Recently, I’ve felt bursts of panic. The safe, mainstream Christianity of my childhood is starting to look more culturally dangerous than I ever believed. I think Jesus would be pleased.

First of all, somewhere during my lifetime, organized religion became a dirty word. It just sneaked up on me. I’m trying to figure out when it happened. Was it when Jim Bakker, the PT Barnum of Christian television, landed in jail? Did John Lennon get things rolling with his infinitely cool exploration of generic spirituality? Can I blame the academics for their relentless, decades-long attack on absolute truth?

And just like that—I realize that the guy who started dismantling organized religion in the first place was Jesus Christ.

I’m just as surprised as you are. And yet the way that Jesus overturned his uptight religious contemporaries is a world away from how self-proclaimed tolerant Americans are now dismissing the institutional church. We had better figure out the difference.

I wrote the following short essay for Acquire the Fire teen magazine. What’s true for a fifteen year old is true for the rest of us, so take a look.

The beach is waiting. Jeweled flip-flops, Coppertone, hermit crabs, and the latest celebrity gossip mag. A perfect checklist for a summer afternoon?

No way. You should pitch that last one.

Deep inside a girl’s genes lies a weird mutation in her DNA—the desire to be informed about the world’s most critical matters:  shoe fashions, engagement ring dimensions, and celebrity hook-ups. It’s comical, really. We take our lives (which seem flat and uninteresting by comparison) and measure them against the over-inflated and ridiculous lives of people we don’t know and don’t understand. 

You’d think we’d be tired of it by now, all the hide-and-seek sexual storylines between powerful people and the intern/nanny/prostitute/co-worker. We know what kind of shrapnel it sprays into the media marketplace—the thousands of editorial columns, the scramble for a photo, the hiring of public relations experts, and the scripted confession.

I’ve lived through quite a few decades of it now. The couplings come in many shapes and sizes, and the media coverage is proportional to the paradox of its partners; in other words, a televangelist with a salvation message and a centerfold is irresistible. A sermonizing governor and his call girl is spellbinding. The leader of the free world risking it all for a giggling intern is astonishing.

So now we have another one. Same old story. New details. Why do we still care? Fifteen minutes of scrolling around the internet reveal that most of our reactions fall into one of four categories: moral, political, scientific, or emotional. The moralists say, Look at that—another weak leader shows us his natural depravity. I’m so glad I’m righteous. The political analysts examine the fallout: How does this impact public opinion, the party, the campaign? The scientists try to explain to us the brain circuitry that allows men to stray and women to stay. And finally, the emotional PTSD folks are reminded of their own personal scumbag stories and tell the wives to kick ‘em to the curb.

My guess is that fifty-year wedding anniversaries are fading faster than a cotton T-shirt in the Fresno sun.

Bad metaphor? Maybe. I’ve been on vacation.

Even so, I’ve been reflecting on the natural order of life lately, particularly as I observed the lovely passing of my in-laws’ fiftieth wedding anniversary this past week. There we were, three generations of  Ferdinandsens frolicking in Napili Bay on the island of Maui, as the grateful guests of the honored couple. While I was supposed to be indulging in tropical drinks and sunscreen, I was meditating on the four stages of mankind: childhood, independence, parenting, and finally . . . sunset.

In our extended family, these stages have moved in proper order, each one giving way to the next with ever-increasing requirements on our maturity. Childhood is first with its physical freedoms and its “glad animal movements” (props to poet William Wordsworth). The grandchildren, marveling at giant sea turtles and rainbows, were beautifully selfish this week; all they had to do was show up. It’s okay, though, because their chronic taking, their naïve delight, is a temporary condition.

Disclaimer: Have you ever let your developing opinion leak out a little before you’re even sure you agree with yourself? This might be one of those times for me. Be gentle.

Insiders are valuable storytellers.

If you want to know what really happens in a meat packing plant, backstage of a Stones concern, or a Mormon marriage ceremony, who’s gonna give it to you straight? Will it be a news reporter on an investigative mission? A documentary filmmaker paid handsomely to check it out? Maybe your uncle who knows everything about anything?

No way. We want an insider. We want the guy who knows the dimensions of a cattle stun gun. We’d like to hear it from the dude who wiped up after Mick Jagger. If you can’t produce a temple garment from Salt Lake City, then you’re not our gal.

Okay, so I’m lying prone in a ditch with my arms folded, corpse-like, dressed in black and staring at a darkening sky. My back is stiff and I’m praying that wood ticks and West Nile virus mosquitoes don’t enjoy the free horizontal buffet.

I’m not a prisoner of war or an injured hiker, but I don’t know when I’ll be allowed to leave. I have no earthly reason for being here. I see the stars beginning to emerge as faint pinpricks across the sky. My white tennis shoes are dusted with pine needles, if only to better assist the camouflage. And then I hear the clang of the bell, and the distant roar of the army. They are coming for me.

So goes camper/counselor hide-and-seek, one of my many experiences last week as a middle school counselor at a Christian camp in the Sierra Nevadas.

Good golly, I had almost lost touch with my old friend Shortfall. And now that we’re reacquainted, I hope I don’t forget why God introduced us in the first place.

To share some private information, my husband and I are not rich and probably never will be. Careers in public education and freelance ministry have a nicely defined ceiling. We stay out of debt, buy used cars, live within our means, but if you want to know the truth, compared to the global population, we still live like spoiled royalty.

I’d like to say our comfortable life can all be credited to our wisdom, hard work, and restraint, but I know better. I didn’t pick who my parents are, where I was born, and what kind of opportunities I’ve been given. You could say I’ve been a good steward of my gifts, but still—I struck gold the minute I was born. Add to that the enormous blessings of good health, higher education, and a committed husband, and I’ve had a sweet deal going. No self-serving delusions here.

This is really your golden age.

You used to be all alone. Not too long ago, you had to enjoy your subversive humor underground, thinking you (and maybe Matt Groening) were the only one that found people of faith ridiculous. Today, fueled by Bill Maher’s Religulous, Larknews, Disbelief.net, A Field Guide to Evangelicals and Their Habitat, and at least fifty other assembly line satire-factories, you are part of the enlightened majority.

I am not angry with you. Chances are really good that with my liberal education and an eye for satirical detail, I would be right there with you. In fact, I can find some faith-based absurdity pretty funny myself, seeing how I have spent time sheltering under at least five different denominational umbrellas over the years. It’s okay to expose the fringe-y, preposterous ways in which we worship, pray, and seek. Without it, we’d all be dishonest.

The residents of California have not responded lightly to the recent gay marriage debate. In light of ConversantLife's ongoing dialogue about the need for a "third language," I'm offering again an essay I wrote earlier this year.

Along the north shore of Maui is a small highway winding past imperial colors of sea and land. With its mythological history, the Road to Hana is a place many have heard of but few really know. Each day, a host of American mainlanders in their convertible rental cars make the two-hour plus drive to Hana with picnic baskets and digital cameras. Several hours later, with just enough information to feed their wanderlust, they head back to the ruling shore and join the tourist crowds, believing, as it were, that they’ve experienced Hana without even spending one night.

Hey, Jesus, will you be my friend on Facebook? People would be really impressed if someone of your caliber showed up on my list. I’m trying to push my friends list to a thousand, and I’ll bet you have some great connections.

It’s funny that it’s called Facebook when I’m not sure we’ll meet face-to-face, and I doubt I’ll read your Book, but we still probably have a lot in common. I guarantee we have some mutual friends in our networks. I think you’ll be impressed by my profile page; I posted some religious stickers and links to Christian bands.  I can’t wait to see what we post on each other’s wall. (The last time you wrote on a wall, Belshazzar freaked out! LOL!!!) 

We can have little nicknames for each other. It’ll be cute. I’ll call you JC and you can think of something clever for me, too. When we communicate, we will share meaningful conversations all reduced to abbreviated letters, letter winks, and smiley faces. This way, our friendship will flourish without the nuisance of intimacy. I can’t wait for us to really bond, screen-to-screen.