The blog begins...again

Maybe it is ridiculous, but I suddenly felt like I wanted to talk about the weirdness. I haven't posted here in two years. I probably won't post regularly because I tend to like paper and pencil for a diary. And I am not going to be doing any print worthy essays. But what the hell. Here it is.

I have left the UU church after a lifetime of membership. I was actually born and raised a UU until I was around 7... at which point we moved and I became 'unchurched'. I didn't get 'churched' again until DH and I lived in Kansas City briefly. All Souls was the UU church there. There was this great minister named Judith Walker Riggs. She used to make me cry with her sermons. Especially the ones that talked about feeling alienated and alone. (I WAS alienated and alone... except for DH, Nguyen. Kansas City was, for me, an emotional wasteland.)

Fast forward to Bell Street Chapel and my baptism, and feeling at home for the first time in a church. And now, after almost 4 years of membership there... two as a card carrying Jesus Freak, I am leaving. Have left. Sat down with my DMin (dear Minister) and gave him the straight skinny that I couldn't be a christian in a non-christian church anymore.

I wanted to write a letter to the whole congregation and print it in the newsletter, but that was nixed by the board, so I just called people and told them. No one was surprised. Suprisingly. I guess my obsession with all things Nazorean was the dead giveaway. Lots of tears. I felt like my best friend had died and my dog ran away. I felt sick to my stomach for days. I was grief stricken really. And now I am not. I don't know why. In some ways, it doesn't make any sense, since I am still flapping in the religious breeze like a pair of granny drawers on a clothesline. I have no home and real leads yet. But somehow, I guess the fact that I have left Egypt (or West Broadway) is ok and I am heading towards the desert with faith. And friends. And a Priest who has helped me so much over the last couple of years and has been willing to walk this path with me even in the midst of his own health crisis. (God Bless you Fr. P.)

I got the monthly newsletter from Bell Street and it didn't have my letter.

After only a week or so, I was surprised to realize that Bell Street didn't feel like home anymore.