reconciling a life of faith

i sometimes have difficulty reconciling what is supposed to be good for me with the feelings i'm actually having.

i wrote that sentence in an online chat i was having last night, and from the moment it appeared on the screen, i knew it would be the topic of a blog entry. the particular moment in the discussion involved reflecting on the break-up of my relationship with michael -- the break-up being the "what is supposed to be good for me" and the "feelings i'm actually having" being the sense of pain, loss, missing and still loving him. what's funny though is that the same perspective could be applied to what had been the bulk of the majority of the conversation prior to that moment -- my reengagement in some form of church participation.

now i've always had a somewhat tenuous relationship with organized religion.  i have a great love for my faith, but have an almost equally as great difficulty with how it is practiced and ritualized by various faith traditions. this is particularly true of my years as an evangelical christian (for a more in depth exploration of my faith journey please go here Subjectively Disordered: A Faith Journey in Neutral -- note, you'll likely need to go toward the bottom of the page to find the first entry and work your way up from there). i thought i found my home in the christian family when i became a catholic, but there too i encountered the challenges presented by a holy enterprise enacted by human beings. it's been some five years or so since i last attended mass and for most of that time, if i were being honest (which i try my best to be in this space), i haven't really missed it. of late though that perspective has been shifting.

i attribute much of the shift to my current place of work. in the explorations of the mission and heritage of the work, that is a natural part of my day-to-day activities, i have found myself reawakening to much of the beauty that exists in catholicism and why i was drawn to becoming catholic in the first place. as a result, i have certainly been pondering trying to find a parish and become immersed again in the life of the church. i've also considered involvement in similar and (likely) more progressive faith expressions like the episcopal church. then i have conversations like i had with my friend last evening, who while encouraging me to find a church, was also dredging up all kinds of issues that really brought about my decision to separate in the first place. by the end of that particular chat, i was left with again struggling to reconcile what i suspect to be good for me (participation in parish life) and the feelings i was actually having (anger, frustration, and deep disappointment).

at the heart of it all, i know it does come down to my trying to figure out how to deal with what has become one of the great debates across the christian faith (and indeed even more broadly among other faith traditions) and that is the place of gays and lesbians in the community of faith. it is difficult to watch the debate going on and even more troublesome to see the misconceptions, misperceptions and outright lies that are propagated about who we are and how we desire to live our lives. add to that the attempts of some church authorities to use us as scapegoats for the problems generated by their own dysfunction and abuse of power and you really have a problematic (at the very least) situation to wade through. how do you engage in a community where so many don't want you, view you as dangerous, and use you as a means to distract from the real issues at hand (then again is this not the dilemma that the lgbt population has encountered for centuries in society as a whole)?  

deeper still, i think it comes down to having to find the ability first to enact what are the two seminal, foundational concepts in christian life -- mercy (not giving people what they do deserve as a result of their behaviors and actions) and grace (giving people what they don't deserve given their behaviors and actions). then it's about reenvisioning the positive place that participation in organized religion can have in one's life. clearly, i have a bit more thinking to do, and truly, what would it hurt to walk through the doors of a parish one sunday, take a look around, and see if a new vantage point on the landscape is emerging?

an un-merry christmas season

so christmas time is here. as we all know, christmas can be a time of great joy, excitement, and fun. it can also be a time of sadness and depression, particularly for those of us whose family lives don't resemble a hallmark television commercial. while i would say that i'm not in a depressed state of mind, i do approach this particular holiday season with a sense of melancholy.

as i've walked through the various public spaces festooned with holiday decorations, i've pondered that, unlike many a season before this, i am not really in the christmas spirit. i've had moments, but certainly not the driving energy that christmas has supplied before. maybe it's because of the recent relocation and living in a house still filled with a lot of boxes and not much furniture (a house i might add that, due to a recent spate of business travel, i've spent almost as much time out of as i have within). maybe it's that the boxes and boxes of christmas decorations that i've amassed over the years are still buried in the basement of the st. louis house and won't see the light of day until at least another christmas comes along. maybe it's that unlike last year, when i visited both my mother and my-ex for a week each, i will be spending this holiday alone -- couple that with the fact that i'm not feeling particularly motivated to visit the former (after all it was last christmas that my mother reminded me she would rather me be alone for the rest of my life than to have a same-gendered partner) and have broken up with the latter. none of this seems like the right ingredients for a particularly festive mood (try making a commercial of all that hallmark).

i was having an online chat with a friend yesterday who seemed unusually curious about my relationship with my extended family. i find such conversations to be somewhat difficult. i am not particularly close to my blood relations, and in a culture that so highly prizes "the family," admitting such seems akin to flag burning. but admit it i did and was admonished for my dereliction -- perhaps deservedly so, but it did little to improve my mood.  i've felt really odd all my life -- never quite in step with the world around me. such conversations tend to reinforce that feeling.

a strange irony is that i am writing this entry a mere two hours before i go to our office christmas luncheon. i'm even wearing my boyd's bear "have a holly jolly christmas" pin to at least appear to be in synch with the office merriment. i'm sure it will be a lovely affair, even if my heart isn't quite in it.

still, i'm recognizing that there are 19 shopping days left until the fateful day and that provides some time to get a bit of the holiday magic. after all, it wouldn't be christmas without a bit of optimism.