Does anyone else sometimes feel the need for a change?

To do something different, to break out of our usual routine and head off into the distant sunset with no plans and no list?

To just head off, completely care free?

I teach a young pupil who, at the moment, has discovered a real liking for Michael Jackson and his music.

Every time I see him he is trying to balance on his tip toes and sing in an extremely high voice.

His passion is so infectious that the other children are also now copying his moves and hanging on his every instruction.

He even recently asked whether I could possibly call him Michael!

I can’t help liking his enthusiasm.

We all often seem to desire change.

Perhaps we want to be a bit more like someone else or to live the lifestyle that they seem to live.

Yet the change that God seeks for us is different to this.

He calls us to be ourselves.

To be the person we were always made to be.

Such a change is not always about changing our address or about changing the job that we have..

Rather like the Prodigal Son, our change is the discovery that we are truly ourselves when we return to God and remain in his presence.

Stephen Jakubowski St Joseph’s Catholic Church Kirkby Lonsdale