On Doctors, reading and love

Hello all,

hope all is well,

with all of you.

It’s January.

January, the season,

where,

mom and I visit doctors,

well for the last few years it has been.

Not the best time to get around,

snow, slush and ice,

heavy coats and boots,

but, it is,

what it is.

Fingers crossed,

the cataract issue can be resolved,

relatively quickly.

So mom can get back to reading,

and doing things that interest her.

She is doing fine,

it’s been a year,

and things are actually better,

than what had been,

prognosticated,

by the doctors.

Still, both our lives,

have changed.

We are managing, quite well.

But, some days are harder than others.

Sigh.

I have been doing a ton of reading.

I have my bible study-theology class,

that requires lots of reading,

the hebrew bible(old testament),

one or two books of the bible a week,

this week Amos and Hosea for example,

Most weeks we have two chapters,

in our textbook to read as well,

the textbook is,

an advanced undergraduate level text,

so, not light,

but neither is the subject.

Theology is a complex subject.

I am also doing some side reading,

in the theology field,

in the hope of discerning,

my calling.

I realize that might sound,

wackadoodle to some of you,

oh well,

it’s my life and my faith.

I also participate in,

Supper Club.

Supper Club is a unique form of worship.

We meet early evening,

once a month.

We have wine, chat,

share Supper,

and have some form of worship and discussion,

it’s wonderful,

lots of the participants,

are people who aren’t regular churchgoers,

but, want some God and worship in their lives.

An intelligent, caring, open minded bunch of people.

This year we are reading an erudite,

yet, accesible book.

Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking On Water and Loving The Bible Again

Just as an aside, I would encourage those of you, who are seeking, to attend an Alpha group, or a Supper(Dinner) Club near you, you just might find what you are looking for, and if you don’t, you have a nice dinner in pleasant company, sure beats loneliness- IMHO.

My new church has lots of social stuff,

lots of it appeals to mom and I.

There are community lunches,

there are dinners,

usually one a month.

They are well attended and reasonably priced,

lots of work behind the scenes makes all this possible, volunteers the backbone of any church

My mom enjoys the dinners and lunches,

lots of really nice people,

many of whom belong to her generation.

Last Saturday,

we attended the roast beef dinner,

it was an anniversary dinner,

our church is the result of the unification,

of three parishes.

The fomer priests,

(Anglicans like Catholics use the term priest),

the bishop and many people ,

from other parishes in and around our neighbourhood,

were in attendance.

Mom and I sat with some lovely people,

who I go to church with and,

people I didn’t know.

For those of you who have never met me, I am a friendly type, I talk to people, I introduce myself, I laugh loudly, I like people and as a rule, they like me.

I sat next to this older lady,

who smiled and announced that the next day was,

her birthday!

I, of course, wished her happy birthday,

and we started to chat,

after a few minutes,

it became clear to me,

that she was a little confused,

she had memory issues,

no matter, I made small talk,

and answered,

what turned out to be the same questions,

quite a few times.

We all had wine,

ate our roast beef dinner,

and then there were a few speeches.

At one point, this lady,

leans over to me and says,

‘That priest is married to a guy you know?’

So I give her a beaming smile and say,

‘oh yes, he sure is’

She says ‘and you like him, they like him here?’

So I say ‘oh yes, he is well liked and respected here’

but, he’s married to a guy, says she.

I nod and talk to someone else.

A few minutes later,

she says the same thing,

I tell her we are Anglicans,

lots gay people in our church,

she scowls a little.

I keep smiling ,

Let me say this,

this woman was close to ninety,

it was an anniversary dinner,

I didn’t want to paricipate in a debate,

it was neither the time, nor the place,

plus, it would not have changed a thing.

I smiled talked to mom and others.

The third time, she said the same thing,

I looked at her smiled and said,

‘love is love’,

she said to me, ‘I would rather do without’.

This struck me as so,

sad.

First of all, she was confusing love and sex,

and secondly, she was cutting herself off,

from potential friendships and fellowship,

she was also being rude to people ,

who had never done a thing to her.

It also struck me as so clueless on her part,

here I was, butchy me, sitting next to her,

and it never occured to her,

that perhaps I was gay.

You know, this happens,

this sort of thing,

and not only at church events,

rarely at church events, in fact,

but that is a topic for another time.

Be well you all,

later girls,

BB