i've been thinking lately about how faith affects -- and/or should ideally affect -- my life. an excerpt from an email i recently wrote:

since becoming a christian i think i've swung from ultra-conservative borderline-fundamentalist, to ultra-relaxed borderline-weirdo, and now i'm finally finding a good balance as to what it means to be a christian without being ultra-anything. the older i get the more balanced i become in terms of theology, faith, love... and just good old-fashioned real life.

some days i start to wonder if what i dub "balance" and "normal christianity" is really just a disguise for laziness... blending in... not being true to my faith. and then some days ... i am reminded that faith has many different ways of showing its face... and that open-minded-but-grounded is just as valid a face as many others.

in my college parachurch circles, "sharing your faith in Jesus" was synonymous [in my cynical opinion and observation] with "spelling out the gospel message clearly and thoroughly and quite often without solicitation."

not that there's anything wrong with that.

it's just not my style.

i read a quote years ago that said something like, "don't let everyone know you're a christian, but when they find out, don't let them be surprised." and then there's ol' saint francis of assisi -- "preach the gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words." now, THESE are the sorts of things that inspire me. which is not to say that i am the poster child for practical christian witnessing by ANY stretch of the imagination. but, you know? that's just some good stuff right there.

i believe i tried the Persuade Convince Share The Gospel Using All The Right Words in a Not At All Naturally Flowing Conversation once in college. as you can imagine, it didn't go very well. at the time i thought it was what i really needed to do, you know, advancing the kingdom of God and all that. now i look back and wonder, "what the hell was i thinking?"

this whole Jesus thing, i'm finding, is kind of hard to figure out. it's not shiny and neat. it's not packaged in a beautiful box with a gorgeous bow. unless you think wood, nails and blood are neat and beautiful, in which case i know several friends who happen to be counselors.

i was talking with a friend last night about an internal paradox of mine. an accountant by day, i am in many ways exactly what you would expect: neat. orderly. plan-centric. i like things to have answers, clear processes, a beginning and an end. but it has struck me lately how this flies in the face of my attitude towards christianity: i have reached the point where i've had just about enough of the illusion that everything is black and white. i'm a big believer in the gray. i'm a big believer in questions. i'm a big believer in doubt. [what?] i am comfortable with, and dare i say an advocate of, admitting I DON'T KNOW ABOUT  (insert biblical issue of the day here)  . see, that's not so hard, is it? say it with me now.

for clarification lest you worry: i believe Christ came to earth, fully man, fully divine, died on a cross, took away the sins of the world, and has offered that gift to jews and gentiles alike, an open invitation for those who choose to accept. this is the foundation of my faith.

after that, though, it seems most everything is an open debate. and, for whatever reason, I'M TOTALLY OKAY WITH THAT.

so this has spun off into a What's Wrong With Having Questions post as opposed to a What Does It Mean To Be In The World But Not Of The World post. which is what i originally set out to do. it's been on my mind that i don't really know if the way i'm walking my walk is the way i should be walking it. i don't really know if my light is shining as it should. i don't really know how others view my faith, believers and non-believers alike. i don't really know what i'm supposed to be doing most of the time.

and i suppose if i take my own advice, it follows that i should be okay with that.

o 35mm, i do love ye.

i will return to you occasionally.

saturday night i received a voicemail from a long lost college friend. as my faithful readers know, i finally dragged myself around to writing christmas cards this year... and, sadly, her card was returned to me. "unable to forward". i figured i'd get around to finding her info, but alas, the yellow-labeled envelope joined the Vertical Filing Stack of Death pile, along with other miscellaneous papers on my desk.

after some whitepages.com printouts [seriously, what did people DO before the internet?], phone calls to everyone in my hometown with my surname, conversations with an aunt, my parents, and my brother, SHE found ME. i felt loved. but also a little like a schmuck. a loved schmuck. that's me. although i have to say it's certainly not MY fault she wrote down my phone number on a DRY ERASE BOARD years ago and promptly lost it and then moved before i called back and before we could figure out what had happened.

anyway, i called her back, and to give you an indication of our friendship and personalities, she answered the phone with "hello?", like any normal human being, and i responded with "what the hell?!": conversation, catching up, hilarity ensued. it was a short call as i was on my way out, and so i called back tonight and we chatted and it was lovely and refreshing. and very, very funny. everything so different and yet so much the same. how can you NOT love someone that once replaced her jacket zipper pull with a disembodied barbie head?

so, you're now finding yourself asking: what's the point here, woman?

basically i'm posting this so that when she comes to visit here [now that she actually has pertinent, current contact information about me], she'll either be excited at being referred to online, or be totally and massively freaked out about it and wtf is with this blogging thing, anyway?

i'm going for the latter. [duh.]

tb has received my first foray into photoshop elements [thanks, jared!].

lots of buttons and options and newfangled controls... this could get dangerous.