Apologetics

Standing at a family party with a cousin of the long suffering wife, I was asked what I am currently doing with my life. It's small talk, no one cares. I tell him I am training to be a priest. I quickly add; "it's okay, I don’t like Christians. Or church." I joke about the outfits that go with the job. It's a routine that I have become well accustomed to. I apologise, not for my faith, but the version of the chirstian faith I think most people think of when they hear the word "Christian". It all sounds so uncool, and I know that doesn’t matter, I know it's not what really counts. But I also believe, so deeply, and maybe so incorrectly that if you found out the person you were talking to was a Zen Master, or Rabbi, or .. well anything but a Christian you would think "wow, interesting" instead of "wow, I have to go now."

I wish I could find a way of explaning without the silly jokes that no-one laughs at and without the apologetic look, that I believe in a God who is incredible, who isn’t trapped in the pages of a book or chained to a church pew. Even the word "God" seems to lack something - it's musty and worn out. I don’t think I have come to terms with being a Christian yet – never mind becoming a priest one day. I am aware, really I am, that my spiel isn’t helping and that I need to find someway to be real – and I know some will say "you just need to be you, just need to tell it as it is, just need to....." but it's no little "just" – its not like there is a perfectly formed me somewhere I just need to let come out, it's (to go to the old images) like I am a stone covered in rubbish that needs grinding down till at last something more shapely is found, that deep within it all is the person I am meant to be but that it will take years – a life time under the hand of a crafts man to find the precious stone!

Oh, this entry is sickly. If I was reading this I would throw up.

Shudders

Yours as ever

In self disgust

The Broken Man