Well, today was the last day of my project, and this day felt just the same.  I didn't feel the wave of nostalgia that I expected.  There wasn't a rushing river of excitement for this to be over or a wave of sadness that such an integral part of my life has passed.

Tomorrow will be just like any other day.  I will wake up and decide what to wear in the course of three seconds and move about my day.  I will go to psychology and gateway just like I always have this semester.  I will sit and laugh with those around me.  I will eat like a college student unsure of his next meal.  I will live the next day trying to learn how to be a college student.  This is still difficult.

The one thing that will change is a label.  Since this project, I have had the identification of someone who isn't allowed to lie.  Everyone around me knew that I had to spit out the truth no matter what I wanted.  Now, there is something liberating about having the ability to lie.  Something about being able to say no grants me a humanness.  I am not a person with a robotic answering system.  I have the ability to tell lies.  This may scare some of my friends, but to me, it means that everything I say now has more worth.  It carries more worth simply because it didn't have to be there.  Truth doesn't have to arrive now.  It can simply be absent.  Now, with the option of whether or not to appear, the truth is left with a choice.  It can either step on the journey, or it can let life pass by, whistling and singing about it's adventures along the tracks.  Though the conductor may scream, the people may file, the truth, to me, has a choice.  When given that choice, I hope I let truth step on and join the ranks of faith, peace, and understanding.

One thing that truth has taught me is to question what is before me.  As Zechariah proclaimed God's message or refining His people, so I will refine everything around me.  Sure, the basics of Christianity and morality will still apply, but if I am not willing to challenge what I view as truth beyond these things, am I not settling for mere knowledge?  Am I settling for the grains of sand instead of looking to the ocean?  In this, I have found a place for a rebel that has been settled inside of me.  Was Jesus not a rebel?  What he not a heretic?  Did He not challenge all of the teachings of the religious leaders?  Have we forgotten that we are a people formed by an outcast, a rebel?  What about Him is an institution?  What defines him as denomination or dogma?  In this way, my project will carry on.  I will carry this on to challenging how I see Christianity as a relationship with God, not as a defining factor for a voting ballot.  I will challenge what society has formed in it's pursuit of comfort and what it claims to have borrowed from the Church.  What would it look like if we completely ignored the American dream?  What would it look like to live selflessly in all things?  What would it look like to ignore a 401k and live for the sustenance of God rather than the safety net of money?  I am perfectly willing to be harsh on the Church.  If I cannot question and ask of a church, then what validation does it have from God.  If a church is not grounded in God and cannot handle hard questions, then it is a dry field.  Sure, God is holy in all things and sovereign amongst all creation, but intentional ignorance to supply comfort is despicable to me.

Dr. Brown told us that when he really started learning, he came away having more questions than answers.  We will always have answers in this life.  I guess we just have to be ok with always having a question and not always having an answer.  That does not mean that I will ever stop looking though.  To me, Christianity has become a mixture of rebellion, peace, wisdom, and love.  We have to be rebellious to be equipped to make a change in this world, peaceful enough to know we can't fully change it, wise enough to trust God in all things, and loving enough to extend His hand to every corner of the world.  That is my mission.