Where to begin?

“With a blog” probably isn’t the best answer, but since it’s 11:11 at night and I’m home, and not tired enough to sleep, with too active a mind to try, it is where I’ll start.

“It” started years ago, really. I distinctly remember pitching a story idea to the editor of Catholic Web site for teens. It was about the beatitudes, about how I feel like as I’ve grown up, I’ve grown accustomed to avoiding sadness, and persecution, and insult (among other things) while they’re things that’ll bless us eventually (Jesus said it himself.). I’m digressing, though. The point: I see now that since my late teens, I’ve always noticed things about life and about American culture that just don’t make sense to me at all. So this hasn’t been sudden.

But it really started when in March, I picked up a copy of the Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. All that day, I’d been at a retreat for young adults in Tampa.  During the retreat, I told the 10 other young adults – strangers – there some things I normally wouldn’t tell a person upon first meeting them. Mostly out of fear that they’ll find me crazy. But I went for it, for whatever reason. I talked about American culture’s deodorant mentality: something stinks? Cover it up. The theme doesn’t just stay in arm pits, either.

I talked about how I haven’t seen a medical doctor since I was 19. I told them about my goal to avert the standard American diet completely. And the guy to my left told me I should read Shane’s book. So I did. And now Jesus is wrecking my life (just like he did Shane’s, only I don’t have dreads or make my own clothes. Yet.).

Shane is right, though. This revolution is irresistible. I like to liken it to skydiving. It’s exciting, horrifying and I want to do it. But here’s where I am.

I’m standing at the edge, looking at blue skies and clouds, knowing that when I jump, I’ll be riding on nothing but faith in the combination of my parachute and the ground. But I feel like if I’m going to jump, I need to be strapped to someone who isn’t afraid. Or I might be all right if I just knew I wasn’t jumping alone.

Translation: I need community.