resolutely unresolved.

I'm not making New Year's Resolutions. Because I feel like that's asking God to do something crazy.

I feel like He'll say, "You wanna write something...write THIS!"

And then, bam, I'm like, tailing somebody at the Pentecostal Evangel, writing canned pieces about Prop 8. I'm not saying, by the way, that the Pentecostal Evangel would ever give me a job. They have standards, you know.

But I've learned a lot about God this year. So I now avoid a few things.

I try not to ask specifically to "be humbled." Instead, I ask for humility, and hope that God kinda sorta knows that it'd be great if those lessons could come as gently and comfortably as possible. Because I have read what happens to Job, and that dude didn't even ask for it.

I avoid phrases like, "If You feel like it," or "I know that You'll do what You'll do, but..." Because those kinds of things, at core, doubt the power and love of God through prayer. They contain Him to logic. And I don't know anything about being God, but I like to prove people wrong, and I wonder if sometimes He does, too. That may be why I go to a Southern Pentecostal megachurch with smoke machines, and conservatives.

I never promise anything to God. There's no "I'll love You forever," and no "I'll only worship You." When I feel those things, I adore them. I can't say them, though, because I can't keep them. I don't wake up every day believing in God, and I don't go to sleep every night trusting in His son. So when my mind is sober enough to pray, I pray that He'd never keep me far from Him. I get on my knees and I pray that I'll always come back.

In that way, the past year has been like recovery. I've been learning my own limits, my errors. I've seen my fragility. Planned for it.

So, I'm not making resolutions. I don't need to. Whether or not I ever ask, God will humble me, and He will surprise me. Will He keep me?

I don't know. I'm sure there are many people who never suspected they'd fall from His presence, perhaps never wanted to.

Pray with me.

Father. Find me, always. Have mercy on me. Show grace. Though I know I will give it all to You in this moment, that promise is good for this one only. Thank you for this moment. Keep me in the next. That at the end, all moments will be yours. Each one joined with the next, and all Your doing, and all Your glory. Oh, Father.

episcopalian's smoke machine.

I walked the three blocks to the church on Christmas Eve together with my mentors, and my heart dropped a little as we stepped in. There would be no raised hands here.

The incense hit me with a wall of memories--mostly of the patchouli and pot of my junior year of college. (Erm, I never inhaled...?)

Then I thought...Hey, that thurible is like an Episcopal smoke machine. Hm, alright. I feel more at home now.

My first reactions were...displacement. I felt displaced, set apart from my own worship. I felt like a big Pentecostal fish out of its noisy waters. And I realized how deeply I've internalized the Pentecostal faith.

Because it feels so right. Because when I meet God in prayer here, with arms raised, or intellect stilled, I meet Him real. You know, one of the major themes of this faith is the bigness of God. Then again, I would presume most denominations to understand and teach of His bigness, but not necessarily of His interest. Not of the ways in which He reaches in, and twists and picks, and changes. I feel, when among fellow Pentecostals, that anything is possible in the world. That everything is possible. When with my fellow Episcopalians, I feel that God works quietly in me, by logic and law. Both are true, but neither is sufficient. It's not just that He works at large, or just that He works in private, but that He works at all!

At mass last night, I was seeking answers. Pentecostal, or Episcopalian, what am I? Do I believe in Christ as a literal sacrifice--how can I? Who is this God I believe in? How can my intellect pick apart this faith? What will happen to me?

The first reading was from Exodus--my favorite verse on God showing grace to whom He'll show grace, and mercy to whom He'll show mercy. My heart stilled with the knowledge that God was telling me of His mysteries--as though He was reminding me that no intellect knows it all.

Next a Psalm about shouting out praise. I smiled as no one shouted. And I remember how I love the honesty of Pentecostal worship.

Then, the passage from 1 John about the deception of our own perceived innocence. My tears welled, because He was speaking directly to me about all of my fears. He was answering questions raised by the people I love the most, in such a gentle way.

And I knew that the final verse would be from John, about Peter questioning John's actions. Another verse specific to my past conversations with God. What is it to me what others believe of Christ?

I was right.

How does He do that?

Tonight, I realized, joyfully, that I don't need anyone's permission to worship however I wish. No opinions required. I like lifting my arms to heaven. And I love crazy loud worship music. And my heart thrills to public confession on bended knee, and I'll cross myself when I take communion if I want to. And it will all be to Him. If I doubt the literal atonement of Christ, it'll be okay. If I need a logical proof, and I read a million books about Christology, He'll still be on the throne.

Because He is good. And He is faithful. And He made me to love Him, and I don't want to be so afraid of how to do that, that I forget to do it.

perfect and sufficient.

I cried when I got there. At mass tonight at St. John's Episcopal. I slid into the pew, in an empty, beautiful sanctuary. And I cried.

Because it felt so right. Episcopal churches, with the kneeling, and the crossing, and the reciting, and confessing--they always feel so right.

But then, I miss the Pentecostals, with their shouting, and tongues, and the way I can stand in a Pentecostal church, my arms aloft to heaven, crying in joy.

I love His churches. In that, I love His Church.

In the Episcopal church, as in others that contain more organized liturgical calendars, there are specific readings for each day of the year. Today's were...spectacular.

One after another (four in all), they came--scriptures special to me. I guessed the last before the reading even started.

Afterward, I talked to the other attender, and before I left, I faced her, "Do you believe that Christ is a literal sacrifice, an atonement for your sins?" I've visited a lot of churches, and I've asked a lot of questions, but I've never asked that one. She smiled. "A full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice."

Later I sat in the garden, in the moonlight, by the statue of Mary. The words rolled around inside of me, "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee..."

I can pray the rosary, and I can pray in tongues, and I can pray in my own words, and I can pray with no words. But sometimes, I wish God would turn me loose.

Some people go their entire lives without casting a single thought towards Him. Maybe they go to Hell. Maybe they don't. But at least they're not always wondering, waiting to find out about this God.

Then again, I cried because in the seeking I've found these places that are so damn beautiful. Not physical spaces, though they may be pretty. But wonderful places of God, where centuries of belief and moments of absolute submission sit together in grace. Where I see so clearly this man who claimed to be a Savior. And in seeing Him I understand His divinity.

That divinity is striking. Whether I like or not, and no matter how much confusion, how painful the process--

I'm a person after God.

twisted and tempted.

"You were really twisted up inside before you left, though. Now you seem so much happier."

That was one of my mentors, commenting on my weight loss over the last year, since I moved to SOMO.

I'm not really sure how I was supposed to respond to the comment about my emotional health. This is what came out:

"Was I? I don't really remember that. I mean, I thought I was okay."

That got silently shot down. Apparently, I was miserable. Now, apparently, I'm not. There was no real satisfactory answer. I mean, I guess I could have come out with:

"Yeah, totally. I really was twisted up inside. But then I moved to the south, accepted Christ in a way you totally reject, was baptized, then was baptized, started kicking it pretty seriously with these Pentecostals, and am deciding to go to a seminary that makes Sewanee look like a liberal think tank."

Lose-lose.

So. My worlds remain stratified. And, as usual after time at home, my heart is broken.

I don't know what's real. Is it those moments in their living room, talking about how improbable it is that God would require a blood sacrifice in the form of His son? Or is it the moments in the sanctuary at James River, talking about how God sent His only son as a bloody sacrifice for me?

I don't believe in the complete literalness of all of the scripture (an entity distinct from "truth", in my estimation), so this is really just going to be a "God thing."

He knows where to find me. He always has.

yours, mine and ours.

When I was 15, my Dad told me we couldn't have a relationship any more.

He was angry because I refused to side with him on a legal issue between he and my mother. So he called me one morning. He was crying, but firm, and he said that if I refused to take his side, we couldn't have a relationship, we couldn't be father and daughter any more.

I remember telling him that wrong was wrong, and right was right, and he should just give her the cash.

He wasn't hearing me. He just kept telling me he couldn't talk to me anymore. Said he had thought that he'd raised me to be a smart, and logical person, but he'd been wrong. I was neither.

And in a moment of pure grace from God, because I don't count myself wise enough to have said this on my own, I told him that I love him. That I'm sorry that he felt that way, and I'd be loving him all the same, and waiting for him to come back. But that he should think carefully--because while I would forgive him and love him still, he couldn't get the time back. Whatever he missed, he missed.

He hung up on me.

It was my junior year in college before I could face that memory, and so many others, without a stinging in my heart. A hurt.

I don't feel the hurt anymore. I don't hold it against him. I consider it a responsibility of my faith to love him without expectation, to hope for the best in him without setting him up to fail. I don't always do that so well. Sometimes, I'm terrible.

Even if the pain is gone, though, there's a legacy left of experiences like that one.

A few months ago, I was in Jeremiah, and I read, "I will be your Father, and you will be my daughter." It was a powerful moment, and I did a double-take into my bible. The sentence actually read: "I will be their God, and they will be my people." I had made a pretty fantastical error. And no error at all.

I've known for a while that one of the reasons I've had so much trouble in understanding God as real, and powerful, and loving, is that I don't have an earthly example. My Dad loves me more than anything in the world. But he doesn't always. He wasn't wise enough to see that his bashing my mother tore apart my relationship with her (in ways that she and I are still dealing with today). He wasn't self-controlled enough to stop the pattern of adultery that tore apart two of my families. He wasn't selfless enough to love me when he didn't want to. He wasn't humble enough to admit to any of it.

I'm walking a bad line here. Writing things about him that he might not appreciate being known. But this is my life. These stories are my stories. And I believe with all of my heart that God will work through my family with raw and graceful force. He's already started.

He's started with telling me that line, "I will be your Father, and you will be my daughter." Because God will never call me and tell me that we can't have a relationship anymore. His grace, and His call are irrevocable. His love isn't conditional, and His wisdom is not optional.

Do you believe that?

I do.

empty exchange.

I pray that He guides me. That I'm always humble enough to accept guidance where He deposits it. But wise enough to see between what's left by Him, and the stuff of others. I pray for a heart that molds itself to Him. I pray that though I can't promise to always love, always obey, always understand, always thank or repent or know--He always keeps my heart close to His own.

I've got nothing to offer in exchange. No gift large enough for such a request.

And Grace lives well.

with a twist.

I was out to coffee at the JR-HC (James River Hebrew's Campus) tonight with friends, and I realized.

We were in the middle of an impassioned discussion about how to save the world, when the question of God's goodness came to me.

"Ashley, how could the overwhelming good that you're seeing--this all-out, sacrificial sort of love for others--be a product of anything but a good God?"

Well, maybe it's a manipulation. God could still be fundamentally evil, and use this illusion of good to fool the world to further hurt. Maybe He enjoys watching us slave away against the evil we can't seem to eradicate.

"Hm, okay. You're right--that's a possibility. But, think about the nature of goodness itself. Good done for a malevolent purpose isn't actually good. So, it would truly have to be an illusion. Could an evil God create a false sense of good in order to fit a grander scheme of perversity?"

I suppose. Though, we don't experience the drive of our goodness as manipulative or instrumental. We just find disgust with what is perverse, and joy in what is sacrificial--even as don't always act out these ideals. So, those parts of us are truly good. And what is truly good couldn't be created from a God whose good is only illusory. If it's not in God, it doesn't exist. If He's not good, goodness can't exist in us.

"Oooo, that feels like a misstep. In the Christian sense, evil is not in God, and yet, it exists. Hence the reason for atonement. So, let's move back. An evil God could not breed what is good, but a good God could breed evil?"

Yeah, Ash, I'm pretty sure that you're now just regurgitating a C.S. Lewis book you read several years ago.

"Shh, I'm busy. Why would it seem that the goodness in us is a proof that we must come from a good God (and not an evil one, because an evil one could not beget goodness), but that evil exists alongside a good God?"

Because evil is the absence of good. There's no space in goodness for evil. It's when goodness is no longer there, that evil is. So, an evil God as the absolute absence of good doesn't allow for the goodness I see. But, a good God doesn't necessarily bar the vacancy of itself. Evil can exist in the world of a good God. But goodness can't exist in the world of an evil God.

Vodka tonic, on the rocks, with a twist of lime, pleasethanks.

dangerous edginess.

Father.

Father.

I don't know who you are. The church says you're this one thing. Another church, another. Same with the books. You're a cruel God, or a magnificent God, a mysterious God, or no God. They don't even always talk about you. Sometimes, I can only tell what they think about you by the way they treat you. Do they pray with conviction? Do they live on that dangerous edge of true faith? Do they find you in philosophy?

I find you in the dark quiet. And I wonder if I've found you, or just the deepest part of myself.

I can say that you must be good, because sunrises are beautiful, and praying in tongues is incredible, and sex is sensational. But then why is war so terrible? Why are people dying of starvation while I write these words, and who hears the prayers of those who live dead?

You could have created anything, and this is what you chose? A diametric world? In which good can only be understood next to bad? Joy to pain? Calm to terror? Contentedness to relentless questioning.

So, are you awful, because you allow both?

You know, Lake Michigan is beautiful. When I stand on the shore, looking out across the water, I feel calm. But I know there's danger. As stunning as it is, it's also unremittingly harsh. What makes it so majestically great also makes it greatly dreadful.

Are you like that?

My heart tells me something good about you. It tells me of a tenderness, even now. It tells me of a promise.

riding solo.

I was driving home from Ozark tonight when it hit me.

"Ashley. If you don't want to believe that Christ is your savior, then don't. Keep volunteering. Keep hanging with the Christians. Keep doing whatever it is you enjoy, and just don't believe."

Right, ok. But how could I do any of that without Christ? What would that make me?

"Confused. It would make you confused."

Can I really do that? Can I just chuck all of this and go back to who I was?

"Of course you can. Look, you wanna believe that you can't know and that recycling is more important than salvation? Go for it. Do it. You don't have to do all of this."

I don't know, Ash...

"There's another option."

Hit me.

"Live this. Look, you're confused and frustrated because you feel powerless. Or something. And part of your turning from this is lashing out at God. So, instead of lashing out at Him, test Him. Put it all on the line, and see what happens. And if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. If your life falls into pieces, and your heart is broken, and nothing seems to make sense--then you can quit with my blessing. Go Buddhist, Jewish, agnostic, whatever. But don't half-live this and claim it's not working. Live it all. Test His existence."

I've never been a big fan of the idea of testing God.

"I really think it's okay this time."

I'm scared.

"You don't really have much of a choice. You came here, and you met God in a new way, and now you have to figure out what's real. You can't un-see what you've seen. You can't un-feel what you've felt. You can live in silence with God, but you'll know. Like you're always saying--everybody's religious. We all make the choice."

Right, but...

"You can't live in the limbo, kiddo. Not intellectually, and not emotionally. Don't be fooled into thinking that you came from paradise. You came from chaos, and it might feel as if you've just traded it up for more of the same. But you've got to trust God for all of it before you're willing to trust Him for none of it. You know."

You know, you're right.

"No, you're right."

I am right.

Right.

eggs and bacon.

One about five from the past.

own your hotness.

"See, Patrick, you've gotta own your hotness. Like, you've gotta owwwwwnn it. Why is there a stain on your shirt?"

Slurred the long-drunk philosophy professor as I walked into the kitchen.

He put his arm around me, pulling me towards him and handing me a glass of sangria. "See? We're a small, elite institution of very hot, very smart people, Patrick. Very elite, very hot. Own it," he hissed.

Later that night, "Patrick," the head of his academic department at my college and a fairly acclaimed scholar in his own right, started dancing around the house with candle sticks held to his chest (re: Madonna impersonation). Later that week, I found out that the reason he was getting such a razzing from the philosophy professor is that at the last party he had made a comment about the breasts of the philosopher's wife.

The great benefit of making it to the top of your department as a student is that you get invites to the faculty parties.

This isn't about the privileged world of high scholarship, though. It's about owning it.

Owning faith.

I'm going home in a week. Home to family, and friends, and mentors, and memories of all that was happening before I started kicking it in a Pentecostal megachurch with people who use phrases like "spirit-filled," and "hallelujah." Home to that mind that believed so certainly that though there are absolutes, we can't be certain of them. Home to the space that created me, and holds me still, in place with thoughts of "what if?" and "how can I be sure?"

I'm going home. And I'm... I'm..I'm something. I'm torn. I live in this fairytale of faith here. However bad the world is, however worried I am about the visceral realities of my life, I can show up on Wednesday at my own church or another, lift my hands to heaven, and feel His peace. No matter the problem, I can kneel and pray and meet Him and, in the most beautiful syllables, find my heart overwhelmed, restored. I can open His word, and see something astounding I've never seen before. I can believe that this "spirit-filled" existence is the life I am to lead, by right, by rule, by absolute and breathtaking redemption. My cheeks are wet--I can feel them--as I write this because I know that I'm living something beyond good.

But this is so far from the life of faith I had. It's so far from the life that some of my closest friends would have for me. I chose the phrase "spirit-filled" as an exemplar for my new friends not only because it's common, but because I'm coming to think that it is an essential, a defining feature of the difference between who I was and who I am. Between who they are, and who we are.

I don't mean that as exclusionary language (and I'm not unaware of the psychological processes it speaks to), but factual. There is something about this "spirit," and something about His filling. I used to live in a world that God had started, and let go--a world His in name, but not in Spirit. Now, I live in a world in which His spirit runs rampant. God is alive. The laws of this world bend to His will. Gravity is intact, and the rest is up to grab, friends.

I'm not sure what pastors and theologians mean when they use the phrase "spirit-filled." I don't know what it's slang for, and I may be mis-using it when I do. But I know that to me, it means power. It means believing that the Holy Spirit guides me, over and above my intellect, to do crazy things like talking to strangers in coffee houses. It means those treasured moments spent in perfect concert with a living God. It means knowing that He'll be faithful to my prayers for things like courage, and sacrifice, and humility, even as I'm knowing that I cannot trust myself to love Him always.

This isn't just an intense version of the faith of my past. It's qualitatively different. When I think of Christmas with people who know so much of me, and live a very different faith, one that seems so powerless in comparison to the faith I've seen in the Pentecostal fold, I hear my own voice...

"You've got to own it, Ashley. Own it."

His to give.

I'm angry with God tonight.

Because I don't know what's coming, and I'm scared.

When I'm scared, I lash out. And who better to lash out against than the One who could so easily light the way.

Except that-- He has. Already. He's lit the way. It's done.

I used to never get angry with God. I thought it was useless. It still is. The stakes are just higher.

I think it started with that girl in the coffee shop. That's when it escalated, anyway. After it was done, I realized...I tested God, and the proof was there: He exists. The prompting that I felt could have been just a fluke. I could have discounted it. But then the situation was too bizarrely tailored to ignore. She was too me.

I realized in those moments that I saw something crazy happen. I trusted His voice in me, did something I'd never ordinarily do, and because of that, created an experience in someone's life that has the potential to change it.

And the whole thing kinda knocked me over. When you see God do something like that (which is huge for me, and probably tiny for people who've seen Him do a lot more), you have a choice to make. God became real then in a whole new way. In a way that involves risk, and sacrifice, and more courage than I've got.

Maybe I sound melodramatic. I'm not.

So I'm angry with God tonight, because I feel like He's asking me to make a choice I can't make. I'm not His girl for all of this. I'm not courageous enough to keep believing like that, to live as though He is definitely here, to always listen to the voice that says 'Get up, go over there'. I'm not brave like that. And I'm not sacrificial like that. And I'm not humble like that.

But what's the alternative? Saying no? Saying that I don't want to see what crazy cool things He can do? That I'm not curious about how big and powerful He really is? That I don't want to help other people? That I'm okay with living outside the truth I feel?

It's a choice, but not a real one. If someone offers you the world, you take it. Especially when it's really theirs to give.

pent-up-costal

I'm feeling pent up in the church.

This is a funny discussion to have with you, because I've already had it with Him, and there's something about arguing about His existence with Him that takes the umph out of it all.

I say, "I don't know if You exist. I don't know if I can believe You love me."

And He says, "Haven't I been faithful to that day on the beach years ago? You gave it all, and then you strayed, but here you are. Haven't I been faithful?"

I don't know if that's what He really says. But I imagine that it is.

I imagine that He says, "Didn't I save you from yourself? Didn't I find you in the haze of drunkenness, more than once? You could have died in that accident with the floor-to-ceiling glass window. You didn't. You could have kept cutting after you first tried. You could have kept on with drugs. You could have been raped. But I pulled you back each time, by putting My own purposes in your heart. You stopped short because I stopped you short. Haven't I been faithful?"

Yes. Yes, Lord, You've been faithful.

I didn't stop short because I understood fully God's role in my life. I couldn't have. I didn't see Him. I saw myself, and the altar, and the possibility of something, anything better than the desperation of those moments.

But just because I didn't fully see Him doesn't mean He wasn't fully working. He was. And He is now.

So I'm feeling pent up because I'm wrapped up in the moment--the responsibilities and possibilities of my life in the church today. But God is so much bigger than today. His narrative is one of faithfulness, of seeing people through the desperation.

How would I live my faith differently, how would I approach God differently, and be with others differently if I understood that the details of today are nothing in comparison to the great story line of the gospel?

confirmation.

Do you ever get confirmations in prayer?

I feel funny using that term, and I'm not even sure what I mean by it. But do you ever feel, while praying, that God says something like, "Yes, I'll do that,"? Or, "Okay, you can believe in that"?

I do. Well, I have. Twice.

The first time was a few weeks back, in response to a prayer for a friend. The second time was tonight.

We were praying at the start of the tech rehearsal for JRA's Christmas service, and I suddenly first, felt the prayer. Second, I felt the answer. They were simultaneous. I found myself praying that people would be overwhelmed by His love and power, and as I prayed that, I felt Him tell me He'd be there. That He'd loose His presence over the sanctuary this week. The sense was so strong, and so intense, I just lapsed back into worship in my prayer.

I guess I could be crazy. Given other recent events, schizophrenia is not an altogether unlikely wager.

But, it was so real.

hands in the camera.

"Imagine how beautiful that is to God."

His words surprised me. Jolted me a little. I'd never thought about it.

I was in the production room last Wednesday night, watching the worship from the monitor feed down in the house. There's a camera that takes from right behind the first few rows, and I had commented that I think that the screen shot of lifted hands is stunning. Always. Every time I see it, my heart rests. The beauty of a hand stretched to God is simultaneously thrilling, and comforting.

"Imagine how beautiful it is to God," the director responded.

He was right. It hadn't occurred to me that however beautiful it is to me, however soothing and in whatever way it calms my soul to see--God must be so, so much more pleased. Those hands are His, after all. His in creation, and His in worship.

The conversation continued, and in it, I was reminded that it's not just my hands that belong to God. As we talked about James River, and what makes it such an incredible church I was thrown back to my first days here. Then as now, I was pulled in by the strongest sense that Christ was present amongst the people of the church. They acted with uncommon grace, and even in the absence of their words or deeds, you could just feel the presence of God.

It was a game-changer for me. And it all, constantly, insistently, pointed back to God. All of these things that were very human--great production, sharp aesthetics, professionalism--somehow managed to be solely about Christ. To point to Him. To beckon me onward toward Him.

It all belongs to Him.

When I left my first church at 15 or 16, shortly after having found it, I had the strongest sense that I had fallen in love with community, not with Christ. I promised myself I'd never do that again, and I think that I became somewhat distrustful of my own relationship to the Church because of that. But I've seldom worried about that at James River. Make no mistake, I am in love with the people. I am in love with the church. But from the beginning, both the church and its people have consistently pointed me back to Christ. My love for them flows from my love for Him, and that is the greatest gift.

When I lift my hands, I lift them to Him, and to Him alone.

My heart is relieved.

dream sequence.

I have this recurring dream.

Though the details are always different, the core is the same. I'm facing off with Satan. Or evil, I guess, is a more comfortable word. In the dream, evil is attempting to overtake me. And I always have a bible. The sequence is like this: I somehow realize that evil is with me. I grab the bible. Evil literally swirls around me, and I simultaneously pray, and announce to evil/Satan that thanks, but I'll be staying with God this time.

It's not a hero's story, though. I'm not courageous or steadfast. Well, I guess I am steadfast. But I'm terrified the whole time. I'm just so certain that God will eventually prevail, I don't give in. Apparently, my unconscious mind is much, much more certain than my conscious.

I had the dream again yesterday, during my afternoon nap. Only this time, there was more of a lead-in. I was talking to this woman, and the more we talked, the uneasier I felt. It became clear that she was evil. Then, it became clear that she was THE source of evil, I was talking to Satan. Then, Satan realized that I knew. Then hell broke loose.

A strange hell, though. It was as though I was in a tornado of ideas, and thoughts. Swirling around me. Satan was in the room with me, threatening literally to destroy me. But I had a bible with me. And I just kept saying that I knew that God was true. I knew that no matter how bad this got, I'd make it through to God.

This isn't the first time I've dreamt of Satan in that way. A while ago, I visited a very unorthodox church, and afterward was contemplating asking for a meeting with the atheist reverend to ask questions about the theology. Before I could, I had a dream about that meeting where in the middle of it, her eyes went black, and she told me that Satan was out for me. It was less than pleasant, and though I'm sure that the atheist reverend is a very nice, non-demonic person, I did not ask for a meeting in my waking life.

Nor it is the first time that my dreams have involved threats of evil. A few weeks ago, I woke up so certain that someone was in my apartment with me, I actually got out of bed and checked every corner. There had been a woman standing over me in my sleep, hissing threatening sorts of accusations at me. So incredibly real. Brains do funny things.

So I'm wondering why my funny brain is doing these things. Why is my unconscious apparently preoccupied with the idea of "Satan"? And is Satan real? Or a fabrication of my unconscious being steeped in a church that believes "he" (she?) is? Is there one localized source of evil? Is there one physical domain of evil (hell)? Who or what is Satan?

garbage in; garbage out

I feel as though I'm throwing my life away.

To my Creator, that is beyond insult. I know.

But I feel it.

I just never imagined it like this. The plan was always to get my doctorate, get a job teaching and researching at some great little school like the one I went to, and spend my life in scholarly discourse. Maybe do some great research, write some influential stuff. Live comfortably.

I didn't imagine that I'd ever feel a pull more important than the "prestige" of a Ph.D. I wouldn't have guessed that my liberal ideas of peace, and love, and caring for others would ever turn into something more real, a moral imperative. And I certainly couldn't have known that helping others know God would be one of the things I'd consider "caring."

So the change in plans, the consideration of seminary and my eschewing of further graduate studies in psychology, feels like apostasy. Like I'm throwing away everything that I am, and all of the safety of who I thought I'd be.

And I keep thinking...I really hope I'm not wrong about God. Because, this is beyond a question of "meaning" for me. It's one thing to place your life into a greater grid because you need to give it some significance. It's another to make major choices on the basis of a truth that compels an action. A lifetime of actions.

If I'm wrong about God, I really am throwing my life away.