Where I've been, and why

I've been gone from the blog scene lately. I just don't have the time or energy to listen to it anymore; I'm exhausted with it all.

A good man, a member of my parish and a friend, died early this month - somebody who should've had many more years of life ahead of him, and a wonderful, caring person, loved by all. His family is still in shock, and I'm sure they will be for a long time. And nothing seems very important next to that anymore; nothing really matters except loving the people in your life, and being good to them. Which is why I'm so tired of discussions about "how we're all supposed to be doing it" and "what the rest of you are doing wrong"; what we're supposed to be doing is loving other people, and that's pretty much it. And this is not a matter for discussion; it's not "theory." It has to be lived - and not by anybody else from the outside, either.

I've been in a rage about the church and its leadership, and their absurd "activities," specifically, for the past two years, as I guess everybody knows by this time. And I had such hope for it all at the beginning; it was a lovely, happy discovery for me - a gorgeous piece of Serendipity that enchanted me for the first few years. Since then, though, it's been nothing but struggle and heartache, and my perpetual condition has been rage and anger and fury. I'm in a rage at all the destruction, I guess, and all the disregard for real people and their feelings and their faith lives. And I guess it's good that it means that much to me, and that I haven't just walked away.

Some nice things have happened, though: we have a real priest, at last, at our parish, for one thing - somebody who seems to actually care about the people who belong there. Amazing. That will be very, very healing - if it can last at all, which I hope it can, for at least a little while.

And actually, side by side with this white-hot fury I feel all the time, I find myself enjoying many very simple things: laughter and fooling around with life, and learning new things, even if in struggle. And enjoying people, too. The other day a wonderful thing happened: my little next-door neighbor asked me to come to her school for "Special Person's Day." I was the Special Person, which is just such an incredible honor. The kids in her (second-grade) class all did PowerPoint presentations about each other, in pairs, so we got introduced to everybody in the class that way. And those presentations were really good! Then we all had some cookies and juice, and they recited a poem and sang "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield, along with dance moves and hand motions:



It was great, great, great. Which is another reason that blog arguments just seem ridiculous to me these days.

I know there is some good happening in some places still, though - but at this point I think: if the church collapses, what does it matter? It won't be killed forever, of this I am sure; it will revive, and all the tawdry dross will fall away and be forgotten, as always. If they rewrite the Prayer Book to include only Clown Masses A-D: it's really OK. That, too, will pass - and afterwards it will actually probably be better than it ever has been before. So I am not worried or concerned anymore about all this. All that really matters is loving the people in your life, and trying to help them through the craziness of being alive.

Well, the death of my friend is why I'm putting up Requiem posts, as you've probably guessed. And you know: it's so clear in that music that death and suffering are all around us all the time, and that the best way to defy that is to sing this elegiac music that speaks through its mourning of our hope for our friends, that they have Light Perpetual and Rest Eternal.