Buckled in..

I was on my way to the university library today, to bore myself to tears with several readings on infant intelligence testing, when...

...I heard that Chris and Conrad were going to be playing in Springfield's town square tonight!!!

For any non-Christians reading this, or Christians who boycott religious music, feel free to check out their uber-popular version of the Hillsong hit, "Lead me to the Cross." This song is all over the radio, and the concert was free, so...

...One street led to another, and I found myself chillin' in downtown Springfield. My under-aged housemates showed up as well, sipping rum and coke out of Taco Bell cups. I sat next to them staring out across the crowd on an absolutely gorgeous late summer night in Missouri. Ornate, and dilapidated historical buildings line the square on all sides, and a rectangular fountain bubbles up on the East end. Shade trees line the South, West and North perimeters, with a platform standing in the Northwest corner of the square. The concert was timed perfectly with the fading of the sky, and I couldn't help but sink back into my own thoughts while the people around me chattered on over the canny sound of music bouncing between the buildings.

This place is changing me. I wrote once, but erased, that Southwest Missouri is a pressure cooker of spiritual proclivities. I mean that Christianity is such a part of the goings-on, of everyday life, of academic discussions, and Labor Days, and nights out on the town, that a person can't help but heed the call. Whatever kind of call that may be.

My aunt has this husband who is really gung-ho about Jesus. So much so that his spirituality can come off as very pollyanna sometimes, and not in a good way. I once asked him what was new--he said, "The mercies of the Lord are new each morning." And I've always held that statement as representative of the worst kind of transgression in faith. I have attempted to live a faith that is deeply real above all else. A faith that doesn't know platitudes. One that can't be parodied, and defies easy classification or explanation.

While I still fully endorse these efforts, I fear that I've misstepped. Is it possible that in my attempts to make a faith that bends, I've created something of a faith that breaks? What I mean is, I think I may have become permissive in situations in which I ought to have been steadfast. I didn't want to become that pollyanna Christian who covered over all manner of grittiness with prettiness, so I made a faith that accepted all manner of sin.

I'm not sure this is what I've done. And I don't want to change the way that I interact with Reality. I like that I am not afraid of the "harder problems." I like that I have made people feel comfortable being themselves, however "bad" they think they are. But I do need to know if I've broken some things best left intact. Would I even have these questions if not for being in the "buckle of the bible belt"?