Uplifting Sunday

I was pretty cynical about life in a Christian country this past week. And my face looked it. After all,  I had read Sam Harris' short book Letter to a Christian Nation and had waited for some leaders to step up and tell all of the newscasters and bloggers to just stfu about a pastor in Florida with a flock of 50 wanting to burn Korans.  I wished for leaders to do likewise with the outraged Christians in the US jerking chains/getting their chains jerked about Muslims and a planned mosque in New York.  

I had a good week at work, a successful one, I saw my son Scott that I have missed a lot and I was delighted!! But the whole atmosphere of intolerance and fear on the internet, in the news and on the radio revolving around 9/11 had added to my cynicism. And there is no way I'm going to cut myself off from the media.  We're heading for fascism and fundamentalist Christianity and Islam are dragging us all there..day by day, little by little. 


My face was heavily lined with the old language of something I could not verbalize.



So when I went to church on my own this morning, I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was and am rather hypocritical about attending service while being convinced (last week I had an epiphany...another story) that the Old Testament is not godly at all. I walk my way through the self imposed hypocritical cynicism by telling myself that my Pastor is someone I admire, and that even though I deny the Old Testament's standing as god's word, at least I still lean toward the New Testament as a good effort on the part of many good people to sell us on and tell us about a really good man that preached love and humility. So for books, I'm on board with 50% and for pastors, I have one of the best. 

Pastor Diane verbalized masterfully from the pulpit what my heart needed her to say as the spiritual leader of our congregation. She too was "sickened" by the attention given to the pastor in Florida and by the phony outrage surrounding the mosque in New York, both of these issues being whipped into a frenzy by politicians and the media. Her sermon and her messages soothed me, just as a surprise visit from my son Scott this past three days did. I was happy I went to service, and buoyed psychologically and spiritually by Diane's' sermon. So I ain't giving up just yet on Christ's message. 

Something else I took home with me from this morning's sermon was Diane's selected excerpt from Katherine Rich's Dreaming in Hindi.  It pointed out that our faces seem to change visibly when we learn a new language. Ms Rich had looked in a mirror while she was in India learning Hindi, and didn't recognize the woman looking back at her.  It's a physiological change that is true. (I noticed that when I learned French. I looked far more sophisticated :-) )   Serendipitously a friend of mine had been looking at her face in the mirror yesterday and had the same feeling of "just who is this woman staring back at me". So I'm all "what the hell I'll look too". 

You know what? Maybe were are learning a new language. Diane suggested it is the "Language of Christianity". Annie could be learning a new language?  and me? I'm relearning the language of acceptance which is a real bitch. I do look a hell of a lot better this afternoon though. Thanks Diane, Scott, Emma and Annie.

And it is a nice, clear day here in Oregon