inherit the earth. We're called to be in the world, but not of it. Christ

declares that his yoke is easy and his burden is light. If we wish to see heaven, we must

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