This, obviously, is the first entry in my "Personal Spiritual Journal". I thought maybe I should start with some profound insight into the psychology of Journaling, or maybe one of my philosophical theories, but I think maybe I'll just start with the spiritual stuff that happened in my life today-ish. I don't need to try to impress anyone with this, and it's probably most beneficial to me to reflect on spiritual matters, rather than intellectual ones. There, I just wasted half a page, and now it's time to get on with it. I was at a high-school friend's house today for the first time since school started. I was surprised to learn that his dad once studied theology for a year before switching to something else. He intended to become a minister, but for some reason changed his mind. He said they don't go to church anymore, though they tried it out again a couple years ago. "It didn't meet our needs." I wasn't sure whether to press him for more info (I didn't), but I told him about my new church and invited them to come, to which he gave some non-committal reply. I guess he's had some sort of disillusionment, either suddenly or gradually, which let him to leave his church. I'm kind of excited to sort of get a foot in the door with them spiritually, though I'm not sure how to proceed. I want to have a talk with him very much, but I don't know his feelings. I'll have to start praying for them hardcore. Anyway, I'm kind of done. I'm not sure how to end this, maybe just - The End

Looking back, the little story about my friend's father is a fitting way for my journal to have begun. In some respects it forshadows of my own gradual disillusionment during Bible School, which is a major theme of this journal. Almost like I planned that. There's a lot of opinions and ideas in this book that are embarrassing to me now, not the least of which is the evangelical zeal expressed here (which even by this point was beginning to ebb). I respect those who believe theirs is the only true belief and have a passion to share it with others, but I was never very comfortable in my own attemts to emulate them.

Today was the third Sunday of the month, so I got to attend the monthly worship service at my church. I've been really discouraged recently in my "worship life" (if there is such a thing). I've been having trouble focusing on the songs, and I really wonder how much true worship I'm doing, and what is true worship? A friend once said that sometimes he thinks God's ok with us feeling all emotional about the songs, after all, he created our emotions, and maybe we shouldn't be so cynical about having a Pentecostal-style worship experience. I think he may be right, but at any rate, I'm definitely feeling neither emotional nor honest about my worship right now. A couple weeks ago I prayed not that God would give me a worship buzz, but that he would be honored by my worship. I don't know how well that "worked", but at any rate, I don't feel any more worshipful now. Of course, it's a mistake to think worship = singing. Really, singing is such a small part of how we worship God, and I think we may be mistaken to put so much emphasis on it. I don't know. I don't really care about how I worship or how I feel, I just want to be a sweet, sweet sound in God's ear. And I'm not sure if that's true of me now or not.

It was pointed out to me at a later date that what I called "Pentecostal" (as in "Pentecostal-style worship experience") I ought to call "Charismatic" (Pentecostals being a specific branch of Charismatic Christians). Obviously I didn't know what I was talking about.

I met with my teacher today to work on my goals. [One of our first assignments was to create measurable goals for our growth that year.] I was encouraged by what we accomplished. She didn't pressure me into making stupid "number goals", but she did help me see how to make my goals measurable and specific. For my goal of improving my communication skills she suggested that I look at people who demonstrate the qualities I desire and think about how to emulate them. For prayer she suggested that I try to pray each day and think about what makes prayer "good". With initiative she said that I need to find a specific area in my life that I need it in and work on that. She's an interesting teacher. I need to think more about how her teaching me fits in with the whole women's roles issue. Her defense - and I've heard it many times before - is that she feels God has called her to do this. It seems that she has thought this issue through, and she said she would quit if she became convinced that she was in the wrong. I think that's good enough for me. I don't know what my conservative friends would say about all this, but it doesn't matter. Nor does the path of least resistance. I pray that God will give me wisdom and peace in this issue. I am working on a theory for interpretation of Biblical commands, but that's something for another day.

I've changed a lot of my views about the Bible since I was concerned about being taught by a woman at the beginning of last year. In my heart I've always felt that it's absurd not to allow women to teach men, but at this point in time my beliefs about the Bible caused me a lot of grief on this issue. I'd actually spent whole weeks of the previous summer wrestling with the issue of women's participation in church (at a conservative Bible camp). Some of the people I met at camp cautioned me about the hidden dangers of going to Bible school, and I'm sure that their worst fears would have been confirmed if they heard I had a female teacher.

I'm suddenly fully immersed in my new Impact program. [As part of Bible School we were each required to volunteer at outreaches of our choice.] On Tuesday I came home expecting to be going to see X-men with my friend and my Mom told by the Impact Coordinator had just phoned and the training for my ministry started that night. When I got there I realized the ladies who run it weren't expecting me (they'd already interviewed everyone else). I had the interview today, which was encouraging. The lady who'll be my boss is a Messianic Jew/Pentecostal with Anglican and Occult background. I look forward to some good conversations with her. The other interesting thing that happened today was when I got off the bus downtown an old drunk man sitting on a planter asked me if I had any money for busses or food. I said I had no money (true) but I could give him a bus ticket. He thanked me, shook my hand and tried to stand up, but he sort of slumped to the ground. He said it's alright, it happened all the time, so I was like "Ok, see ya," and walked off. When I came back an hour later an ambulance was just pulling away from that exact spot. The circumstantial evidence would seem to indicate that the guy never got up, and somebody called an ambulance. It was just kind of weird to meet this guy, shake his hand, and then think maybe he was taken to the hospital, sick or dead. Crazy.

God consume me. God coarse through me. My flesh screams for you. My spirit writhes. I yearn for you from the muck. I cry out to you from my sin-soaked bog. What am I but a corpse? Wretched, wretched. I am desperately evil, desperately unholy, yet desperately I long for you. See how I have defaced your image. I have maimed your good work by my prostitution to evil. Surely I have grieved you more than I can know. Where you wiped my tears I spit in your face. Where you calmed my fears I mocked your grace. And yet you love me. Lord tear away my sinful desires. Burn me with your fire. Scorch from my soul this cancerous evil. Ruin my flesh and destroy it utterly. An if, Lord, you find amid the desolation any fiber that loves you, then rebuild it into a new creation - wholly righteous, wholly pure, only and always desiring your will. Reclaim me Lord. I am yours.

It terrifies me to write something like that. Certainly I do not want what this Psalm says. But I want to want it. The only thing to say is Jesus make it so.

Looking back on this entry I'm a little put off by it's self-abasing tone. I think most of it is just parroting the "God, I suck" theme of many of the Psalms. I'm not sure what I think now about Christians being so down on ourselves. I don't want to say I'm not that bad because it sounds like I'm saying I'm pretty good, which is also not true, and it's been firmly drilled into me that we're not up to God's standards, our righteousness is filthy rags, we deserve hell, etc. But this kind of almost self-loathing sits uneasily with me now. "Jesus make it so" became a common closing for my prayers. So often I'm unsure whether my prayers are sincere, so I ask God to make what I say true of me.

I don't know. I feel like a man without a soul. I feel like I just go through the motions. I feel like I can do anything I have to do, but none of the things I should do. I'm just a bit tired of being smart and asking the right questions, but feeling dead inside. I said before that I'd be ok with not feeling like I'm worshiping as long as what I did was honoring to God. Well, maybe that's still true, but I feel like I'm not even honoring God. I don't know. Is it selfish to want to feel God's presence? No, that's absurd. But what should I do? The only thing I can think of is to stay devoted. Keep doing what I'm doing, and pray for a passion. But that sucks.

Here's an interesting thing that happened today. A teacher asked us to stop for a moment to think and pray at the beginning of class. I was thinking about the song "In the Secret", and I wrote "I want to know you more" on my hand. I don't know why. Sometimes it's nice to write on myself. Boy, that sounds dumb. Anyhow, I looked at my hand later and the "you" had kind of faded, so it looked like "I want to know more". I thought "Wow, that's how I've been". It's so easy for me to get hung up on trivial knowledge and forget about God. Sometimes I just want to know stuff, not God. I'm not sure how I can focus on knowing God, but I'm gonna think about that some more. Anyway, this was really cool for me, because I think I might have found a way out of this cold-hearted rut I'm in. We'll see.