Jesus

This morning, as part of my getting-organized-for-NaNoWriMo (ie procrastination with a purpose), I came across something I wrote in February 2006 - ie about 18 months ago. It was part of an application to a Christian writing organization and I was required to answer the question 'Why are you a Christian?'

Briefly explain why you are a Christian.

I am a Christian simply because I love Jesus. Without Him, life has no rhyme or reason, no purpose or point. Even at my lowest ebb, those times when faith is nothing more than a daily choice to trust in a dimly and waveringly perceived God, I would still choose Him.

What's really interesting is that despite this whole deconversion experience, my intense attraction to and interest in the person of Jesus has never disappeared completely. It's still there. And that is particularly evidenced by the fact that the NaNo book I'm going to be working on is a re-write of a book I did in 2003/2004, a book my crit partners and I called my 'Josh' book.

Back in July 2003, I sat down one day and watched the remade version of Jesus Christ Superstar. It knocked me sideways ... and into a surge of creativity. I wrote and wrote and wrote for about three months and my desire at that point was to write a story about Jesus that would make him human and accessible and attractive to the reader in the same way that the movie had made him human and accessible and attractive to me. I took that completed story to a Christian Writer's conference in April 2004 and while some editors shook their heads (What? A Jesus who doubts his calling? A Jesus who drinks beer? And drives a truck? Hoo boy ....), there were a few who liked it very much indeed. One of the literary agents asked me to send him the full ms once I was back home ...

But on my return home, life intervened and I fell into a spiritual and emotional funk and I put that story away (all 120K words of it) and never followed through. And since then, my spiritual journey has taken me a long a difficult path. I've ranted and cried and been angry and been afraid and wrestled with despair and nihilism of the worst kind.

But now. Now I find in me that same attraction to Jesus that has always been there. My beliefs at present are undefined ... I'm holding onto the mystery, continuing to read and think and explore and engage in discussion .. but I'm also going to write again. I'm going to rewrite that story bringing to it all the things that have been a part of me over the last three years. I think it was Phillip Yancey who said we write not because we have all the answers, but because we have questions that won't go away. We write to try and find those answers.

It's terrifying, but in a good way!!! I'm excited!