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.