February 10, 2008

10/02/2008

Having bolted from my life, friends and family on the South coast, I've found myself in Edinburgh, with no plans or money. Within half an hour of reaching my (hopefully temporary, until I bring myself together and skulk back to Chichester) new home, I've been approached by a homeless man asking for money, to which I found myself able to reply that I'm in an identical situation as him and thus unable to help - this suddenly made everything set in. And yet, only two hours after getting here, I find myself caving in and shelling out 20p so I can access the internet. How long am I going to last? When I go back, will it be because I can't take it, or because I miss the people I knew?

I've always said that The Divine Comedy - Charmed Life described me in a song. It's a little early into my new venture to tell, but I hope I'll still be able to say that in a month's time.

At the very last minute... in fact, forty minutes into the session, I'm asked to take over the lesson for my Church's Sunday School for the two-to-five year old set. Today's story is the temptation of Christ.

When I get to the part of the story where Satan takes Jesus to the top of the Temple of Jerusalem, I say to the kids (and I'm paraphrasing on the fly, because our storybook is clearly not written for the preschool set):

So the Devil says to Jesus: "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. You're the Son of God. He won't let you get hurt. You can do it. Go on. Jump off."

And Jesus says: "No, I don't think so. You shouldn't put God to the test like that. I know that God loves me. I don't need to jump off the top of this building."

So Jesus resisted temptation and he didn't jump.

And George looks up from his pile of Legos and says "Spider-man could do it."