Sunday, April 24, 2005
Fighting On
My convictions have once again placed me in a tough position. My nephew's wife decided to take classes and become confirmed in our family's church. That my nephew doesn't attend church and hasn't for years isn't of consequence to her, but I applaud her for her efforts. She's a nice girl and I'm glad she made this choice. The church is important to my folks and sister, I hope she hasn't made this choice simply to curry favor with the in-laws.
Soon my other niece, an eighth-grader, will be confirmed. That's the normal age for that to happen, not that I'm saying anything bad about the other situation. To a certain degree, I respect my nephew's wife more for making her decision. In all honesty, my niece doesn't have a choice, it's something that's simply expected of her. And yet, she's 14, there's certain things that she just isn't capable of making a choice on yet. I truely think it's better for her to do this now, she can make the decision later how she will pursue her faith.
And now I have a problem. As uncle to both of these young women, I should be there on what I hope they both consider an important day. But no matter how hard I make myself try, I can't go back into that church. Clergy there is preaching hatred, death has been wished upon judges for not agreeing with their beliefs. Since I tend to side more with the judges, I'm assuming that death is being wished upon me as well. If it were just whacko clergy, that could be dealt with. When those statements are made and I'm the only one who is shocked, well, it's gone on too long, nothing I can do or say is going to change anything. While ashamed of the clergy, I'm every bit as ashamed of the congregation for not challenging them for spewing hatred from the pulpit. I'm ashamed of myself for not at least trying to do something about it. Then again, if they care that little for human life, I can't see why they would listen to me.
So I can't do it. Right now I should be getting ready to attend church, to be there when my nephew's wife is confirmed. I generally try to avoid places in my life where I'm not wanted. When my beliefs cause a member of the clergy to want people who think like me dead, well, there's a pretty good indication that I'm not wanted there. So I won't be there. I am baking bread right now. I'll be at my sister's for lunch this afternoon. I'll try to be part of the family and forget about all of the other things.
Last night my sister held a surprise bithday part for a friend of ours. Surprise, her birthday was a couple of weeks ago! Anyway, it was nice. My sister is the organizer, she's good at all of that stuff. She invited TSA and I to play. She invited a bunch of Sandy's friends, a lot of them from the church. TSA and I played for close to an hour. Another surprise, American Woman was a hit, we had to do it twice. I't s a 50 cent piece of plastic people! TSA is doing something really hard on the 12 string, comment on that, will ya!
Anyway, people seemed to enjoy us, but I couldn't help but remember that a bunch of these people heard the same sermon I had. They weren't shocked. My guess is that most of them weren't listening, which is sad in it's own way. Thinking all of those things while playing didn't ruin things for me, but it did put a damper on it for me. Usually playing music makes me forget all of the bad things going on in my life. Playing music helped, but the thoughts going through my head, talking to some of those people afterward really brought me down.
As some of you know I'm prone to depression. It's stuff like this that sometimes will set me off, that will drive me into bed for a week. The irony of playing Brian Wilson is not lost on me. It's not happening this time, but I'm feeling really fragile at the moment. I really have to pay attention to my mood today or I'll drop off again. I'm playing music tonight, so that should help.
I've got another decision to make. My niece is getting confirmed in the same church. I need to be there, but I don't know if I can bring myself to do it. She gave me an invitation last night. I can't even bring myself ot look at it.
BOJ
Soon my other niece, an eighth-grader, will be confirmed. That's the normal age for that to happen, not that I'm saying anything bad about the other situation. To a certain degree, I respect my nephew's wife more for making her decision. In all honesty, my niece doesn't have a choice, it's something that's simply expected of her. And yet, she's 14, there's certain things that she just isn't capable of making a choice on yet. I truely think it's better for her to do this now, she can make the decision later how she will pursue her faith.
And now I have a problem. As uncle to both of these young women, I should be there on what I hope they both consider an important day. But no matter how hard I make myself try, I can't go back into that church. Clergy there is preaching hatred, death has been wished upon judges for not agreeing with their beliefs. Since I tend to side more with the judges, I'm assuming that death is being wished upon me as well. If it were just whacko clergy, that could be dealt with. When those statements are made and I'm the only one who is shocked, well, it's gone on too long, nothing I can do or say is going to change anything. While ashamed of the clergy, I'm every bit as ashamed of the congregation for not challenging them for spewing hatred from the pulpit. I'm ashamed of myself for not at least trying to do something about it. Then again, if they care that little for human life, I can't see why they would listen to me.
So I can't do it. Right now I should be getting ready to attend church, to be there when my nephew's wife is confirmed. I generally try to avoid places in my life where I'm not wanted. When my beliefs cause a member of the clergy to want people who think like me dead, well, there's a pretty good indication that I'm not wanted there. So I won't be there. I am baking bread right now. I'll be at my sister's for lunch this afternoon. I'll try to be part of the family and forget about all of the other things.
Last night my sister held a surprise bithday part for a friend of ours. Surprise, her birthday was a couple of weeks ago! Anyway, it was nice. My sister is the organizer, she's good at all of that stuff. She invited TSA and I to play. She invited a bunch of Sandy's friends, a lot of them from the church. TSA and I played for close to an hour. Another surprise, American Woman was a hit, we had to do it twice. I't s a 50 cent piece of plastic people! TSA is doing something really hard on the 12 string, comment on that, will ya!
Anyway, people seemed to enjoy us, but I couldn't help but remember that a bunch of these people heard the same sermon I had. They weren't shocked. My guess is that most of them weren't listening, which is sad in it's own way. Thinking all of those things while playing didn't ruin things for me, but it did put a damper on it for me. Usually playing music makes me forget all of the bad things going on in my life. Playing music helped, but the thoughts going through my head, talking to some of those people afterward really brought me down.
As some of you know I'm prone to depression. It's stuff like this that sometimes will set me off, that will drive me into bed for a week. The irony of playing Brian Wilson is not lost on me. It's not happening this time, but I'm feeling really fragile at the moment. I really have to pay attention to my mood today or I'll drop off again. I'm playing music tonight, so that should help.
I've got another decision to make. My niece is getting confirmed in the same church. I need to be there, but I don't know if I can bring myself to do it. She gave me an invitation last night. I can't even bring myself ot look at it.
BOJ
# posted by Blind Orange Julius @ 9:10 AM 
