Being off from work has never been easy for me. It takes three days just to relax, thus why a usual weekend never hits this boundary. Usually on day three or four, I smack flat into a wall of “What am I good for other than work?” This is compounded by an absurdly organized house which is simply a byproduct of not having lived here very long and moving everything into the house in an orderly, Martha Stewartesque manner. This tidiness doesn’t offer any remedy for the “organize when your anxious” syndrome. Yesterday felt like a convergence of things cosmic and grander than my brain can fathom. This is the 10 year anniversary of our trip to Rome, a pilgrimage for Easter and the chronological marker for when so many things went sideways. Life offers forks in the road. Sometimes those forks present as catastrophe, like Hurricane Andrew. Sometimes they are a trip to the birthplace of my faith and the profoundness of teleological thoughts.We face the forked road and (should) ask, “Now what?” or “Who am I?” This week also marks the ground breaking of my house building. The week will culminate with Easter and after many many months of discernment, I have decided to return to church. I miss the Mass. I miss the praise and worship and I have allowed the barbs and slings of a few stingy hearted and judging people rob me from practicing my faith. In that time, though, my faith in God has grown and gotten stronger. I hear His voice far easier than ever before. I think its because I have learned to care about what He wants from me and less about the gossiping among my once so-called friends. I want church because I want to sing His name and praise him and bring my petitions and lamentations. The church should be more welcoming. When week after week, the closing prayers were to pray for “FAMILIES” and “Married people”, it feels like a shunning. They ask “all the married couples to stand for a special blessing”…..and all of us now unmarried people who still share children together sit and get silently shamed. How about asking all the divorced couples who are raising children to stand and ask the congregation to pray for them? Sure, we want to still married folks to keep God close and strengthen their bonds but how about a group prayer for those among us struggling with divorce and co-parenting. We all still love our children and our kids need to not sit beside one parent and watch all the “married couples” stand and get blessed. Anyways, I get diverted. The Church is a bit short-sighted and insensitive to the realities of modern life. It isn’t The Church I miss. It is the Mass.
So on this long week off, with no apparent plans of agenda, I shall take practice tests for my board recertifications, work around the house and in the yard, listen for the thread of my newest novel and return to Mass.