WHEN I QUESTION MY FAITH which I do constantly, I find myself stumped over the basic questions. Simplest among them being, do I believe in Jesus? I say "simplest" because if you answer yes to Jesus then God is a snap. There is no Jesus without God. And I don't mean that in the father/son way. Could Jesus exist as a concept, let alone a belief, without a God? So the answer is yes to both, but now we get down to the Clintonian definitions: what you you mean by "believe?"

Do I believe in Jesus? Damn right I do. Do I believe Jesus is God, or the son of god, born flesh by Mary, herself born without original sin, a virgin mother who got schtupped by the Holy Ghost? That's not a religion that's a Jerry Springer show. And yet if I don't believe it, I know that that story informs my belief in . . . what? Jesus? Jesus Christ our lord? Jesus H. Christ? Christ almighty? The Christ of my parents or the Jesus the nuns would always bow to at the very sound of the name. Jesus.

Do I believe in Jesus. Hell yes.

But I have no words. You either get Jesus or you don't. At least my own personal Jesus, the one I talk to without opening my mouth. The answer quicker than the thought itself. What would Jesus do? Don't ask. He might do it. And if not Himself, a multitude of transparent lunatics and opportunists speaking for Him. I call him Him. I'm like Flo at the check-out counter in the Progressive car insurance commercial who answers a customer's wow with "Wow! I say it louder." He's a Him to me. So I guess that makes me a Christian.

And to think I was just getting over being Catholic.

Jesus, will you give a guy a break? Knock wood. Oh, sorry. That was inappropriate.