yes, i am personally bringing sexy back

OK, so the title of this post is a bit misleading. In fact, completely misleading. But it got your attention, didn't it? Ha.

Today I apparently feel like I have much to say, in the middle (I believe) of a season where I am to listen more than I am to speak; where I am to absorb and explore and hash it all out. I also believe that at the end of this season I might have some more answers than I do right now. But the journey there is proving interesting.

One reason for this is that I am sitting at my desk at home with Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz open next to me, to a passage I was reading last night as I was heading to bed. On top of this passage, holding the book open, is a post-it note pad that my roommate gave me for Valentine's Day, bearing the phrase that is the title of this post (now you get it...): Yes, I am personally bringing sexy back. This is a bit of an inside joke for us, and perhaps the BEST post-it note pad I have ever seen. But it strikes me funny, or odd, or maybe just completely inconsequential (can't decide which) because of the passage that I turned to as I pondered what I had read last night. In Donald Miller's words:

Here is the trick, and here is my point. Satan, who I believe exists as much as I believe Jesus exists, wants us to believe meaningless things for meaningless reasons. Can you imagine if Christians actually believed that God was trying to rescue us from the pit of our own self-addiction? Can you imagine? Can you imagine what Americans would do if they understood over half the world was living in poverty? Do you think they would change the way they live, the products they purchase, and the politicians they elect? If we believed the right things, the true things, there wouldn't be very many problems on earth.

But the trouble with deep belief is that it costs something. And there is something inside me, some selfish beast of a subtle thing that doesn't like the truth at all because it carries responsibility, and if I actually believe these things I have to do something about them. ... Even our beliefs have become trend statements. We don't even believe things because we believe them anymore. We only believe things because they are cool things to believe.

Miller goes on to discuss the "un-coolness" of real, deep-seated, action-inducing Christian belief, and this idea he once had to write a story with that would make Christianity cool. And then to ponder what it is our lives really say about what we believe. Can we confront the challenge to live what we believe, or even see how what we live is more truly what we believe than what we say we believe?

I was discussing this book with a friend who is not unlike Donald Miller himself, or what I imagine Donald Miller is like, anyway. But we were discussing how difficult it can be to read a book like this; how difficult I am finding it right now. Not because of the words, or even the ideas, but because of the straight-up conviction it holds. Miller writes, "I am learning to believe better things. I am learning to believe that other people exist, that fashion is not truth..." His learning to believe these things demands that he is also learning to live these things, and all the "un-coolness" they hold.

So I have to ask: where am I on this spectrum of belief and life? In a world where Justin Timberlake dictates what is cool, can I ignore the coolness for truth, and not confuse the two? Can I be content in doing the opposite of "personally bringing sexy back" -- because it means living in a way that is believing a much deeper and more profound truth than MTV, Macy's, Visa, or Verizon can ever sell?