I am returned home. Safe, yet hardly sound.

I watched a movie the other night. Two lines return to haunt my thought and vision.

". . . And it will be the kiss you measure all others by."

"I don't know why we always expect home to stay the same, nothing else ever does."

Both have rung true this week. I expected to go home and find every person I have ever known intimately to remain the person I envisioned in my mind and heart. They haven't, but than I'm becoming more and more convinced that I haven't either.

I cried this week. Buried in my green chenille coverlet that went wherever I went, I wet my pillow with tears. Tears for Liz who lives in a world of denial, "Oh, he only hit the baby once." For Ginny, "Well, since the accident, well, I guess the drinking just takes the pain away." Salena "I just got tired of waiting for that perfect guy, there is no perfect guy. . . " Cried for Beka "I only got drunk once, because you know there is no legal drinking age down there and yeah, well, I liked it. . . heehee." For Karol "Well, he put an ad on the internet, I answered it. I know he's not perfect, but. . . I'm 25, Ive got to get married sometime." For Sara, "I'm moving in with him. He needs someone to take care of his kids." Reb, "I'm just ugly and I don't like myself anymore." Rebecca, "Man, but this stuff is good, it just makes me feel good." Cried for all the girls I have loved in my life finding that once they fell below the line of perfection, the line of perfection, of walking alongside Christ, became a nonexistent goal and unimportant vision.

I hesitate to say they are throwing their lives away, but they have. Having fallen into a false sense of Christianity and all it embodies, "Come to Christ and your life will be easier, satisfactionary, complete and you'll get all the frequent flier miles you'll ever need, just accept this offer today." Of course they are disillusioned with the Christian Life! Of course they are beaten and trod down and of course they decide it isn't worth the continual search for more of Christ. They haven't understood the gospel. They haven't grasped their humanity and inability to be anything without Christ. It is only then.

I encountered pride this week. This is not to say I don't encounter pride all the time, I face it daily. Its attempts to break down the frailty and humanity that I am made of, by telling me I am better than I think I am, are successful and yet still futile - I AM A HUMAN is my only defense. And yet, somehow, it always works in breaking the enemy of self-satisfaction and self glory. But I encountered pride that is unknowingly proud. That is the pride that comes from feeling so little worth about yourself and who you are that you will just keep trying to do what you do best - that is fail. That is pride.

I was told several times this week that I live in a bubble, and this is the only reason I can remain unhindered by the horror and daily depravity that faces most of the world at large. Most times I just say nothing, shrug my shoulders and think "Perhaps I do." But the final and last time I thought for a moment and replied, "Yes, maybe I do. But I'll remember to tell you that next time you move six hours away from everything you've known, had a brother killed, have your parents go through a nasty divorce, and watch your little brothers go through the same abuse you've lived with all your life. Yes, maybe I do live in a bubble, but at least you've been spared from most of my reality." I regretted my words instantly as soon as I said them, not because they weren't true, but because they were true and that, that is what the rest of the church never realizes. They live in a bubble of self gratification until it pops and they blow another up. Living from bubble to bubble to bubble, thinking always that they belong in a bubble and they belong basking in the goodness of the world, that blessings ought to be lavished on them and they never realize the emptiness of it all. How little they deserved until there is no more soapy wate
r left and they stand there, missing the shimmering, rainbow colored, clear sphere they've created for themselves and thinking that somewhere there must be a clich in the system, because after all, they're Christians and Christians should always live lives that define perfection.

How little I know.

I had quite a sad trip. I am quite happy to be back in my current bubble.