Rumspringa

One word: Rumspringa.

But I'm home now. In so many ways.

I'm home from St. Louis, where I spent New Year's Eve with some of my best friends from college. After four months in the depths of conservative Christianity, the reverse culture-shock is steep. I found myself watching some trash on MTV, thinking, "My Springfield friends would be freaking out right now at any one of a million sins happening on this television screen." This new "evang-i-vision" stuck with me, everywhere. At the bars, the casino, the liquor store. For better or worse, just as part of my brain registers the secular response to various situations, so too a part now registers the religious response.

Predictably, my college friends were shocked by my stories and observations from the conservative evangelical world. Though, the shock and commiseration were not as satisfying as I expected they'd be. The truth is, I'm feeling alone in my shock. The right is too right to understand, and the left too left. Neither seems to get that it doesn't get the other. So my stories and thoughts fall on a hard-of-hearing audience. I love parts and people of both sides, and it is hard to find people who can have balanced discussions.

Speaking of which, I'm home from my family and friends in the Chicago area. If you have read this blog before, you might be wondering why it suddenly became inaccessible about a week ago. Thanks for trying one last time. I'm glad you did.

I shut down the blog because I came under some fire for the faith I am finding down here. And I suddenly became afraid of anyone seeing the naivete with which I have been living my life. I'm still a little afraid of that. But...I think I'd rather be honest, than fashionable. If my naivete shows, what can I say? I don't want to be a cynic. I can't be anything I'm not--not smarter nor savvier. I might very well be wrong in every idea and philosophy I currently hold. But for the moment, this is where I live. With these ideas, and these philosophies.

So I was scared, maybe even embarrassed. I kept writing, though, and I've decided to make those posts open and published as well. And now I'm going to keep moving on all of this. To come home. I don't know that I'm right about all of what I think about my faith, and most of it doesn't really matter. But for right now, as the scholars argue, I will profess a belief in a Christ who lived a real life, and died a real death, and paid a real debt.

I trust in the love of such a savior to grant me the tenacity to chase the truth, and the wisdom to use it well.