Fact: Leftover birthday cake is very bad for weightloss journeys.  No good news to report EXCEPT that I finished it yesterday. 

I'm normally not candid about where I am "religiously," except with my closest friends (who are not particularly religious themselves, oddly enough).  My parents frequently suggest that I read the Bible and go to church and pray with them.  And I do these things often enough to please them, I suppose, but it does not mean the same thing to me.  Heck, I don't even really know what those things mean to me.

I think the most accurate way to describe how I feel about Christianity is to say that I fear they (we?) have all been duped.  Not by God.  Not by crazy Jewish men looking for a power trip 2,000 years ago.  By the church.  (I grew up Protestant, so know that any reference to "the church" is referring to the current evangelical Christian pop culture phenomenon rather than The Catholic Church.)  I often feel like church is an elaborate show.  "Let's show God and each other and especially the visitors how cool and victorious and at peace we are!"  But is it real inside?  Are they all feeling those things in their hearts?  Probably not.  I usually wasn't, back in what I affectionally call my "Jesus Freak Days."  And here's the clincher: I felt GUILTY for it!  Like it was my fault.  I was doing something wrong which was causing me to not feel awesome all the time. 

I also feel that today's modern church really encourages the use of cliche's.  I can't tell you how many times I've heard the following: "We'll see where the Lord leads."  "I just want to be godly."  "You need to wait on the Lord."  "Put God first in your life."  "Let your life bring glory to God."  Well...what does all of that even MEAN?  I know technically what each phrase is hinting at, but I feel like they're not usually taken seriously.  They're just kinda spouted off because it's what we should be feeling or thinking, I guess.  Or maybe that was my own personal experience with them, which is that speaking in cliche's = thinking in cliche's = not really thinking at all, but rather relying on someone else (The Christian Cliche Machine?) to do that.

That's why I (here's another good cliche!) "fell away from the Lord."  I couldn't feel these things I was supposed to be feeling.  I was depressed and anxious and stressed out all the time, and college was giving me questions about the existence of God.  How could I answer them when I wondered if I'd ever genuinely felt Him around?  How do I answer them now?

So I just started reading the New Testament.  My intent is to just...read it.  To NOT try and figure out what my college pastor, or Campus Crusade, or my sophomore Bible study leader would have had me gain from it.  To just read it and see what it says.  Isn't it amazing that I grew up in Christianity and have never done that?  I've read the Bible plenty of times, but always with someone else's agenda in mind.

And here's another odd observation.  I don't feel like I can tell anyone this (except for the non-religious close friends mentioned previously).  My parents would flip their lids...probably put me on a dozen prayer lists and give me a few good at-home sermons about how "faith is like a grain of mustard seed" (AGAIN...what does that actually mean??) which is why I haven't ever really talked to them about the times I've had difficulty believing.  The people who used to be my friends in my old Christian circle...a) I'm not that close with them anymore and b) I feel like they have such a teeny weeny eeny miney mo perception of the actual world--they don't even have friends of other religions or lack thereof and c) I really do feel judged by them. I have to keep a lid on what I do for fun with my friends at school (which, if you've read any of my blog, you know is drinking and hanging out in the bar scene), and I have to answer evasively when they ask what church I'm going to now.  Even then, they can tell I'm being evasive, and they can put two and two together to see that I'm not going to church regularly, and I feel a little bit judged.  *frustrated sigh* 

In summary, it's nice to be using my brain about all of this now, and I appreciate gaining that from my college experience.    But it's also very isolating, and I don't quite know what to do with myself.     Any suggestions?  haha!

This week has been strange.  You know when something happens you never expected, and it puts everything else in a different perspective?  Yeah.  One of those things happened a few days ago.

A lady was shot and killed where I used to work.  Her ex-boyfriend came in with a gun and just shot her, and then himself.    It was so senseless.  If you're the prayin' type, please say a little one for her family members.  And his, too.  Can you imagine how awful it would be to lose a father/son/brother and then have to remember him as a murderer?  So sad.

I spent every day in this place with these people.  We always felt safe.  No one ever thought there was even a remote possibility that one of us would go home in a body bag that day.  But I guess we never do think about that.  We'd all be some scared and anxious people if we meditated on the brevity of life all the time, I suppose.  I'm just reminded that anything can happen and it's so important to make sure you are happy with who you are and what your life looks like.  Right wrongs.  Ask forgiveness, and give a little.  Don't chicken out on amazing experiences, because you might not get the chance again.  These are the things I've been telling myself.

In other news, because our lives are after all a conglomeration of happy and sad, exciting and terrifying, I saw the midnight showing of Sex and the City 2.  It was not as good as I expected, and I did not enjoy it as much as the first movie.  I did, however, enjoy dressing up and getting cocktails with friends before.  We made our bartender nervous.  Hehehe.    He kept telling bad jokes and lame one-liners.  It made me feel nice.  Haha! 

Also, my birthday is coming up.  I'm throwing myself a party of sorts.  I'm quite bewildered about it, actually.  There are so many people that said they were coming.  Makes me feel like quite the socialite.  And also freaked out, because I don't know how I'm going to manage playing hostess to all these people.  But hey, there will be food and alcohol there.  They're big boys and girls, that's enough to entertain them, right?  Haha!  I'll post again after and let you know how it went.  I'm sure I'll have some great stories to tell.