I have, to put it mildly, an odd relationship with Jesus. See, I went to Catholic school for eight years, and if there’s a faster way to get a child to move away from religion than that I can’t think of it.

My family isn’t religious, and hell, we’re not even of one religion. That’s a long story for another time, but suffice to say we didn’t exactly do church. Ever. Still, because of school, I had it all shoved at me.

But here’s the thing. I believe, deep in my heart, in the Superman concept. That doing good things, choosing good over harm and paying the price for it, is the best a person can do. Bringing hope to other people, improving the world, is just a personal choice away. Every choice, every minute of every day, is yet another chance to improve the world.

And yes those improvements are tiny, each one taken by itself. But over a lifetime it spreads. It inspires, it enriches, it builds and grows and takes on a life of its very own.

Which brings us back to Jesus, doesn’t it? Tossing aside all religious aspects of it, God and resurrection and all of that, you still have a man who was willing to die rather than not follow what he believed and what he believed was that we’re all worth giving a damn about and helping.

And that’s powerful shit.

The problem comes in when the people following that example go astray. We all do it. No one is perfect. Not every choice is made in service of the good. That’s fine and natural but when people build a structure based off of goodness, and then marry it to power – well trouble sets in.
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