Word Up.

I’ve heard that beginning is the hardest part.

So, beginning for the fourth time should be simple, right?

Well, to be honest this isn’t the fourth time. This really is a first. Specifically, this is the first time I’ve written and cared about what I communicated. In the past, I would write, and then throw my words to the wind, to be received by whomever finds it, on my terms. It was like taking my dogs out overnight and letting them do their business on someone else’s lawn.

Yeah, thats my dogs poop. Yeah, I brought him over. No, I’m not going to clean it up. Goodnightnow!

But, it’s not like that anymore. Maybe it’s because I’m older. Maybe it’s been the major life changes I’ve experienced over the past year. Maybe it’s because I no longer answer to anyone else about my own faith and doctrine. Whatever it is, it is forcing me to care more than I ever have before.

And it’s forcing me to ask questions of myself that I just don’t have an answer for.

So, here I sit; 31, Christian, husband, vice-principal, graduate student, church-planter, aspiring photog. My life is a mess. It’s full of doubt and joy, which are sometimes so muddied together that I can’t tell the two apart. I’m a terrible pastor – I don’t quote bible passages at the beginning-middle-end of each conversation. I can be a pragmatist to a fault. I am too open to others ideas, and my theology leaves a wide birth that most people aren’t comfortable standing near.

So, why not write again for the first time? It might do me some good.

UPDATE: Even before I post this, I realize that this will be a buried post, that 99.999999% of the people who check out this blog will never get to. If you are the 0.000001% – leave a comment telling me what your least favorite single word of this post was (it can’t be poop).