Oh boy… are you sure you want to read this? It’s all a bit depressed if you ask me…
I have spent the evening with Bliss, Tez and Surf, drinking beer and eating pizza. It was quite the reunion, just like old times. But, it was all a bit too much after my rather fragile day. (see post below).
I love these guys, and having Bliss around has been a balm to my frazzled nerves. It makes it harder to see her head back off to Brisbane. Tonight felt like the first sort of normal I have been near since she left, in spite of the fact we touched on some fairly heavy disucssion material. I still get blown away by how much I miss her.
The other killer for me is that while Bliss has moved interstate, Tez is moving interchurch.
It leaves me wondering, when the tectonic plates of my interpersonal relationships have moved so much in the last 8 months, why I am still where I am?
The answer is no less confused than the question.
I am in a church that is flawed, like any other, where people hurt and are hurt, where leaders lead and still fall, where sometimes, there isn’t someone to help you up when you graze your knee, or get hit by the plank on someone’s shoulder that smacked you in the head as they turned around.
I am sure it isn’t actually any different in other churches, there aren’t perfect churches out there are there? “… no perfect churches, only the perfect church for you” ????(It’s a quote… if you haven’t heard it before.. ignore it…)
Hmmm
So, why don’t I follow my friends who are moving on? Why don’t I just up stakes and go home, which, right now, feels like the only place left that has some kind of normal attached to it?
That’s the killer, the “why not leave too?”
I could trot out the trite answer that goes something like “I believe God has called me here” and you know, it feels true to use that reply. But it is such a subjective one. It isn’t balanced, rational or easily justifiable or quantifiable.
Nope not even close to quantifiable. And because it isn’t quantifiable for me, I find it hard to understand when others find it easy (or even possible) to leave.
I tried to articulate to Tez today why it is that I hadn’t responded to his announcement to me during the week that he was leaving. When I read the brief mention of his plans I had no words, no understanding and only tears.
Why tears?
I had to ask myself the same question… and dig deep, deeper than I am usually prepared to go, to find some approximation of the answer.
Could it be my intermittent and scarcely acknowledged [squishy] feelings for him? That this is some kind of curtains on them? Scans internal processors… Nope… No tears there…
Is it my concern that he hadn’t dealt well with the hideous (to me) events of ’04 and the fallout thereof? … Nope, still none.
Am I all shook up because I believe he is chucking away his destiny because he is distancing himself from this particular community of worship? … Hah..no… not even that, though at least that would make some kind of “Christian” sense, given the community we belong to.
Actually, the bottom line is none of those things. In truth, I will probably see him as much as ever before becuase we never seemed to be at the same services on Sunday thus rarely saw each other in church. We still live just down the road, and there still is rugby on the tv now and again so, we may watch the odd Sth Africa v NZ or Aus game together (but not the NZ v Aus ones… too stressful) and as we still have email he will continue to be the first person I send stupid and funny emails to!!
The thing that has me uneven is that the change of church means we have one less commonality which will make ours another relationship that will change, as have so many of my relationships since April of last year.
I am unsettled because everything around me is subject to change. Nothing is constant, no one is constant and it is this which is the the appeal of home. My family is one thing that IS some sort of constant in my world.
God of course should be my constant, so that the waves of all this change have little or no effect on me.
Bah Humbug… I’m just not that spiritual.
And I’ve had too much to drink tonight.
1 – you haven’t gone home because you know if you did you’d beat yourself up for being back in exactly the same place you left with bright ideas, dreams and visions …. and even though you’ve achieved a lot of them and helped a lot of others achieve theirs (despite the best efforts of the ‘sad mad bad boss’) you’d probably end up just feeling like you’d achieved nothing … and you know that :), and
2 – "Amoriah" doesn’t change (much) … and 47 B road is always there (until my dream man sweeps me up and whisks me away to a life of luxury anyway … and then you can come visit me in my 600 year old castle in France … which won’t have changed except for flush toilets and possibly air conditioning) :)