While waiting around in a Barnes and Nobel one afternoon I glanced down at a book that had interest which used the word "Bullshit" in the title. Inside the front cover the author credited his father a university prof. I think. He related the tale briefly of his father's business card reciprocated to those who handed theirs to him. In fine embossed ink the subscript under his dad's name read, "I'm something of a bullshit artist myself."

This universal colloquialism for untruth was the first word of profanity uttered to me by a teacher when my high school band director in response to a lame excuse for missing a Saturday practice said in exasperation Bullshit. Hung over didn't seem to be a proper illness so I stammered around about being sick-Bullshit.

Legendary Hollywood producer Robert Evans has parlayed this talent into a career in his broadcasts on Sirius Radio and His Sunday television show with Daryl F. Zannuck-he of "The kid stays in the picture" fame. I use this rather shocking bit of profanity because it seems to me were astounded as Christians when confronted with this reality in our lives. Some have made themselves cozy with the notion; I read a tome by a defrocked televangelist whose posed photo journal seemed to relish his status as B.S. artist in residence.

Somewhere down the road we've uncovered this secret, akin to discovering cars don't run on water that Christianity can't be done as a Bullshit enterprise. Some, as in me, were distraught at the fact that Jesus meant it when He said "I am the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the Father except through me." I could surround myself with platitudes and aphorisms, Christian and otherwise about the philosophical side of life, or I can face reality-Jesus is truth.

I can reside in the cynic's lair of disdain cozy in scorn and ridicule-there's a living to be made there these days. I can skulk in shame and remorse, commit living suicide where I kill off my hopes and dreams and drift through life. I can run and hide, and lurk, and regret ever having lived and spend the rest of my guarded miserable existence making God pay for ever having the temerity to make me. Or I can realize that Jesus came to seek and save those who are lost-in a sea of...Bullshit.
John