God’s Little Creature

Moose is gone.

I took him to the vet. It was really difficult. He’s been with me for so, so long and through so many seasons of life.

I went to PACC (Pima Animal Care Center) way back in 2015. I was looking for a medium-sized female with short hair. Instead, I came home with a very small male.

Moose shared a cage with a little white fluffy dog (sign said adoption pending for his collie). Moose was very polite to me when I approached his cage. Also, he had been at PACC previously and he wasn’t a puppy. He was already 5 years old, making him less likely to get adopted. I didn’t get the whole story, but the people who had named him Chico adopted him from PACC and then later returned him. They noted that he liked his daily walk, but was otherwise mostly a couch potato.

And, you know, there was a volunteer watching me as I walked around the kennels.

It’s really quite overwhelming. At first, I was in this small ish room where Moose was housed, and I kind of felt like, really? There are only 20 ish dogs here and all of them were little. It took me a while to find the door to the rest of the facility. It was actually enormous. Like, this was the smallest room out of, I don’t know, 20 rooms. With hundreds of dogs and cats… everywhere.

So, I got overwhelmed pretty quickly and went back to the first room to catch my breath.

And Moose greeted me again, and the volunteer was really encouraging him and me to interact.

And… I took him home.

It seems like I would be the sort of person who is a planner, but I’m really not. I’m not Type A. I’m not, by nature, cautious with life decisions. I just do things, largely based on intuition.

So… I got Moose out to the car and didn’t have a car seat for him. I was used to my previous dog, Annabelle, who enjoyed riding in the passenger seat. Moose refused that. He kept climbing into my lap while I tried to drive.

Also, it was summer. In the desert. In VW Velma, who already did not have AC. So the windows were down, and there was this tiny dog refusing to leave my lap.

Steve and Lori came over the first day I had him, and he was such a scared little dude. Lori helped name him.

You see, Moose’s previous owners had named him Chico, which felt emasculating to me. I wanted to name him something very, very tough. Lori came up with Bruce and Moose. I think I chose Moose because there may have been a meathead character in Saved By the Bell (or some other show from that era) named Moose.

Moose was (mostly) pleasant around people and creatures. Every now and then, he might come unglued when a person picked him up. Dad used to do battle with him, because he would not simply allow a person to pick him up. If he wanted to be held by you, he tried to jump and time his jump to help you get him. The timing was sometimes very complicated and you sort of had to just catch him midair.

As I got to know Moose, I learned that he hated to bathe and loved avocados. He enjoyed a walk, and his shadow looked like that of a javelina. He loved to lounge, put his paws up by his eyes and nose, and he LOVED to burrow in to enclosed spaces.

For real, over the years, I found Moose in some of the oddest places: inside a jug that was way too tiny for him in my mom’s house, inside the dryer… Mostly, though, he loved to sleep in the laundry basket inside a closet.

Moose was the opposite of a social butterfly; didn’t make a lot of friends, but his truest bestie was Great Pyrenees Carson. I think they bonded because they were both stubborn old men.

There was a brief time when Moose cohabitated with a desert tortoise (maybe 2???? The photos do not appear to be of the same creature), but I don’t think their relationship was truly a friendship.

Moose always hated Christmas a lot, however, he was down for Halloween – at heart, more of a Narwhal than a reindeer…

He was quite the traveler – he flew on airplanes and rode in cars, all across the U.S. He was the greatest traveling companion a girl could have, including many, many trips to various mountains. Even though he wasn’t particularly athletic, he was down to go on a hike every now and then.

He loved to lounge and eat, you know, the finer things in life.

At first, he loved his Thea, but he did not appreciate it when she got bigger than he was. They were partners in crime for a time, and liked to team up against a ball that lights up and moves on its own.

He deeply loved Jessie James, but she rarely allowed him close enough to her for photographs.

He tolerated the matching jammies I got him and the girls.

He survived the craziest thing ever by removing the lens of his own eye, when it was irritating him… and then, somehow, he did not get it infected.

And, you know, he’s been just unwilling to die. He was 16 years old, based upon the shelter’s estimate. He had a heart condition from 2019 on… He was supposed to be medicated for that, allergies, and pain for the last several years of his life, but he didn’t like taking his meds. And yet, he persevered without them. His kidneys were almost certainly failing for at least the last year. He’s had a couple of stomach things, including C-Diff in his old age.

He honestly lived a beautiful life. He saw me through teaching, hospice, law school, Covid, clerking, the Public Defender’s Office, and now the County Attorney’s Office. He has comforted me when I was sad, given me a reason to leave the house and go for a walk when I didn’t want to, and he asked very little in return- just that I let him have a bite of every avocado I ate and that I keep enough laundry in the basket for him to have some cushion as he slept.

It was, of course, a brutal decision to help him die when he clearly wasn’t going to make it easy on himself. I talked it through with Chat GPT, who was, oddly enough, very helpful. He taught me that there are various quality of life assessments that can help you process and make decisions. He talked me through Moose’s assessments 2x. The first time we did it, I felt confident it wasn’t time yet. Then, Moose declined and we did it again. It was time.

Ultimately, the thing that clarified it for me was when he stopped getting in and out of the laundry basket. And he threw up all of his ice cream. Food and a cozy spot to sleep were his two greatest pleasures in life. He didn’t lose his mobility, although he was a little wobbly at times. He slept a lot. I struggled to manage his pain without damaging his gut in the process. At times, he was agitated and would bump into walls.

The hardest part really was when, at the vet’s office, they had sedated him, I had cuddled him and was ready for him to go. They took him into the back to get a catheter going, but they couldn’t; his blood pressure was evidently crazy. They brought him back in and told me they’d have to do it intravenously. They shaved one of this back legs… couldn’t find a vein. Had to shave one of his front legs… found one, and did it.

I brought him home for Thea to sniff of him and do the doggie thing where they understand. And I buried him.

It was sad, but sweet. He was my stubborn, sweet boy. And he will be dearly missed. It’s amazing the ways these little creatures become a part of us.

I prayed for him a lot towards the end – prayed about his pain and suffering. I don’t think he ultimately suffered very much, perhaps because God answers prayers. But I also just asked God to take care of His little creature. Make sure Moose always knew and felt that he is loved. That he knew he had done right by me. He had been loyal and supportive and present for me when I needed him.

God’s little creature.

Mental Health Update

Switching jobs is the best thing I could possibly have done for myself. My current office isn’t perfect by any means, but my mental health was really, really suffering by the toxic workplace I have now left behind.

And, you know, I wish I could write about something other than my mental health, but I feel like I’ve got to go to war with it every day still.

I’ve made some additional changes that have helped. I’ve started walking Thea every morning before work. I’ve gotten back into exercise a little bit. There’s still a long way to go with that, but I’m making baby steps in the right direction. I’ve stopped having groceries delivered. I’m cooking more. I’ve found a church that I like and, although I’m certainly not attending every Sunday, I do feel like I’m committed to that one church.

There is a really big other thing that I hesitate to write here, but I feel like I need to do it.

I’ve really done my best to reestablish my relationship with my sister, but I am now realizing the negative effects that’s had on me and I’m taking a step back.

Part of what has been problematic is that my sister does not want me writing about her. So I did my best to stop doing that, but the impact has been a lot bigger than just not writing about her.

And, to clarify, it’s not that she doesn’t want me to write about her in a negative light. She doesn’t want me to write about her. Period. And it’s not just her. She doesn’t want me writing about my nieces or nephews. Really, I think she probably doesn’t want me to write anything about our parents or grandparents or extended family.

Several months ago, we had an important conversation. There was a conflict and I’m going to write about some of the details of it, because that conversation was really eye-opening for me.

During that conversation, my sister told me she doesn’t want me to talk about her, regardless of what’s being said, so it’s not simply that she doesn’t want things out on the internet. If people bring her up to me in conversation, she wants me to say something to the effect of, “I’m sorry. I can’t speak about my sister.” Even in casual conversations with my co-workers, if they ask me about my family, she does not want me to say ANYTHING about her.

So, getting back to the issue with the blog, I’ve really tried to comply with what she wanted and I tried to not write about her at all, or if I was writing about her, I would not identify the person as her, but label the person as a friend. But it’s really limited me and given me a certain amount of anxiety. Feeling the anxiety of, “What if I accidentally mention her?” has made it feel impossible to show up here with the openness and transparency that makes this blog what it is and it’s honestly tainted this space for me.

One of the taints is that it’s felt like the blog is less mine than it used to be. It’s something she has no right to control, but her angry reactions to my writing have needed to be avoided at all costs, so she somehow has gained a certain amount of control over the blog just because I don’t trust her not to go ape-shit if I accidentally mention her.

This blog, at times, has been my sanctuary from the storm. It’s a place where I process my life and try to better understand myself and the world around me. I recognize that my disclosures affect others, and I’ve tried not to be a complete jerk, but there really is no other medium that has done for me what blogging has done. Losing that left me without my sanctuary and without a release valve for the pressure of life. It also caged me a little bit – took away my freedom.

There is another harm that feels a little harder to explain. I’ve always tried to believe that the best way to live in this world is to be exactly the person I pretend to be and to avoid pretense. I try to show up and allow the people around me to see all of me, with nothing hidden. I tend to believe that if there is something I’d be tempted to hide, probably that thing is not a good thing to have in my life to begin with. Having to essentially hide everything related to my family makes me feel like there must be something wrong – something that’s not okay. Something that’s offensive or gross. Something that is such a deviation from the norm that it has to be locked away. Following that line of thinking down to its inevitable end, when I conform to my sister’s request that I not write about her or the family and not talk about her ever… I end up feeling like there are things deeply wrong with me, because there is so much that has to be hidden. It’s a warped psychology, I know, but that’s genuinely how I start to feel when I’m forced to censor myself.

One of the things my sister recently said that sort of knocked some sense into me was to bring up times that I’ve blogged about her in the past… like 10-15 years ago. And it just made me realize that no matter what I do, she is going to hold onto the perceived wrongs forever. When we were in our 20s and she was bringing up things from a year or two before, it wasn’t quite so clear to me that her grudges are so deeply held. Now that we’re in our 40s and she’s still bringing up the same perceived wrongs that she brought up 20 years ago, that’s pretty revealing. Clearly, it doesn’t matter if I sacrifice this outlet that helps me be healthier, that gives me a creative space, that brings me joy and connection… doesn’t matter. She is going to bring up this blog no matter what I do and she will try to use it against me until one of us dies.

If that’s the case, why on earth would I continue to sacrifice it?

There were several other major things she said during our conversation that I marinated on and they were just so, so toxic/controlling/gaslighty. I’m not trying to be petty by writing these things, but she honestly made me question things I should not have been questioning. She caused me to think I was to blame for things that are not my fault. It was really unhealthy.

At one point, my sister was saying really unkind and judgmental things about a person we both know. I tried to get her to stop by pointing out that I have a positive relationship with this person. She doubled down on complaining and insulting that person even more. I told her it puts me in a really awkward position when she says such negative things about him.

Her response was to blame me.

She said I should not have pointed out that I have a positive relationship with him and that if I say something like that, I should expect her to respond exactly the way she responded.

It honestly took me months to reflect on that and come to the conclusion that, no… me making a positive statement about someone does not force her to say negative things about him. It’s not my fault. She is responsible for her words. I am allowed to say positive things about people – that’s actually a very good thing for me to be doing and I should keep doing it.

There was also a moment when we were discussing forgiveness. She was angry with me over a text I sent that was not fowl, aggressive, or really very bad at all. It had a slight edge to it, because I was expressing irritation, but, really, that’s all. It was also based on a misunderstanding on my part; I didn’t have all of the facts when I sent the text.

Somehow, this text that I sent during work, between doing a lot of other things, while I was not really paying attention, completely blew up.

First, my sister told the whole family about it, including my nieces. I hate that she brought them into it. Kids should not be put in the middle of adult arguments. Not healthy.

Next, she didn’t approach me to discuss the text and a couple of weeks went by. I only realized she was pissed and giving me the cold shoulder when I called to try to sort out our holiday plans. I was at the grocery store and talking to her on the phone. I tried repeatedly to end the conversation, but no matter how many times I attempted to deescalate things, she was going to let me have it. She even criticized my attempts at deescalation and the way I was using active listening skills – she HATED when I paraphrased or reflected her words back to her. She complained when I summarized and tried to bring the conversation to an end. Legitimately, if you google active listening skill list, paraphrasing and summarizing are on every list that pops up.

After she and I hung up, I figured out that I had a misunderstanding about some facts, and I apologized. Same day as the phone call.

Still didn’t fix things.

A month or so went by, and I asked my sister to get coffee – always gotta have those conversations in a public place, because I know she’ll be quieter and better if other people are around.

During the conversation, she was sort of saying she forgave me for the text, but then continuing to bring it up and criticize me for it. She was doing the thing where you say, I forgive you, but…_________. I hate when people do that.

I started to say something like, “Well, we view forgiveness really differently, so maybe it’s unfair for me to have expectations about how we will move forward.” She and I have had the forgiveness conversation a lot of times. I’m very Calvinist in my belief that the core of Christianity is unmerited grace. She knows that I really, really prioritize the idea of letting things go and moving on, not holding grudges – it’s a core belief and a core value for me. I certainly struggle with it, but it’s really my most deeply held value.

Instead of letting me finish my sentence, she interrupted me, called me self-righteous, and lashed out, saying that I don’t move on from things as well as I think I do.

That was a huge wakeup call for me – I’m not even allowed to finish my sentence when I’m speaking about my most deeply-held belief? AND I’m called self-righteous because I prioritize unmerited grace?

My overall feeling after talking with her was there is absolutely no space for me to be myself in this relationship. I’m not permitted to talk about my core values. I’m not allowed to speak well of people she doesn’t like or has had a problem with. I’m not really allowed to even mention most of the people I’m closest with.

At one point, I actually said, “I’ve avoided talking about certain topics, because I didn’t believe there was room in our relationship for me to speak. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there is room for me to say things. I don’t know.”

And she changed subject.

After that conversation, it just very, very clear that there is not room for me to be myself AT All with my sister. It’s an unavoidable truth.

I’m somewhat grateful for how terrible that conversation was… because it revealed to me how much I have allowed her to limit who I am. I’ve hidden things about myself that I think are really beautiful, because she can’t see the beauty.

So, I think it’s been a really big and helpful step forward for me to stop trying to hold onto that relationship and return to being the best version of myself I can possibly be. She can take me or leave me, but I certainly can’t continue to abandon myself every time I’m in her presence.

Finally, I found myself a therapist. I’ve had two sessions, and it’s gone well so far. Last week, we did a lot of background stuff, so I didn’t feel super challenged; it was just making her aware of my job, family, habits, hobbies, social circle, etc… This week, however, was a bit of a punch in the gut.

I have convinced myself that my work-life balance is good. Also, I have believed that I have plenty of friends and hobbies. I told myself that I like being by myself.

Turns out, it’s pretty obvious that I’ve let me job consume my entire life.

I work and I come home. My weekends and evenings are about getting ready for the next day at work. I may not be working while I’m at home, but I’m thinking about work. I’m preparing to work. I spend almost zero time with people I know from anywhere except work and law school.

My therapist did this obnoxiously artful job of making me realize this major, major issue, without her actually confronting me with the issue. She just kept encouraging me to do things other than work. And I felt inexplicably closed off to that. Didn’t want to do it. Felt defensive about it, in fact. She was making perfectly reasonable suggestions, and I’m usually very coachable. Tell me to do a thing, and you should consider it done. But I did not want to do anything with other humans and it was hard for me that she kept nudging me to do things other than work.

It honestly hurts my feelings quite a lot to realize I’ve become a version of the lawyer stereotype. I work too many hours. I don’t have friends. I drink too much wine. I can’t talk about anything except the law.

I hate all of that for myself.

Also, my therapy homework for the week was to pay attention to my co-workers. See if they appear to have healthy lives. See if they are talking about alcohol. See if they are staying at work late. See if they have lives outside of the office.

And the thing is… they mostly are not well-balanced humans. I can’t remember if I’ve written about this, but I’ve moved into the Special Victims Unit at work, which means ultra-high stakes for a lot of my cases. Sex crimes. Child victims. Vulnerable adult victims. Really traumatic stuff. And A LOT of trials. I am in trial next week. I’m in a different trial the week after that. I’m in a week-long homicide investigation training the week after that. And I am the least-experienced attorney in the unit, so they are not giving me the most challenging cases or the hugest caseload. The attorneys I most admire in the unit… they live the job.

I don’t want to be only the job. I really don’t.

But I love, love, love being in trial and working with victims. It’s the greatest. It lights me up inside. And I have oh-so-very-much to learn right now. I’m still learning how to be a prosecutor. I’m still learning how to do trials. I have taken on so, so much.

But my therapist is right. It’s time for me to step out into the world and talk to non-lawyers about things other than the law.

So… next step, I’ve found a cooking class I may try to take.

Thanks for listening, interwebs. 🙂

Grandmothering One’s Self Out of Depression

I’ve begun referring to myself as “Child.” Only within my own mind, mind you. Never out loud.

I’m not sure when I started or why, but I think it’s been helpful.

Simple.

Will you please just take a shower, for me, Child? I know you don’t want to, but will you please just do it?

You can reach out to just one friend, Child. Just send one text. I’m sure they’d like to hear from you.

Slow down, Child! Make sure you taste your food/see that sunset/breathe/smell the rain.

The voice that calls me “Child” sounds like a patient grandmother talking to me. Sometimes, she calls me “My Child” or “My Love.”

Most of what I grandmother myself about is basic habits. My habits got really bad while I was depressed. It isn’t an exaggeration to say that I needed prompting to get myself to shower.

I was never not functional – never showed up to work without looking (mostly) professional. I’ve been a good lawyer.

But I have needed prompting to go to the grocery store – as opposed to ordering a weeks’ worth of delivery (Indian food, Mexican, pizza…)

I have needed prompting to get off the couch. Go for a run. Do some yoga. Walk your little dog. She can’t walk herself, Child.

Prompting to read, write, pray, journal, go to church.

Do yoga.

Do the dishes. Plan meals. Go to the grocery store. Peel sweet potatoes.

Ramen is okay, Love, every now and then, but it’s not proper for every meal, regardless of whether you put broccoli in it or not. You love food. You enjoy eating other things, if you’d just try. Cook a new recipe. Find a new recipe.

Try.

Try a new show on tv. Or a new movie. Go to a movie. Go to a coffee shop. A book shop. Go for a drive.

Plan a vacation. Just something in Arizona. Go somewhere new. You’ll have fun.

You love ComiCon. Buy tickets to ComiCon. Invite someone to go with you.

A quote from Les Miserables explains my depression quite well:

“One declines, descends, trickles away, even crumbles away, and yet is hardly conscious of it one’s self. It always ends, it is true, in an awakening, but the awakening is tardy. In the meantime, it seems as though we held ourselves neutral in the game which is going on between our happiness and our unhappiness. We are the stake, and we look on the game with indifference.”

Depression isn’t really sadness at all. Now that I’ve experienced it, it makes no sense to me when people talk about this or that being depressing. What they really mean is that this or that is sad… unless they mean it’s something that tends to make you feel as if nothing matters. As if we’re all headed nowhere in this life. We all live, breathe, eat, sleep, die. And really, as Captain Hook said, “Death is the only adventure.” So, we just need to wait it out. Just wait. That’s all.

I didn’t really have much insight into my depression for at least the first few years, and I think that’s because, depression is not unreasonable. It’s based on a few things that are very, very true. It just excludes a much vaster collection of things that are also true. It excludes all of the positive truths. Or, perhaps it minimizes them.

Depression never told me that kindness didn’t exist. It just told me that it ultimately doesn’t lead anywhere. Sure, be kind to others. Certainly don’t be unkind to others. But, in the end, the bigger picture is so broad and wide that kindnesses just blend into the dead end panorama.

Again, we turn to Les Miserables:

“Children accept joy and happiness instantly and familiarly, being themselves by nature joy and happiness.”

No need to go to war with joy, Child. You are, by nature, joy and happiness. That is true.

It’s going to monsoon today, Child. Look at the sky. Isn’t it beautiful? I know how much you love a desert storm. True.

It’s been quite a while since you’ve written, My Child. You’ve got the time for a blog post. Writing would do you some good.

Your feet have done well the past couple of weeks. Maybe you should go for a short run? Better get moving if you want to beat the storm.

I’ve had some great boons at work lately, one of which being a lateral move to the Special Victims Unit, which means that many of the victims in my cases are now children. In the few months since I made the shift, children have seemed more vulnerable and more beautiful to me. More noteworthy.

Really, life is best when its approached in the way of children. Basic. Hedonistic. Curious. Open. Accepting of joy. Used to being prompted by their grandmothers to do things.

There will be fireworks soon and your little dogs will be scared. They need you to keep them calm. Better get those dishes done soon, Child, so you can be fully present once the booms and bright twinkles consume the space around you.

As Far as the East from the West

I’ve been thinking a lot about forgiveness. I had a pretty unhealthy thing happen that effed with my head and I’m trying to put my heart right about it.

I grew up with a lot of unforgiveness around me. Minor infractions were blown out of proportion. They were treated the way I might expect it to be treated if I had tried to use heroin in the parking lot of a police substation. Unintentional slights were brought up in every argument for years and years and years. It was a constant, ongoing record of wrongs. It was, “You’re a bad Christian because you left your laundry in the dryer,” or, “I’ve bought everyone in the house a copy of this book since you had the audacity to touch my copy of it. Now no one has any reason to touch my book.”

So when I really started experiencing the gospel… not just knowing what it was, reading it, or being able to recite it… really experiencing what it feels like for my sins to be as far from me as the East is from the West… it truly pierced my heart. I felt and still feel an elegant pain when I think about it. It hurts to acknowledge the unmerited grace I have received and constantly need.

Since first feeling that pierced heart, I’ve tried to be really, really intentional about grace. There are a lot of aspects of Christian faith that seem fluid or flexible to me. Doctrines that I’m not sure about. Doubts that I have. Grace is not negotiable to me. It is the core of Christianity. It is the foundation. It is Christianity.

I’ve tried to become quicker and quicker each year to forgive. I want to let go of grudges. Forget wrongs. Move on, especially when I can see an eagerness or even just a slight desire for being at peace in the other person. I don’t think they need to apologize or take responsibility for anything. I think it’s right for me to just forgive them.

Years ago, I copied down a Paul Tripp quote that went something like, “No one gives grace better than someone who knows she needs it.”

I try really hard to know I need grace.

So, a few months back, I messed up and sent an unintentionally, but decidedly rude text. I talked to the recipient of the text, heard what they thought I had meant by the text, tried to convey what I actually had meant by it, and I apologized.

But this person just couldn’t seem to let it go. There was a period of this person not talking to me at all. I asked them to get coffee and we tried to hash it out.

I finally was like, “Hey, have you forgiven me for the text?’

There was a really long explanation of why the text would not be forgotten, but the person didn’t say whether I was forgiven or not.

I tried to express concern that I didn’t want the text to be brought up again and again in future and unrelated conflicts. I was hoping we could move on from it.

The other person repeated a bunch of things about the text not being forgotten.

I asked again if I was forgiven and was essentially told that I was forgiven, but the text wasn’t forgotten.

And it didn’t sit right with me. It just felt like, “Come on. It was a text – like, really? You’re threatening to remember a careless text I sent you? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

To be clear, the text definitely expressed annoyance at something I should not have been annoyed about and it included some things that I mentioned, but really should have fully explained. It was also based on something I thought was true that wasn’t true at all. It was a careless, but not malicious or threatening text, so I really didn’t understand how a Christian could possibly think the way to handle this was to tell me they intended to hold onto the text… keep it for later use.

I started trying to explain why I would hope that forgiveness meant something different than that…

And then the person interrupted me and accused of being self-righteous.

And… I don’t know.

I don’t want to be the jerk who just ignores it when someone criticizes me. Obviously, the context of the criticism matters. We were in the middle of an argument, so I have my doubts as to whether there was any good motive behind calling me self-righteous. It doesn’t seem like it was meant for my edification. It seems like it was probably said to stop me from explaining what I think the gospel is.

However, maybe I am self-righteous about what I believe grace is. I certainly don’t want to be self-righteous. Admittedly, I feel a lot of frustration and judgment at this thing where Christians think they are allowed to say they’re forgiving someone and then secretly (or, in this case, openly) hold onto anger and judgment. I’m obviously judging the anger and judgment…

Maybe it’s also a thing where I shouldn’t feel entitled to undiluted forgiveness? I’m the one who sent the rude text. Maybe it’s self-righteous not to focus on my wrong and let this person remember whatever the hell they want to remember?

It’s just, forgiveness, to me inherently cannot be “forgiving but not forgetting.” That kind of “forgiveness” feels counterfeit and dangerous to me… it feels like just enough of the gospel to inoculate a person from ever truly being pierced by it.

I stand by my belief that true forgiveness is as far as the east is from the west. I don’t know if I’m self-righteous about it and I guess I will marinate on that for a few years… But what is this life even about if not trying to be generous with offering grace to others… as if we know we, ourselves, need it?

The Church Miracle!

People have said frustrating things to me about my issues with the church. It’s been similar to the things people used to say to me about dating: “You’re being too picky.” “No church is perfect, so you have to accept some of the things you don’t like.” And, you know, they would give me that look… like they felt I was very misguided and were sorry for me – pitied me.

But, you know, I genuinely believe it’s right not to settle. Both in my searches for church and partner.

I’m sorry, but I was never going to be happy at a church that owns and uses a snow machine in the desert. I wasn’t going to fit anywhere that women only work in the nursery and answer the phones. I really don’t benefit from sermons about strengthening marriages, and, to be frank, I think those sermons do more harm than good, so let’s avoid those as much as possible. What’s really great is when sermons are about the Bible and Jesus. I don’t care all that much about the quality of a church’s music. It is quite important to me that my church care for the community in tangible ways. Thus, I kind of have to be somewhere that has vibrant ministries. And not just any sort of ministries… the sort that aren’t easy or sterile. I need to be at a church that’s willing to get its hands dirty.

Aren’t those fair things to want from the church?

I get the feeling most people’s expectations of the church are way too low. Perhaps they just want to have some polite friendships, hear a pleasant little sermon, sing songs, and be home in time for lunch. The end.

I don’t know… am I missing it? Isn’t the Church supposed to be more than that? Isn’t she supposed to be SO MUCH MORE?

Some time ago, Amy the Dentist told me about a church she and her husband were going to try out. My mom and I went there and we thought it was good. We didn’t immediately start going every weekend or anything, but we each sort of went sporadically and it grew on us.

It’s an Oro Valley church, which means a certain amount of affluence and age. Also, not a lot of ethnic diversity. Honestly, if you’d asked me if it was the sort of church I would grow to love based on that profile, I would have said a pretty confident “no.”

But… they’ve been working on starting up a ministry to help people leaving incarceration to transition back into the community. You know… giving them cell phones that connect to the internet. Practical things like that. Obviously, I really love this sort of ministry; it’s right up my alley.

Also… the sermons are, you know, based in the Bible. The only time I’ve heard the pastor switch translations was to read one specific passage out of the First Nations Translation because he thought it was beautiful. And, okay, my love language is books, I’m especially drawn to pastors who read and talk about books, which this pastor does. And… FIRST NATIONS TRANSLATION?! I didn’t honestly know that’s a thing, but I went out and bought one pretty soon after hearing Pastor Sam talk about it.

Also, he’s not the only preaching pastor. He definitely does the heavy lifting, but every-now-and-then, they have the other pastor preach, and SHE is great. That’s right, there’s a nice feminism thing happening. It’s not ostentatious feminism, which I can’t abide, but it’s an intelligent feminism, supported by the Bible. Sam points out things I never noticed in passages I’ve read a ton of times… about women in the Bible preaching. It’s so, so wonderful.

So… I’m pretty happy. I feel cautiously optimistic that God has placed me. I’m not joining a small group just yet, but I may attend some events in addition to the Sunday morning stuff, and we’ll see what happens. For now, I’m just glad I didn’t settle for the snow machine. 🙂