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

And For Tonight's Entertainment

The long-suffering wife asked me a few days ago whether I was “up for” going to a homebirth meeting, so I said "sure"; it's always good to get some extra info as we are heading down that avenue, so to speak. So, tonight we are heading off to a stranger's house, with a group of other people who have had or are planning to have homebirths. The couple will show us their homebirth pool, the video of the delivery, and we will all have tea and maybe even biscuits.

If you just managed to read that sentence without stopping half way through and screaming "NO!! WHY??? WHY WOULD ANYONE DO THAT???" then you have done better than me! Let me draw your attention again to that line...at stranger's house watching a video of them giving birth while they ask if I would like another biscuit.. I am very afraid..in fact the only thing which bothered me more was when, many years ago, a female friend put on a hard core video with her in the starring...position and asked me what I thought of it (I nearly choked on my tea!). I mean, maybe..maybe it will all be tastefully filmed from the head end (the mother's – not baby's) but – okay – I am being pathetic? Squeemish?

And when I get nervous I make jokes…I try not to … but, even now, I am thinking of lines like “OUCH, that must sting", "hey, I bet that put your man off sex for ever", "I mean, wow, that’s not pretty” “are all babies that ugly when born?” “may I say, I love what you have done with your hair..”

Yours as ever,

The Broken Man