the slow road to transformation

The road to transformation is as slow as I wish it were fast. It’s as arduous as I wish it were easy.

It’s painful at times, when I wish it never was.

It requires my attention, my participation, and the truth is...I’d rather sleep through it.

As I’ve ridden the wave of emotion this election week, I’ve met with this reality. The slow, dark underbelly of what it takes to change from one way of being into another, more magnificent way.

I’ve come face to face and toe to toe with my own deluded expectation of what transformation requires. I have to admit, I want it to be a clean, quick spritz that I can absorb as I head on my way, transformed.

But…this is not the way. Transformation cannot be applied, as I have been sorely made to remember this week.

Transformation is a water that must be waded into. For how long, you don’t know. Will it be cold, can you reach the bottom? Will you swim it? Float in it? Build a raft to navigate it? And when do you get to come back out, back home? Do you ever even come back…or does that miss the point? None of this is disclosed. All that is known, is that on the other side, from wherever and whenever it emerges, what was once unremarkable will become unspeakably beautiful.

So, it seems probably worth it.

I want transformation for our people, our nation. I want it so badly. And I need it so very much in my own stubborn heart.

Come, Holy Spirit, come.