left left left right left.

Just in case you are either not Facebook friends with me, or don't care to follow, with meticulous care, every nuance of my i-dentity, let me say this.

Earlier today, my "political views" read: Liberal.

Now, they read: "Moderate."

I know, I know. Deep breaths. Pinch yourself, check the URL to see if you're on the right blog, log into The Huffington Post to make sure they're still a bunch of (brilliant) liberal hippies. But know that this is real. And remember, the political realities are really the greater realities...

I tease, I tease.

One of the most interesting, and jarring, lessons I've learned from Southern Missouri has been that the Left is not right. Can I get an amen on that? I'll bet I can.

Not that the Left is wrong, either. And not that the Right is necessarily right. Or wrong. (This post is about one wrong turn from being a religiously-themed Abbott and Costello parody.) But I came here with a passionate belief in all things "liberal," and little discrimination. There are causes that I knew virtually nothing about, but would support fervently in discussion because I understood that the issue somehow swam with a general constellation of beliefs I had picked up in college. I was a liberal by identity. I suppose that, compared to the Young Republicans' Club circles I run in here, I still am.

And, an important caveat of that is that I still am a liberal on the counts of many issues. I believe strongly in the distinction between what we hold to be truths, and the ways in which we ought to go about living those truths in the political arena.

Having said that, I still remember one of the first things I was really shocked by when I moved here, and began to mingle in the Christian Right. I would call my friends from home, and say "Guys, these people are NOT what they're made out to be in our liberal circles. They are smart. And, right or wrong, they are kicking my a** in any and all political and religious discussion." It's funny to remember that, because, firstly, I don't swear that much anymore. Secondly, I now know and love many of those people, and the church. And thirdly, it's sooooooo arrogant. So arrogant that if it offends you, I apologize, and ask you to remember that I'm writing in retrospect. Also, that the culture in which I was educated viewed Christianity and conservatism in a way that most Christian conservatives I've met here might not understand. The venom would be painful, and confusing.

I tell about that to underscore the fact that I believed so strongly in this one idealism of "liberal," that it has been difficult to disentangle that elusive, and sort of catch-all category from my identity. Even as I realize that I don't agree with so much of what is generally meant when someone uses the term. It is an odd exercise to walk through the Facebook profiles of my college friends and acquaintances, and realize, "No, now THOSE people are liberals." In comparison, I'm the new Sarah Palin. Yeah, I did just say that.

Living here, and loving amongst the Right, and thinking about the realities of God, and absolutist morality has caused some revision in both the person I am "out there," and the one I am up close. I've had to question myself in new ways, and on new grounds. Once revised, I've had to decide when to go public with the changes, and when to hang back and keep them quietly. It may sound strange the way I describe it, but we all do this all the time, in a sense.

Yet, I've had trouble knowing when to say when. Thus, the deconstruction of my "liberal identity." The question "Who am I?" has a new answer, and though I still hold some "liberal" beliefs, I'm not that same kid in college, fighting against "the man." All at once, the world is much simpler, and fantastically more complicated. Though one word won't ever hold all of me, the one word "liberal" seems particularly inadequate, and now, downright misleading.

Thus, the Facebook profile change (and doesn't it say something else entirely that our Facebook personas are such potent fronts to our identities?). I've worried that someone will notice the new designation (so I wrote a public blog post about it, to keep it quiet), and make a fuss. But then I saw that one of my closest friends, an insanely good-looking and intelligent gay man, had tagged himself as a "moderate," and I thought, "well, crap, if the gay guy can do it..."

So, friends, today I am a moderate. Because I'm right-er than the left, and left-er than the right, and letting go of the parts that had been leading me askance.