Even a smidgen of Christlikeness is an impossible expectation.

Christians are not to be angry, vindictive, spiteful, hateful, morose, bitter, boastful, or easily offended. They’re not supposed to take pleasure in the discomfort of others, be mean-spirited, or consider their own needs ahead of the needs of others. And “others” is everyone, those I like and who like me, those I dislike and dislike me.

I’ve failed at all those things. Some every day. Being fully Christlike is not only difficult, it’s impossible.

But we’re called to take up our cross nevertheless, for as long as we are able to carry it.

Photo at right: Father Jacques Hamel. Fr Hamel was killed by Islamic terrorists while delivering Mass at Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray church in Rouen, France. The 84-year-old priest was forced to kneel at the altar and had his throat slit. Some accounts have him later decapitated. His killers apparently also performed some sort of Islamic service at the altar. Credit: AFP. Source: bbc.com.

Sometimes life ends horribly, as it did for Fr Hamel.

Sometimes it ends peacefully (if painfully) as it did for my dad - his family at his bedside.

Sometimes it ends in the huddled terror of mass graves, floods, earthquakes, explosions.

	Photo at Left: The skulls and bones of Capuchin brothers adorn this altar in a Capuchin Crypt in Rome, Italy. Credit: Dnalor_01. Source:  Wikimedia Commons. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Photo at Right: Skulls of the victims of the Khmer Rouge occupation of Cambodia. Source:  Wikimedia Commons; License: Denne fil er udgivet under Creative Commons Navngivelse 2.0 Generisk-licensen.

And sometimes it ends in isolation - a homeless shelter, prison, a hospital bed, a car accident, a heart attack in the middle of the night - and we slip away alone.

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I recall seeing an inverted pyramid of human skulls in the Smithsonian when I was a child. The skulls formed something of a chart demonstrating population growth.

We’ve gotten so used to seeing human skulls, we barely flinch at mass graves in Cambodia, and are simply perplexed at catacombs and monasteries.

But each time I see them, I think the same thing: What had collected inside those boney shells before they were emptied? How many smiles and tears lived in there, connecting and accreting to form a unique Individual who is recognized by other unique Individuals with smiles and tears of their own?

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Notice the title of this blog. I didn’t say that Christlikeness is an unreasonable expectation, just impossible. It’s reasonable because Christlikeness is a journey, and it never ends until we put down our cross, like Fr Hamel did, like my dad did.

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There’s a Christian concept that, roughly stated, encourages us to turn our pain over to God and regard our unhappiness as a blessing. Baptists say “God never gives us more than we can bear,” or repeat the words of James to “count it all joy.” Catholics are encouraged to share in Christ’s passion and offer up their sorrows to Him.

The subtext underlying both traditions has strong elements of amends and apology.

I’m not sure I know how any of that works. I’m not sure anyone really does. Because anything so counterintuitive usually remains in the realms of faith and skepticism, which are remarkably similar since they concern themselves with the very same mysteries, just come to drastically different conclusions.

[2016.07.26]

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