My soul is screaming...

I believe very firmly in gender roles, rites of passages, tradition. I believe very firmly in what should be. I am an idealist. Today this has caused me overwhelming and immense pain. Pain I haven't felt since I was a teenager.

I try extremely hard to put aside those things that classically separate people from each other (age, religion, sexuality, education, etc.) I like people. I like knowing them. I like challenging myself by allowing them to know me. I absolute hate when that goes badly.

I went to dinner with a 75 year old man tonight. I thought I was reaching out, being friends. I should be safe. I should be okay with a man like that. I shouldn't have to guard myself. I am so angry that I can't trust people. I wait and I wait for a person I can trust. I am afraid I am going to become unintelligible right now. That these words will cease to make sense.

Where is my ability to be a person? Where is the justice? Where is the reciprocation? Please... world... let me love you without you making that love dirty.

Married Priests

Celibacy may very well be one of my favorite things. Granted, I don't believe it is for me, but I find it more than appealing and I have the utmost respect for those who have committed their lives to it.

On that note, I also greatly desire freedom for the Catholic Priesthood, that they may have the choice to celebrate the Sacrament of Marriage. There is a very small population of married priests in our world, for two reasons: 1, they belong to the Eastern Catholic Church, which although under the Pope, holds to many of the Eastern Orthodox traditions, including marriage in the Priesthood; or 2, because they converted to Catholicism after serving as the Pastor of another denomination, and were married before their conversion. The second is the exception and not the rule. This week, the Archdiocese of Seattle welcomed its first married Priest. The man was a Lutheran convert who was "okay'd" by the Pope to serve in the full capacity of Roman Catholic Priest.

I go back and forth on the issue of marriage in the Priesthood. As a Protestant who is confirmed as Catholic, I have seen the beauty of a man devoted only to the Church in the Pulpit, and then in the same day, a married man devoted to both Church and family in the same position. I don't know the answer. I fear that allowing marriage will mean that all of our priests give up the beauty and dedication of Celibacy and the practice will be lost forever. However, freedom to marry and still serve the Church in such a capacity seems beneficial to the entirety of the world congregation.

Either way, I am happy to know that our Diocese has a new priest, one so dedicated to the reunification of the denominations. These are his words..."It has been especially gratifying to be received by people who are coming from very different theological perspectives," he said. "I just rejoice in the gathering for Eucharist with this incredible diversity of people. ... "

Bavarian Sugar cookies

"Sometimes, when we lose ourselves in fear and despair, in routine and constancy, in hopelessness and tragedy, we can thank God for Bavarian sugar cookies. And, fortunately, when there aren't any cookies, we can still find reassurance in a familiar hand on our skin, or a kind and loving gesture, or subtle encouragement, or a loving embrace, or an offer of comfort, not to mention hospital gurneys and nose plugs, an uneaten Danish, soft-spoken secrets, and Fender Stratocasters, and maybe the occasional piece of fiction. And we must remember that all these things, the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties, which we assume only accessorize our days, are effective for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives. I know the idea seems strange, but I also know that it just so happens to be true." - Character Kay Eifel played by Emma Thompson, Stranger than Fiction.

I have found something out: I have got to stop living for what I am going to do tomorrow. I am making a complete waste out of today. This is my life now. My life now is not what comes before what I do tomorrow. I do not want to live because of determination. I want to settle into comfort in this world, in this life, in this moment... even though these things are increasingly uncomfortable. This life is a lover of mine. Even though we are fighting right now, and becoming disillusioned, even though my honeymoon with me is over, this committed, known, welcome familiarity of me is a journey I am happy to take.

a foggy road

Tonight (this morning) I was driving home in the fog. My windows were frosty and I could only see out the front. The fog was so thick, I couldn't see more than 10 feet in front me. I knew my way, I wasn't scared. But I was alone. There wasn't one car, not one, driving along that road with me. Worse, there was no warm body in my car, sitting with me, keeping me company. I saw the other headlights, going in the other direction, back the way from which I had come. Many of them, together, lighting a way in the fog, in the dark. I could see the green lights before I knew there was an intersection, telling me to continue on. I could feel the bumps when I was drifting unknowingly into another lane. The street lights lit the fog, making it seem almost daylight, but I knew the darkness hung behind those well light and low hanging clouds. The fog thickened. My heart did not race, my adrenaline did not speed up. There was no thrill, no fear, no anticipation. I was unseen, unseeable, unseeing. I came out of the fog and could finally see the road in front of me, but it was a road I knew and I didn't want to go where it was headed. I had to drive it though, because at the end was the resting place necessitated by tomorrow's drive. Tomorrow's drive would be much the same as today's. Maybe not seeing the road was easier. The fog may lift, the road still only heads in one direction for me. I can't turn this car around and drive with those headed back that way. I stopped the car. I turned off the engine. Two tears fell. Did I shed those tears or was that someone else? I locked the car, headed into the house, and now I wonder, will I ever be more than that lone pair of unidentifiable headlights headed in the opposite direction? Will I ever be seen...