Urban(e)

I live in a city. It is a large city, somewhere in the region of a million inhabitants, though I've never seen it on any of the 'million-city maps', so maybe just a wee bit shy of the grand ton. I'm sitting, as usual, in 'my' internet cafe, next to someone who lives in the countryside. His name is Rory, and I used to live next door to him. We are going to play football and he is giving me a lift. He has had to drive in to town specially for the occasion. I have had to step out of the office.

Visions of me with a tubby gut, jowls, pipe, paper and slippers rise unbidden before my eyes. I try to chase them away, but they return each time. I must be getting old.

Not that I don't work. It's not about working or not working. I've just finished a full afternoon's lessons, with a morning's business before that. And it's not like I'm financially complacent...I'm not making enough money to continue living this way for long. It's something else. Something about being in a crowd, about moving where other people move, about not having to fight for each fierce breath I draw, each achievement I achieve. It's about making a stand, or failing to. It's about the difficulty of being 'set apart' inside when I'm physically surrounded.

I serve a God who is set-apart, not physically, but in His being. He tells me he lives in me, and his Spirit does something odd called 'sanctification' inside me, which makes me different. 'Really?' my sceptic soul asks. 'Really-really,' my faith replies.

Ok, says my sceptic soul, I'm going to hold you to that. I'll be watching this space...

Matt walks into the the cafe. 'Let's go guys...' and we pile into the battered old Land Cruiser (memories of a former life for me) and head out to Hillview School for an evening's bladder-chasing and sweatiness. It's good to strive. It's good to sweat sometimes. It reminds us that we're alive.