it's not alone fleeing these walls

I recently registered my car in California. It's weird. It's really weird. Every time I look at my car, this is what I see. Nevada plates are gone. What am I to do? How am I to proceed? It makes me think of this:

2nd Corinthians 5:17-20

Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We're Christ's representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God's work of making things right between them. We're speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he's already a friend with you.

How long am I going to be uncomfortable with seeing a white liscense plate. No more silver state. No more 'Home means the sage and the pine.' Sometimes it's the same with myself as a new creation. I don't have to buy into American culture because I have been made new, but I look at it with a certain awkwardness that keeps me from embracing it. I worry about what other Christians that are a little awkward themselves might think. When am I going to ditch this old liscense plate. This identity that is so comfortable. When people see me, are they saying to themselves, "Oh, that's Kurt Libby, that's different, he's not the same." Truth be told, there is a level of shedding the past that has occured, but I envision my life to be so thickly saturated with Christ that people don't say "he's not the same" but rather "Christ lives in people, and here is proof."

This paint has been tasting of lead/And the chips will fall as they may/But it's not just my finish that's peeling/And it's not alone fleeing these walls/
This turpentine chaser's got kick/And the rag that it's soaked in is rich/The fumes aid the pace of my cleaning/And as soon as I'm done I am gone/
The frightening facts/we've been facing our backs to/for so long now/are begging for eyes/to bear witness to lies/And indifference

from Dashboard Confessional's Turpentine Chaser