the lip ring may be gone soon. i didn’t get it for attention or to evoke an artificial persona in the first place, but lately, all things natural have started to appeal to me. things like vitamins. and going days without makeup. and stubbly legs. and feeding my body the way it — not my tongue — wants to be fed.
mike asked me how my Christian walk was going and i said, “good.” i don’t think that was the right answer. how do you define a “good walk”? right now, i don’t think i am deliberately persisting in particular sins. moment by moment, though, it’s a different story. and i haven’t had a long, serious quiet time (complete with journaling, which is the only kind of quiet time that feels worthwhile to me) for weeks. that’s definitely not good. i guess i’ve been rebelling against the external measuring sticks. Christianity is not about checklists: read your Bible, memorize three verses of Scripture, pray for 20 minutes, share the gospel with one stranger, confess your sins — ok good, give yourself a hand. but if i was truly loving Jesus, wouldn’t i be more inclined to do all those things? maybe not even be more inclined to do them — but to do them regardless.
people around me are making self destructive choices and it really hurts. these choices are impacting their relationships, grades, and emotional health. some of the choices could end up getting people kicked out of school or in trouble with the law. when you counsel or confront unbelievers, whose authority do you reference? do you merely cite the possible consquences and appeal to their sense of self-preservation or desire for happiness? then there are the people who are making choices to do good things. lots of good things — maybe too many good things. not that you can have too much good, but you can definitely have too many things. it’s like their salvation depends on it. and it’s one thing if God has called you to each individual ministry and is pouring out His strength in your weakness, but it doesn’t look like His strength to me when you genuinely fear His displeasure if you miss one meeting or one activity or one church service because you are honestly exhausted. it’s hard for me to comprehend, because i err on the other side: far too quick to rationalize my laziness.
i’m truly not growing cynical. my idealism is just growing up. i still want everything to be perfect — and in its own sweet way, it is.
homework just doesn’t seem right at the moment. i’m off to seek out a steinway.
p.s. love is far more practical, and infinitely more beautiful, than i ever imagined.
queenmeg85 
ahh, you’re becoming an adult, my darling katydid.
how i shall love to watch this transformation.
now on to your post:
you claim to be against the external measuring sticks, but isn’t measuring whether your walk is good or not by whether or not you’ve had serious quiet time in x amount of days an external measuring stick?
(not that it’s a bad one, just that it is, in fact, a measuring stick divined by human standards)
i think it’s not so much quantity of time, or how often you have that quiet time, but when you do have that quiet time, making sure that it’s serious time spent with Him.
trust me, your spirit will scream for it.
i know mine does…
in fact, i think i’m off for some face time right about now.
goodnight
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Love you sweetie. Life is all about this dance we do between independence and complete surrender — and it’s not linear growth in my experience but much more wobbly than that. The heart is the critical thing (the externals aren’t unimportant but they don’t exist in a vacuum and their value is measured by the intentions of the heart behind them). And being truly transparent and honest about where and who we really are (not in a defiant way, but in humility — especially when it doesn’t “measure up” to where we want to be or think we should be or even with the Word, and especially with other people’s ideas) is better than faking it. Cuz from the acknowledgement of the reality we can fall at His feet and seek the grace we need to grow. Of course, those good things we ought to do (like daily QT) are really for our benefit — we ought to do them whether we “feel” like it or not because God will use His Word in us to be the means of grace to help us grow. How bout we pray for each other in that area? It’s awful easy to rationalize “no time, no brain”. Keep lifting your heart to Him. He’ll show us both the way. Romans 8 — no condemnation– for those who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit. I’m working on understanding that and how it works out in real life. Your thoughts?
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Katie… I adore you – thank you for those spledid words. They were quite honest and quite refreshing. It’s marvellous to see the inner workings of a comrade’s thoughts on issues like these.If you don’t write a book, I think I shall have to collect your little ramblings and have them published for the betterment of mankind. 😉
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i don’t have big long comments, i’m just kinda jealous of you; i’m sure you know why. and also, you never explained to me what queenmeg signifies…. i want to know.
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wow you sound kind of like a hippie (hippy? i just realized i’ve never tried to spell that before). “let us all revert back to the natural…” but in all seriousness, i loved your post and it reminded me of something i heard a while back that “God does not want to be reached by formulas, He wants a maleable relationship. So He changes the formulas on us so we don’t get stuck worshipping our patterns rather than getting to know Him.” Not really a quote, but it’s a good thought.
and I HATE THE EL CREEPO’S OF THIS WORLD.
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