Here's the thing: the guy I was in high school was the not the guy I tried to be in college. I went to high school in a place that encouraged free thought, academic excellence and weirdness -- kind of like a Rushmore for hippies. At the time, I wasn't a spiritually directed kind of guy. At least, I wasn't as straight line evangelical as I tried to be in the subsequent university years.

I partied. I drank. I had sex. I smoked sometimes, and not always tobacco. I was a teenager.

And it was good. Sometimes, anyway. Of course, nothing like that transpires without leaving marks and scars.

I came to college, and believing myself lost, I happened upon a guy who was involved with a student ministry. A conversation later, I had found guidance from someone who took an interest in me. The rest is familiar history to most of you. As my freshman year progressed, I learned to disavow the wild lifestyle, and by extension, to look askance on my former activities and life in high school.

So Mara came by a synecdochal process to stand for that time in my life: a time of ignorance and happiness, of debasement and delight. I shut the thought of her away from me, as if I could seal that part of myself away in a vault. I tried to be different.

High school friends didn't understand. Mostly I got made fun of, and induced to do things that ran against the kind of life I was living. I think they were hoping that I would remember myself after a few drinks.

The disturbing part was that they were right, and I didn't have the guts to admit it. I was afraid of what it might mean.

What I think fuels the questions I had in Pensacola, and the urgency I felt there to act on them, is a sense that in reconciling in some way with Mara (or at least with that part of my life), I will recover part of myself. I will be able to look on myself without that part missing, and in saying a blessing over her, I bless myself. Does that make sense?