Coming to Life

Inspired beyond prior hope by my dear friend Mike Stavlund, I've decided to blog my more serious thoughts on a regular basis.

For the longest time, my life has been more akin with the man in the picture than with the Person who, since I was a kid, I've said I will love and follow till the day I die. I've been often angry, demanding justice wherever I wander (at least, in my head), wanting to thump, thwack and kapow before offering a kind deed in response to any degree of violence offered to me or anyone I care for – and craving to see Gotham changed for the good, without adequate dilligence to the possibilty that the process could possibly make ME bad.

It's somewhat shameful to write this now, especially since I see it so clearly, and it's so fresh. But there it is. No sense in blogging these sorts of things if I'm not going to be honest.

Looking back at the past decade, I'm horrified at the little progress I've made in becoming more Christ-like. I really am more like Batman (except, perhaps, in physique, depending on whether one recalls imagery of Adam West or Christian Bale when one thinks upon our caped crusader). I know that Christ lives in me - erm, somewhere - and I'm more determined than ever before for that to become the other way around. I'm about to enter a journey I've not yet embarked on before, though I've harped on about it from time to time for years. I don't know precisely where it's going to lead, but I'm determined that the general direction is somewhere towards becoming more like Christ. Even if I only manage to forge ahead by one sliver, I'll die one sliver happier than I am now - and I'm convinced that my neighbourhood will be at least one sliver better off than if I don't roll up my sleeves and do this thing. I'm about to discover - at least, this is my hope - the power of community working together with the aim of assisting each other towards the goal of becoming like Christ, in whatever shape and form that may take, in whatever contexts we find ourselves called, led, thrown...

I need this like one of those crocodiles we see on some nature show– - the ones where they've been living in a lake that's now dried up to a tiny mudpool and they can barely live any more. A few more months without rain, and they'll be dead. My pool is thick with crusty old mud - but I can smell the rain near.