That word. Ugh! It has the tainted mark upon it that I associate with the phrase “healthy lifestyle.” A certain trying-to-have-the-best-of-both-words smarminess. Like, I’m on a diet but see I’m not really, ’cause it’s a lifestyle. Or, look how deep I am, I’m kind of religious but not in a creepy, specific way because that’s way too retro, you know, I’m like spiritual.

I’m spiritual. I found Jesus in my mid-20s and then lost him about two years later, but the thing wouldn’t completely die. I guess anyone who believes there’s more to the world that what meets the eye or the microscope could describe themselves as spiritual. Whatever. It’s just a word.

More importantly: I have a spiritual advisor. Hah hah, you are so jealous right now, aren’t you? Except my spiritual advisor isn’t a guru in a swath of fabric; he’s just, you know, a guy. I will call him Jon. Okay, so I suppose he’s a pastor and all of that, but more importantly, he’s a friend of mine.

The first time I saw him preach (back when I was still on the Jesus train), I was perturbed by how young (just five years older than me) and good-looking he was, and by the fact that he wasn’t wearing pleated khakis or anything. Pastors are not supposed to be hot, and they are not supposed to rock Converse sneakers with natural ease. They just aren’t.

But it didn’t take too long to get over my initial consternation, because Jon and his family are incredibly down-to-earth. He didn’t mind when I slipped and said incredibly un-PC things or grumbled in small-group meetings when people got too self-righteous. Still, I don’t know that our bond would have really cemented (seeing as he is, after all, heading up a dynamic, up-and-coming congregation, and other such trivialities), if I hadn’t gone into the mental hospital four years ago.

Can I get a “Praise Jesus!”? If I hadn’t gone into the House of Crazy, Jon wouldn’t have had the opportunity to come and visit me during my voluntary incarceration (is there a better word for it?), thus proving to me that religious leaders can be laid back and non-zealotty and supportive and listening and miraculously unweirded-out by the fact that I’d admitted to myself and God and everyone that I was completely out of my head. I’m sure he had a million other things he could have been doing, but he was there sitting with me, being all cool and non-judgmental and human.

I never forgot that, and I never will. It meant so much to me that I can still remember that sensation of feeling incredibly valued by this person I respected, all this in spite of my damaged state. People who believe wholeheartedly in a father-God must feel that way all the time.

I don’t get to see Jon very often anymore, partly because I’m not a regular church-goer at this point and partly because I’m so asocial in general. But we had lunch together today, and it was awesome because although in many ways we are peers as well as people who are very similar (this despite my, um, colorful past), he still has this knack of giving me advice without actually advising me. I can’t really explain it, but it’s so much better than all the fatuous self-improvement books in the world combined. And after we discuss chilling out at a monastery, we move right on to the Wire, and what’s going on with so-and-so, and this and that, and then it’s time to go far too soon.