Visit Five: February
Well, I expected to be sad, since we were covering "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted," but I seriously haven't cried that much since the last Guy Gavriel Kay book I read (his books are guaranteed to have at least a couple extended parts in them that thoroughly clean out my tear ducts). The speaker is a church member who is a professor at a local university but not a preacher, so she wrote out her message and read it (really well). It is a darn good thing I was wearing one of my washable scarves because I didn't bring my backpack in this week, so I didn't have any real tissues. And boy did I need them.
After this sermon, I came to the conclusion that something I'd been struggling with every so often and unexpectedly (sudden strong anger around the whole getting hurt at work and fighting with OWCP for a decade before giving up on justice) was not necessarily a sad lack of self-control on my part but actually part of a pattern of grief I hadn't really let myself mourn through. Really unexpected but so healing.
I also came to the conclusion that I need to have a very uncomfortable conversation with my family that I have been putting off. This woman's story and her conclusion that we need to do the work now, ASAP, because anything can happen punches me where I need it. No more excuses. Just do the work.
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Finding a Church to Belong to: Notes from Visit Four
Visit Four: February
My small group friend holds the baby from the first week when he becomes fascinated with her. She does not like other people's babies, but she already loves this one.
The pastor, who has no qualms about singing so the whole church can hear him (with a microphone, even) when the Spirit moves him, totally disrupts the worship team and tells them to skip some songs to get to one he really wants to sing. Everyone reacts with a sort of patient fortitude; no one is flustered, and several of them even joke around with him, all while not stopping the music. Whoa. That's a lot of trust.
At the end of the service, the worship leader for that week makes a passionate declaration and defense for hymns, which he is, by golly, going to keep making us sing whether we want to or not. Don't get him wrong, he loves worship choruses, but they're most often love songs, and there is some deep theological truth in those hymns that it's important to sing. He gets some amens.
We are into the Lent sermons, and I am surprised. Baptist Pentecostals who celebrate Lent. Who knew this was a thing?
My small group friend holds the baby from the first week when he becomes fascinated with her. She does not like other people's babies, but she already loves this one.
The pastor, who has no qualms about singing so the whole church can hear him (with a microphone, even) when the Spirit moves him, totally disrupts the worship team and tells them to skip some songs to get to one he really wants to sing. Everyone reacts with a sort of patient fortitude; no one is flustered, and several of them even joke around with him, all while not stopping the music. Whoa. That's a lot of trust.
At the end of the service, the worship leader for that week makes a passionate declaration and defense for hymns, which he is, by golly, going to keep making us sing whether we want to or not. Don't get him wrong, he loves worship choruses, but they're most often love songs, and there is some deep theological truth in those hymns that it's important to sing. He gets some amens.
We are into the Lent sermons, and I am surprised. Baptist Pentecostals who celebrate Lent. Who knew this was a thing?
Finding a Church to Belong to: Notes from Visit Three
Visit Three: January
Wondering if it is cheating on your church to want to be listening to another church's pastor's extremely insightful sermons instead of the sort of incoherent one your pastor is preaching. Because he definitely hasn't developed a spiritual gift in the teaching area in the intervening months. Despite this, I am surprised to find myself automatically taking careful notes to keep myself paying attention like I used to in college and surprised that I don't really feel like I am missing something by not having really insightful teaching to listen to. It's not heretical (yet), and it's coming out of the Bible. And this church and pastor really do have many other important things to offer.
We go to the Welcome Lunch for new folks, where I learn that this church has roots in the Methodist holiness movement, the Baptist church, and the Pentecostal movement. Yes, Baptist Pentecostals: two words I honestly never thought would be located next to each other in this fashion. Apparently there were bunch of Baptist churches who were Pentecostals and didn't want to be part of the Assemblies of God because of its Methodist structure, so they formed the Independent Assemblies of God with the local church as the only structure.
I ask the pastor lots of questions and accidentally drink from his (identical cup), which is mildly embarrassing (the cup thing, not the questions). He talks about the balance between the extreme poles of the "spirit of dead orthodoxy" and the "spirit of weird" (as he calls it). I am getting more déjà vu here because they have to ground their practices in the Bible, since they have no denomination to tell them what they can't do.
The small group member who has very specific tastes in music and deep roots in the Baptist (no service can ever go over 1 hour and 15 minutes) church doesn't understand why we sing for so long and why everything takes so long, and the pastor says they have to leave room for the unexpected things the Holy Spirit might want to do. Small group man does not seem keen on this. It makes me a little sad because I was kind of hoping we could find a church we all liked, so we could keep up our several years of friendship since forming our small group, but I always knew it was likely his deal-breakers would be different from mine.
Wondering if it is cheating on your church to want to be listening to another church's pastor's extremely insightful sermons instead of the sort of incoherent one your pastor is preaching. Because he definitely hasn't developed a spiritual gift in the teaching area in the intervening months. Despite this, I am surprised to find myself automatically taking careful notes to keep myself paying attention like I used to in college and surprised that I don't really feel like I am missing something by not having really insightful teaching to listen to. It's not heretical (yet), and it's coming out of the Bible. And this church and pastor really do have many other important things to offer.
We go to the Welcome Lunch for new folks, where I learn that this church has roots in the Methodist holiness movement, the Baptist church, and the Pentecostal movement. Yes, Baptist Pentecostals: two words I honestly never thought would be located next to each other in this fashion. Apparently there were bunch of Baptist churches who were Pentecostals and didn't want to be part of the Assemblies of God because of its Methodist structure, so they formed the Independent Assemblies of God with the local church as the only structure.
I ask the pastor lots of questions and accidentally drink from his (identical cup), which is mildly embarrassing (the cup thing, not the questions). He talks about the balance between the extreme poles of the "spirit of dead orthodoxy" and the "spirit of weird" (as he calls it). I am getting more déjà vu here because they have to ground their practices in the Bible, since they have no denomination to tell them what they can't do.
The small group member who has very specific tastes in music and deep roots in the Baptist (no service can ever go over 1 hour and 15 minutes) church doesn't understand why we sing for so long and why everything takes so long, and the pastor says they have to leave room for the unexpected things the Holy Spirit might want to do. Small group man does not seem keen on this. It makes me a little sad because I was kind of hoping we could find a church we all liked, so we could keep up our several years of friendship since forming our small group, but I always knew it was likely his deal-breakers would be different from mine.
Finding a Church to Belong to: Notes from Visit Two
Visit Two: January
Wondering if I am just feeling nostalgia or a legitimate sense that this is a good place to be. Hard to tell through the haze of nostalgia. Everything from the cheap carpet to the home-made banners on the walls and the terrible acoustics and iffy sound system and the worship music (which we sing for at least an hour, often repeating each verse more than once) and the words from the Lord (forthtelling prophecy, usually quoted straight from Scripture) and the freedom and space to expand and repeat or just improvise praise to God: this is something I thought I would never be a part of again.
I had given up on it because everything changes, even the church you grew up in, and when you come back, even if it is much like it was, you are not. I am overwhelmed by this feeling that everyone knows everyone else and is a family; it's something I have missed and decided I would never find and should stop pining after. It's so strong that I find myself thinking it must be irrational, and I need to think things through and find things out before I allow myself to attach. I tell myself not to love the pews carved with menorahs and the stars of David (I hear it used to be a synagogue). I don't want to love the huge, frosted windows if these folks are going to be crazy charismatics doing non-biblical things. I mean, how long ago did I stop looking for a church (like the one I grew up in) where they were charismatics who wouldn't do anything they didn't find in the Bible? Why is it that so frequently I find what I have stopped looking for?
Older kid had a better time this week because a friend from his school was there, and he had to bring his Bible because they actually need to use it. Oh, yeah. My kind of kid church.
Wondering if I am just feeling nostalgia or a legitimate sense that this is a good place to be. Hard to tell through the haze of nostalgia. Everything from the cheap carpet to the home-made banners on the walls and the terrible acoustics and iffy sound system and the worship music (which we sing for at least an hour, often repeating each verse more than once) and the words from the Lord (forthtelling prophecy, usually quoted straight from Scripture) and the freedom and space to expand and repeat or just improvise praise to God: this is something I thought I would never be a part of again.
I had given up on it because everything changes, even the church you grew up in, and when you come back, even if it is much like it was, you are not. I am overwhelmed by this feeling that everyone knows everyone else and is a family; it's something I have missed and decided I would never find and should stop pining after. It's so strong that I find myself thinking it must be irrational, and I need to think things through and find things out before I allow myself to attach. I tell myself not to love the pews carved with menorahs and the stars of David (I hear it used to be a synagogue). I don't want to love the huge, frosted windows if these folks are going to be crazy charismatics doing non-biblical things. I mean, how long ago did I stop looking for a church (like the one I grew up in) where they were charismatics who wouldn't do anything they didn't find in the Bible? Why is it that so frequently I find what I have stopped looking for?
Older kid had a better time this week because a friend from his school was there, and he had to bring his Bible because they actually need to use it. Oh, yeah. My kind of kid church.
Finding a Church to Belong to: Notes from Visit One
Visit One: October
I don't get much worship in song done because I am too busy being completely choked up by the feeling that I have somehow time warped to a home I thought had been burned to the ground years ago. Holy nostalgia, Batman!
There is a baby with beautiful, dark skin and a broad, placid face perfectly reflecting his disposition. He is being passed around from person to person to be held, and he seems utterly unaffected by it.
The pastor seems very excited about a series they recently did about spiritual gifts where he learned that teaching is not one of his. And it's true. His message is, um, difficult to follow and a little torturous. But he doesn't really seem to mind, and nobody else does either because he has some other obvious, important pastoral gifts, and it's not like he's preaching heresy.
The kids aren't really thrilled about the whole switching churches thing, so that's kind of hilarious to deal with.
Adults Questioning: So, what did you like?
6-year-old answering: Um . . . Nothing really.
Q: Why was that?
A: Ummmmmm, it's complicated.
Q: So what didn't you like?
A: Ummmm, it's just really complicated.
Q: Thanks?
I don't get much worship in song done because I am too busy being completely choked up by the feeling that I have somehow time warped to a home I thought had been burned to the ground years ago. Holy nostalgia, Batman!
There is a baby with beautiful, dark skin and a broad, placid face perfectly reflecting his disposition. He is being passed around from person to person to be held, and he seems utterly unaffected by it.
The pastor seems very excited about a series they recently did about spiritual gifts where he learned that teaching is not one of his. And it's true. His message is, um, difficult to follow and a little torturous. But he doesn't really seem to mind, and nobody else does either because he has some other obvious, important pastoral gifts, and it's not like he's preaching heresy.
The kids aren't really thrilled about the whole switching churches thing, so that's kind of hilarious to deal with.
Adults Questioning: So, what did you like?
6-year-old answering: Um . . . Nothing really.
Q: Why was that?
A: Ummmmmm, it's complicated.
Q: So what didn't you like?
A: Ummmm, it's just really complicated.
Q: Thanks?
Monday, February 9, 2015
Facebooks asks what
Facebook asks What
is your relationship
status
and I wonder if I
say
disinterested in
romance,
will all the other
internet
ad targeting things
stop
showing me endless
parades of single
men
I am not interested
in?
Too bad my option is
not
available this time
either.
Saturday, June 14, 2014
The best path
I told the doctor to think of me as a nun. She was doing the usual new doctor-y speechless gaping when told I am not, have never been, and have no plans to be sexually active. My humor broke the awkward silence and allowed her to laugh and stop gaping at me while trying to form a coherent thought. I should have said I was a free-agent nun. I'll try to remember that line for next time.
I also said I was going to try to go off the thyroid med again. I'm at half of the lowest dose, I have my eyebrows back, and I'm not losing copious amounts of hair right now. I am ever-so-slightly less exhausted. Part of me wants to stay on this ultra-low dose because it's working, but doctors keep telling me that if I do, soon my thyroid will get lazy (instead of just exhausted) and stop working altogether, and that's bad. It's also, according to some doctors, probably not good to be taking the medication for a long time starting so young if I can avoid it. But right now is not a good time to start losing hair and feeling even more tired. I don't want to screw this up, but since I can't know what will happen this time I stop taking it, I can't know which choice will actually be more likely to screw things up. Welcome to adulthood?
Since I've been tapering off the medication, I've been silently cheering my thryoid on. "You can do it!" I tell it mentally. "Go, thyroid, go!" Now that it's had crutches for a little while, surely it can walk on its own. Probably. Maybe. Eventually? I think of it like the little thyroid that could, but in real life (outside of children's storybooks), sometimes the little train that thinks it can just can't. Do I want the symptoms to return right in the middle of the stress of moving? Can I trust my malfunctioning body to get this one thing right despite everything? And if I do trust it, what if that trust is betrayed at the worst possible time? But if I stay on the medication just until the moving is done (probably some time in August), what if that pushes me past the point of no-return, and, frustrated by my lack of trust, my thyroid locks itself up in its attic room and refuses to come out ever again?
Obviously, I could use more sleep. (Most of the docs think that would actually allow the thyroid to function normally again.) However, that's still the thing that just isn't happening here in my crappy apartment. If I move to a place where I can consistently knock all the sleep-hygiene stuff out of the park, it's possible that things will improve. If that doesn’t work, I may actually go to my last contingency plan (the one where I ask for, like, a three week supply of some drug that just totally knocks you out and then add that to the perfect sleep hygiene in a last-ditch, desperate effort to re-program my sleep [at least I'll have somewhere another person can sleep to make sure nothing wacky happens while I'm on that med]). I'm pretty sure whatever decision I make will be the wrong one, but that just means that if anything works, I will be pleasantly surprised and very grateful.
Any thoughts?
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