Commentary: Right when I was finishing production on this, I decided that it wouldn’t quite be complete without a Bible verse or two at the end, so I went searching through my Bible and found John 15:12,13.

They are verses I have read very frequently, but I read them in a new way this time. Until then, I had always read the phrase “lay down his life for his friends” in the sense that there is no greater love you can have than to be willing to die for them. While that’s true, there’s another way to interpret the phrase.

If your life consists of what you do from day to day and the priorities you’ve made, wouldn’t ignoring what you want to do and thinking of others be a way of laying down your life? In other words, if you set aside what you really want to do today and affect other people’s lives, aren’t you laying down your own life?

Commentary:

This was the most difficult Il Soapbox to create out of all of them to this point. Believe it or not, I started this about two years before I finished it.

There were several reasons for this. One reason was the Star Wars effect. There are still enough people in the world who are Star Wars fans to the point that Jedi is their religion. If they catch wind of all these comparisons between God and Darth Vader… well, let’s just say I didn’t want responsibility for somehow creating a new cult.

However, the bigger problem was that I had worked myself into a corner. I had posed to myself a question that I found I couldn’t answer. Why should I trust something that has been so misused by others?

I mean, this is the Bible for crying out loud! I’ve been studying this thing since I knew how to read! I’ve based my life around my faith in God, with the Bible as a steady guide, and then I find a reason to question it that could destroy that to dust. Needless to say, it was unsettling.

So, I let it go for awhile, occasionally asking God about it, but never really getting any closure, until the example of the world leader’s speech came to mind, and it hit me… just because any piece of literature or information can be used improperly doesn’t make the original any less valid. Just because someone has a map upside-down while they’re finding directions doesn’t mean the map is faulty.

Commentary: I really don’t have much to say about this one… I think it speaks for itself quite well already. I will, however, mention that I remember having difficulty at the time coming up with 5 hairstyles for the women. I do not draw women’s hair very often. I should probably be paying more attention to that.

Commentary:Probably the quickest Il Soapbox I ever did, and one of the most fun, too. I still smile at the little stick figure with the Censored box.

Incidentally, yes, I know where the statistic came from. What it really means is that, of the normally exposed areas of skin, 70% of the body heat will come from your head in the winter time. But come on… let me have a little fun.

Commentary: Unfortunately, pop culture references have already started to date this comic. The TV shows mentioned aren’t on TV anymore (or if they are, they’re in reruns at odd hours of the day).

I guess this topic wouldn’t be complete without me also mentioning how blessed I am to live in the country that I do. Really, for all the talk of taking prayer out of schools and all that, there’s still quite a bit of religious freedom. For instance, I was part of a Christian club during school lunch hours for a few years. There were also events like “See You at the Pole” that took place on school grounds, and those weren’t squashed by school authorities. I am glad for that.

Commentary: To be quite honest, I’m not quite sure why I decided on “Reincarnation” as the topic of the first one of these. The only explanation I can possibly think of is that reincarnation was a topic that I not only had an opinion about, but also believed that it would add value to do add the visual elements of a comic strip. After all, writing about any topic as a comic strip takes a whole lot longer than an average newspaper opinion column.