Ironically, This Post Started Out About How Uneasy I Feel About Posting

Bad news, everybody. It's been really windy the past couple days. Windy as in cold. Cold as in unproductive. I plowed through some major reading today, anyhow, but I still feel as if I got nothing accomplished. Eight days now, and I just want it to all be over...

[transition]

So, I'm one week in, and already I'm having doubts about all this blogging business. I mean, this was supposed to be the hilarious, feel-good weblog of the year. But so far I've just used it as a vehicle for whining and forced contemplation. After the Festival of Faith and Writing especially, I really just want to write, but I'm afraid I may be overdoing it a bit. I mean, I could just journal for self, but somehow I just don't feel motivated to do that at all. I'm self-centered enough that I have to be sure to show those around me how interesting my thoughts are and how freaking creative I am.

But am I being too open? Really, who wants to hear how unhappy I am? How lonely I am? But I don't want to pretend like I'm happy either; I think that's an awful way to go through life. The only option that leaves is sitting in a corner, being as quiet as I can, trying to act as if I don't have an opinion at all. Which I have been doing for a long time... It's no wonder I'm so unhappy...

So am I not open enough? (Show of hands, who wants to hear more about my love life?) I hate being open 'cause most people never seem to know how to respond. Sometimes, I suspect they think I'm being fake. But doesn't that just make me paranoid? Maybe they'll just hate me no matter what I tell them. But these are the kinds of things I think, which I really don't want to share. As I've mentioned before, I suspect that I'm going a little insane. Even if not, no doubt I'm over-analytical. It'd be nice to look at someone someday and just be able to think absolutely nothing about them at all.

There are a billion different rabbit trails I could go down right now (probably closer to three), but I'm going to go down this one:

"Can Christians Tell the Truth?" That was the title of one of the sessions I attended at the Festival of Faith and Writing. Lectures were given by Leslie Leyland Fields, Debra Rienstra, and Vinita Hampton Wright (don't worry, I'm sure those names mean as much to you as they did to me). I won't go into what all of them said, but in short, they agreed we have to tell the truth.

Just the day before, I heard a Christian woman on the radio, telling the story of her husband's tragic death. She cheerfully rattled off the gory details of what led up to him writhing on their driveway, tacking on "but God has just been so faithful through it all." (Er... Not bad... It was the way she said it) She then proceeded to push her new cookbook. Now, I'm sure she was masking a lot of pain... but if she insists on telling the tale, why hide the hurt? It's sickening, really. It cheapens Christianity. When you accept Jesus as your personal Savior, you'll never hurt again. Nay! If anything, the pain becomes greater in this life, but we have such great hope! Even Jesus was described as "a man of sorrows," experienced incredible pain throughout his life, and never blissfully ignored it!

It just ticks me off, because this has become such a common attitude! In fact, this is one of my chief complaints about Emmaus. First semester, my pessimism was starting to wear off a bit and I thought I was finally making some friends. So I went to sit next to one of said "friends" at dinner. She asks me how I am, and nonchalantly I respond, "I've been better." Dead serious, and without batting an eye, she scolds, "James, we have Jesus." Actually, this one of the defining moments of my Emmaus experience. At this point, I realized that I had no friends. At this point I realized how deeply I hate Emmaus. (FYI - I did make some really good friends later in the year; no worries.)

Why do Christians insist it has to be this way? Why do we think we have to pretty up salvation and sell it? We're sinners bound for an unyielding lake of fire and Yahweh loves us so much that He came and took our place. I'm pretty sure that can stand on its own. In fact, when we pretend that there's no pain, it makes us seem inhuman. It's detrimental to our testimonies. People can sense such a huge gaping crater of a lie from a mile away and will just end up running in the opposite direction.

So, yeah, Christians have to tell the truth. And I'll keep striving to get better at honest communication. So you'll read my crappy emo posts whether you like it or not! (You could also stop reading.)

Oh, crap... This turned out much heavier than I wanted it to be... Ahhh! Quick! Post something funny!

Above: Me, funny.