besprent

yeah. i'm munching on cold, clammy turkey. and it's good. i can't believe it turned out not only edible, but quite delicious. even without my mom.
i'm reading blue like jazz right now. i read velvet elvis awhile ago, and i was so relieved to know that there are still a few genuine people pursuing their faith. apparently "blue.." was the next logical step in my post-modern church literacy. but that phrase makes my skin crawl. like any group of people trying to address a new paradigm can be summed up in this slick slogan.
i think that there are a lot of people out there who want to have something... someone real to belive in. but, the church.
i have a friend from high school who i give a good amount of credit for my becoming a christian. i didn't buy what many people were selling back in 1994. but i trusted him, because he was very different than any other person i had ever encountered. there was a sweet mischeif about him, and he was also helping me pursue the first boy that ever made completely sick with infatuation.
anyway, this boy who asked the right questions at the right time, called yesterday. it has been months since we have spoken, and when we do it is nice, but what's actually going on with him is never revealed. sometimes i get a bit of hearsay, but in general, i am "sheltered" from the details of some of my friends' lives.
so we talked about living conditions and the geographic uncertainties of both our lives. and i mentioned that i might be in his town in the spring, partly because there is a church there that i am curious about. one that i would embark on a 10 hour roadtrip to visit.
i felt so slimy to even admit that. it's weird to me in the first place to make a pigrimage to a church, but i want to know if it's different. i hate to be a critic, but i have yet to find a church, and i've been to A LOT, that i could ever imagine being an active part of. most likely, the problem is with me. but i'm just wodering if maybe it's not. it's worth a 10 hour drive to find out. not to move there, but to keep hope alive.
what was a little ironic, though, was that i was so insecure about telling him why i wanted to visit the town. he didn't apologize for his faith 12 years ago, and it made all of the difference for me. i hope to never try to guilt or browbeat or really even assume the spiritual status of the people i love, but sometimes even admitting my own persistence requires more grit than i generally care to conjure. also, when i talk about it, i feel like an enormous hypocrite. not because of all my "bad" habits... more for my inability to identify with most of the christians i have encountered since high school. an examination of my life provides very little evidence that i am interested in living out what i believe.
hmmmm. so i guess i need to wrestle with that. i don't think that i have some kind of feel-good self-serving faith. but what about this fruit that i am supposed to bear?