“What Lord, after this phase of physical and intellectual growth and raging hormones? What? An intolerable stability in life? A calm of stagnation?

I’ve noticed that for most grown-ups, life is a mundane necessity. They thrive on 'little happinesses' that keep them going daily; 'little happinesses' that are tangible, to keep them sane and aware that their existence is somehow tolerable, somewhat.

Far be it from me! May my life be an adventure of ever-increasing growth into you. Start me on an adventure that will propel me into ever-increasing divinisation, that I may be one with you, in you, and through you. That I may be unceasingly Christified and be like you.

Whatever the cost, whatever the cause. Now.”

This was a prayer I whispered with such utter indignation some years ago. Foolishly so. And now, here I stand in the middle of an adventure, realising that adventures aren’t always what Enid Blyton made them to be.

In the midst of the wildness of this adventure, I doubt I can bring myself to say that prayer. I perhaps over-estimated my capacity to enjoy an adventure. The older me today realises that adventures can be excruciating, horrifying, suffocating, and unsettling; anything but thrilling.

But inasfar as these adventures have been divinising and Christifying, yes, certainly so.

Yet my prayer today, as one going through an adventure, is “Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.”