Whew! I Needed That...

There are days when I am just not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

These past few months it has felt like I am a 45 RPM recording that is being played at 33 RPM. I have been watching endless amounts of television, but not necessarily absorbing anything or being inordinately entertained. My house looks like a Midwestern tornado landed and I have not done a thing with any of the boxes I brought back from my parent’s home in California.

It dawned on me last week – out the blue mind you – that I am depressed (LMAO)! I guess it didn’t occur to me that I wouldn’t be able to bypass the grief process surrounding the death of my father and all the emotions surrounding having both of my parents gone.

I have been the busy little bee since the middle of last year. All of it necessary given that I was my father’s primary caretaker and the trustee of his estate – but distracting in a way nonetheless. Well this little bee just got flat worn out. I am just very, very sad and I will be that way until I am not.

The good news is that I have gotten off my own back about not ‘doing’ enough and am just letting myself be. Amazing, it actually helped me feel a little better when I was able to do that for myself.

The other thing that brought me back to the present moment was the death of Tim Russert – what a huge loss and what a premature one. Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to discount my father’s life or his death, but he was 86 and in poor health and mentally failing and it was time for him to let go. But Tim Russert was 58 – that’s a year younger than me! What a great man he was – genuine, warm, passionate, engaged.

We only have today, don’t we? I knew that but Tim’s death brought it home again – like a slap in the face. We only have today. We only have today; period, end of story.

Makes me want to have today and every day I am blessed with be as rich, as authentic, and loving as possible.

Relentless

My congregation has created a Visioning Community charged with leading Bering in discerning and implementing God’s vision. As Council Chair I am a part of that community. We met yesterday and midst food and fellowship had a great conversation about a host of topics. I realized though that when it comes to my relationship with Christianity and the church, I still have a tendency to ‘see’ myself based on the way the Christian world has ‘seen’ me for so many years – as a lesbian. Funny, I don’t carry that primary identifier into any other area of my life. In most instances I think of myself first as human and then usually as a woman. Depending on the circumstances I might add to that recovering alcoholic, lesbian, or Christian.

Over the past week I have coincidentally watched several documentaries that helped me recognize and understand where that reality was developed. One is for the BIBLE tells me so, which powerfully explores current and continued religious anti-gay bias in the United States. I also watched One Nation Under God, an older film, yet still valid today about conversion therapy for gays and lesbians. Last I watched Dangerous Living which explores the lives of gay and lesbian people in non-western cultures.

When I finished watching these documentaries I was awash in sadness and overwhelmed by the reality that I have been at the mercy of a kind of relentless abuse my entire life. No wonder I still have a tendency to look over my shoulder. Still sadder though is the reality that the only time I still look over my shoulder is when I am involved in church.