And you were.

Here, for your approval, our entrants in the MegFowler.com Camera Phone (and Maybe Other Kinds, Too, Because I’m Nice) Self-Portrait Contest.

Every shot will win An Award — but only one will win Grand Prize (as awarded by Catherine and I):

First, winner of the “Nicest Other Body Part” Award:

Darren Barefoot‘s… bare feet.

Winner of the “Most Sincere Expression” Award:

Drew Odom in a glasses store….

Winner of the “I Don’t Cheer For Your Baseball Team” Award:

Aaron Brazell, in NOT a Mariner’s hat.

Winner of the “Where Were You When?” Award:

Richard Eriksson on Commerical Drive in Vancouver — during the World Cup Final.

Winner of the “Ooh! I love that place!” Award:

Patia Stephens, in front of Pike Place Market in Seattle.

Winner of the “Goofiest Expression In Semi-Formal Wear” Award:

Troy Hoshor in his snazzy duds.

Winner of the “Jungle Paparazzi” Award:

Phil Philbin — in the brush.

Winner of the “Awww, CUTENESS!” Award:

The also very cute Liz Swanson with Rudy.

Winner of the “Most Mysterious But Also Most Happy” Award:

“Black Mahn”… looking cheery.

Winner of the “Man In Leather!” Award:

John VanderMeulen… keeping the chaps out of the picture?

Winner of the “So Cute For A Clown — And I’m Scared of Clowns!” Award:

Mary Wise, thankfully (for me) out of her vocational makeup.

Winner of the “My Two Favourite Girls In The WORLD” Award:

Nancy and the Alien, looking adorable enough to make me teary at work.

AND THE GRAND PRIZE WINNER:

DUSTIN SACKS in a photo entitled “Blue Steel”… a photo that IMMEDIATELY won our hearts (not just for the Zoolander reference, but because COME ON… a camera phone AND that face?)

Damn.

Give your many props to Dustin, who will receive his top secret prize in the next couple of days…

AND NOW…

Vote for your favourite in comments so I can award the Audience Appreciation Vote (another prizewinning category…)

Thank you all! I LOVED THIS!

Do you know who Michael W. Smith is?

Well, do you?

Because I do. And several of my friends do.

Right now, they are either laughing or crying at the sight of the album above.

If you grew up in a fairly liberal/not-really-liberal-but-trying-to-be church in the 80′s or 90′s, Mr. Smith’s rock/pop/heavily-synthesizer-driven somethingorother was a big part of every Youth sunday school class or event you would attend. Also, youth pastors (which were either people too inappropriate to be regular pastors — prone to swearing and a love of pop culture — or people who really, really hated teenagers and wanted them to grow up already and stop sassing me I MEAN IT RIGHT NOW OR WE ARE NOT GOING TO THE CONCERT) would listen to him in their vans.

Because — and these are the rules covered in seminaries and bible colleges everywhere, I didn’t make them up — all youth pastors have to either have a van or a Dodge Dart-type vehicle at their disposal so they can minister to you as they drive you to rallies and charitable community events by playing you music that is “just like the stuff you guys like”, except much more “positive.”

Also — this music is the heart of what I like to call “lazy devotionals.” Which means that, instead of offering a bible study with actual bible content or leading a useful discussion (the definition of which basically depends on whether or not you can bring up the question, “So how much kissing is sinful?” Because that is IMPORTANT…) your youth pastor could simply put on one of Mr. Smith (or Amy Grant’s, or Stryper’s) songs and have you “listen and meditate on what the song is trying to say.”

Michael W. Smith is really good at writing songs where it doesn’t take much work for you to figure out what he is trying to say. Not to mention putting all those super lyrics to tunes you can’t forget, even if you try for much of your twenties. (Some really good melodies, actually, to give him some credit, though you still might notice he sounds like he is singing through a wicked head cold.)

He is also good at being at the height of nonthreatening man-fashion:

Note: warm, earth-toned shirt to accentuate Godly glow AND artfully spiky hair (designed to indicate spiritual freedom.)

Are those STREAKS? Michael! You metro!

(He also looks like he is trying to decipher a particularly challenging instruction from his photographer there: “What? I’m not making love to the camera! I don’t even know if it attends services regularly!”)

The only reason I was ever exposed to Mr. Smith was because I had youth pastors and went to youth camps and then eventually to bible school, where he was pretty much deified by my choir director. My parents were never really into the whole Christian rock scene, since they liked ACTUAL rock and preferred it to the nonthreatening, derivative beats of the Contemporary Christian movement.

Now that I think about it, though, I guess they were more into jazz and folk music than rock. Which meant either instrumental tracks or slightly weary lyrics about workin’ on the railroad and people gettin’ ready and the Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. And no one is touching each other in inappropriate places to “This Land Is Your Land.”

Regardless — I was exposed to the “scene” because of the places and spaces I frequented as a Christian “teen.” (There was a lot of rhyming in that sentence that I didn’t intend, but I’m leaving it.) And I liked it. A lot! And knew all the words. And owned stuff.

Back then, that is. Though I definitely still grin when I hear a lot of it, mostly because of the memories of my friends and feeling idealistic about EVERYTHING.

And for some reason, the songs of Michael W. Smith, though I am no longer acquainted with that specific scene and have largely grown beyond the place where anything about faith seems simple enough to encapsulate in a 3:39 minute song with a soaring bridge and a dose of strings in the final chorus for good measure, are on my mind this week.

I can’t get over how EASY life seemed at that point. I mean, I had my struggles and pains, just like anyone else, and we knew that not everyone believed what we believed (in fact, I’m pretty sure 90% of the people I went to high school with thought it was eminently retarded — but we won’t get into what THEY believed) but so many of my church and camp friends (most of whom I still adore and know the whereabouts of) were walking confidently through life sure of the following things:

• No matter how tough it got, we would always believe
• We could depend on one another when our faith was weak
• We would get married to people who believed the exact same things as we did
• We would all have babies who would grow up to believe the exact same things we did
• We knew where we were headed, and how we were going to get there

Now, Michael would write about searching for purpose and struggling, too, not just the happy stuff:

Looking for a reason
Roaming through the night to find
My place in this world
My place in this world

But even as we sang along and spoke about our “doubts” (“I doubt Jesus meant for me to get up at 8 am on Sunday mornings…”) we knew that roaming through the night to do ANYTHING would just get you grounded and then you couldn’t go to YouthCon. We might forget memory verses or lose sight of why resisting temptation is good when it comes to Paul Edwards, but at the end of the day, we were pretty chill about things.

And now?

None of those things are certain. Not one. Nada.

I don’t have a freaking CLUE what’s going on half the time, and I know many of my friends feel the same.

BUT.

Many of them HAVE gone on to have those peaceful lives, though, and — though I know they have their challenges, too — I can’t help but feel jealous sometimes that they never had to leave the Michael W. dream behind. They’re remarkably confident in who they are and what they believe, and they’ve been successful at making faith a consistent part of their lives. And to their credit, very few of them stuck with the more negative parts of the ideology that we knew… the parts where “judging others” was a popular activity second only to “Frisbee Golf” (WHICH I HATE.)

They know who they are, what they think, and they do it without putting anyone else down. I love that. My parents are like that, too.

And I totally have the third part down.

It’s just the rest of it that leaves me wondering how I ever sang along with this so confidently:

And friends are friends forever
If the Lord’s the Lord of them
And a friend will not say never
cause the welcome will not end
Though its hard to let you go
In the Fathers hands we know
That a lifetime’s not too long to live as friends.

I think I wrote about how totally shaky that concept can be in my life last week, because HEY! People screw up. And are screwed up. And I can be a crap friend, even though I still have some semblance of faith in my heart. Because faith doesn’t make people perfect or really good at living their lives. It just should — ideally — make them want to keep trying and working at it. And then that song can become ultimately and amazingly true. BUT IT’S NOT THAT SIMPLE.

I mess it up all the time.

I know that, every time I write about my faith, these are the general reactions I will receive:

1. My parents worry that I’m totally abandoning things that used to be (and are!) important to me
2. My friends wonder if I’m becoming a cynic
3. My other friends wonder how I saw into their heads
4. Half my readers go, “What the hell? That is so not my childhood.”
5. About half the rest of them go, “Oooh, see? That sounds way easier than my childhood.”
6. And then the rest are divided between, “Religion makes me want to bite people!” (To which I have to say, please note! There is a difference between religion and faith, and I condone no evil done in the name of it, period! REALLY! CAN I SAY THIS ANY MORE FIERCELY…okay, okay…)
7. … Or “My faith isn’t nearly so messed up as yours.”

To which I say, AWESOME.

And HOW?

And… maybe… as if.

But anyhow.

I mostly couldn’t get Michael W. Smith out of my head all week, in all his white-pantsed, frosty-haired glory. And I figured if I wrote about him, he would go away.

Or maybe his Place In This World is in my head.

God help me.

Really.

We all have ridiculous things in life to which we devote FAR too much thought — mild obsessions with everything from the latest in celebrity scandals, to buying dog sweaters on eBay, to researching new germ strains present on subway hangstraps, to tracking fluctuations in the Hummel figurine market, to pondering the secret lives of people with fins.

I, for one, am so easily distracted by the trivial that I’ve assigned a whole lobe in my brain to collecting random facts and bits of useless news. I could be using that bit of real estate to hold my research on the cure for cancer or to memorize Latin declensions, but that’s just not the path I’ve chosen. I’d rather be able to tell you a long list of the birthdays of sitcom stars of the 80′s (Ricky Schroeder: April 13th; Meeno Peluce: February 26th.)

The worst part is that sometimes, I don’t even leave the parameters of my body to develop lame obsessions. Sometimes I become obsessed with ME. Or a part of me. Or one part of me.

Specifically, my hair.

Oh, the freaking HAIR. Are you not sick of me asking about the hair? Should I cut it? Should I not cut it? Should I get layers? Should I leave it simple? Highlights or no? Dye or no? SHOULD I WEAR IT IN A SIDE PONYTAIL AND CALL MYSELF CRYSTELLE?

I know. I know. I’m tired of it, too.

But see, my hair is with me all day, every day. It hangs in my face, it tickles my back when I put it in a ponytail, it lies about lank and lifeless when I want it to bounce, and it has little bits that are turning GRAY even though I am only THIRTY TWO. What is it thinking?!

I guess I could cut it all off, but like all annoying, slightly codependent relationships, I feel as though I’ve invested too much in it to toss it to the four winds (or let it fall to the floor of some trendy salon.)

It is: overly fine, not overly abundant, overly long, and prone to being both flat and slightly frizzy. It has gray hairs that apparently only I notice.

It has been: dyed back to my original shade (or some approximation thereof) due to a long and horrible campaign of expensive highlights. The last time I dyed it, I used this stuff that actually seemed to lighten it (!!) And now I have roots (!!). This is the pain of having REALLY DARK HAIR that isn’t black. No one can match your shade.

I am: a lifelong lover of fun new hair products and a daily shampoo-er. If I didn’t, it would be a grease slick. And don’t give me that crap about training your hair to be shampoo-ed less, or about how sexy slightly dirty hair is. I HAVE OCD. GIVE ME THE BLOODY SHAMPOO AND GET OUT OF MY SHOWER.

I won’t: ever go really short again. Believe me. I look like a slightly puffy Dorothy Hamill. Or a dark-haired version of Mark Hamill, when his career was sliding in the latter parts of the Star Wars trilogy and he looked like he was eating too much salt.

I must: choose a hair plan and stick with it!

So I’m: asking what you would do. One more damn time.

My last hair cut was awesome, I thought, except that it grew out in about ten minutes and then dangled about my peripheral vision like a mosquito I couldn’t slap away.

So.

Here it is when it is too damn long:

Here it is when it’s nearly perfect in length:

Here is the correct colour:

Here is NOT the correct colour (and also, my face looks like a round, pink planet of doom here, but isn’t Cath cute?):

Here is when it is plastered to my head and falling out of a clip in nasty little chunks:

Which is pretty much what it does when it grows an inch out of a haircut and I don’t curl it. Damned hair.

SO.

Here is your mission, should you choose to accept it:

Send me ACTUAL links of ACTUAL photos with people who have decent, semi-long layered hair so I may take it to a salon and find my bliss. I do like long bangs, FYI, but short bangs make me look like Bettie Page’s more-round sister.

And if you are dark-haired and have a good shade of at-home stuff, fill me in.

And if you know of awesome bouncy-hair products, fill me in.

And if you have ever seen a dark-haired celebrity with decent highlights, show me that, too.

AND… if you are a boy and thinking WTF, why did I just read all that, well, say a prayer for my future husband. Because the poor guy isn’t going to get it, either.

And if you are a girl who is saying WTF, well… yeah. I know.