An Up and Down Week

It's been a weird week. Not bad, just much more varied in terms of my internal state than most. It all began on Sunday morning, when my brain refused to be convinced that I really was in church, talking to church-going people, and not in "the bistro," as my senior pastor refers to it. Although I do not believe in going about in the world chatting in Christianese, or couching our worship services in so much religious language that no one really knows what we're talking about, I do know that there is language that is particular to the church, and that it's acceptable to use it when you are the liturgist. It's just that none of that language would come to mind on Sunday morning. Fortunately, the guy who records our services was a bit late at starting the recording, and therefore my part of the service cannot be found and heard repeatedly online.

We went on after church to have a presentation and lunch to discuss the issue of homosexuality in the RCA. We are just beginning the official denominational dialogue process in our area. I would have been really into this conversation three years ago. Right now, I'm tired of the same old questions, the same old explanations, and the same old debates. I'm tired of having alleged conversations with people who not only read and use the Bible much differently than I do, but whose ways of doing these things seem to compel them to insist that I come around to their ways before they'll genuinely listen to a word I say. I'm tired of faith being treated like a Jenga tower, built of blocks of particular interpretations of Scripture, that might collapse entirely if you pull out the wrong block. Surely our faith is bigger and steadier than that. Surely our faith can withstand some scrutiny, challenge, and change. Surely our faith makes us safe enough to ask potentially scary questions. If not, what good is it? (End of rant...for now)

Anyway. On Monday I had lunch with a group of clergy women. We do this about once a month, and it's fun. I do wonder why so many clergy always seem to be talking as though they are in a worship service. But then, clearly I have the opposite problem. I followed up lunch with several hours of meetings. Good meetings, but meetings nonetheless. Monday is usually my day off. I've come to rely on this day off to get me centered for the coming week. I believe I may have come to the core of why I've felt off-kilter the rest of the week.

Since Monday, I've had a highly erratic sleep schedule. Admittedly, my sleep patterns tend to be a bit odd, but this week you'd think I was two different people: one of whom is wide awake until 4am and only needs four hours of sleep, and the other who is exhausted at 10pm and needs more like twelve hours of sleep...probably to recover from several nights as that four-hour-of-sleep person. Note to self: I am no longer eighteen.

The new burst of spring warmth has made me really happy. I've spent a lot of time working outdoors, doing my reading and planning at a patio table with my dog lounging in the sun beside me, and being delighted that my job allows me this flexibility. I've also found myself being frighteningly angry on behalf of a friend who's having some devastating problems lately. I've been elated that Ted the Tumor is just hanging out up there and not doing any damage, and purely joyful about singing with my band. And I've had brief but staggering moments of deep sadness, wondering who it is that I really confide in when I don't actually feel like everything is going to be fine. Because, you know, that does happen. It doesn't happen very often, and it doesn't last very long, but it's there. It would probably be good for me to open up a bit about that stuff from time to time and not always be cheerily upbeat or listening to someone else's problems. As a wise friend recently told me, it would be okay for me to be a total loser sometimes, and people would even still love and care for me. The problem is, this is not a theory I care to test.

I'm working from home this afternoon in an attempt to get myself on a bit more even footing before venturing out. This is already such a long post that I hesitate to go into this, but something else has happened this week that I've found really interesting. I had begun to wonder a bit about some of the aspects of my job that involve hanging out and building relationships with people in the hopes that I can offer them an opportunity to discuss spiritual issues. For a while there, it seemed like all the conversations I was having were about futile, surface sorts of things, and I was considering a total reorientation of the outreach portion of my job. But then, this week, in the midst of all my work and personal wondering, half the world seems to have decided that it's time to start hitting me with the heavy spiritual and theological and life questions. I LOVE getting to do this exploration with people.