Reaffirmation And Recovery

Today, the Day of Pentecost on the church calendar, I reaffirmed my commitment to Christ through my membership and participation in the Anglican Church of Canada and through the agency of our Bishop Melissa Skelton.  There has been, I believe, a silent build up to this moment, played out over the past year.  As I mentioned to a few at church today this is rather like a dark shadow being lifted from me.

My history with the Anglican Church has not been an easy one.  I have been through five parishes in thirty-three years and only this year that I have been where I am now at St. Anselm's do I feel that I am in a healthy, supportive and nurturing environment. 

I was first confirmed in 1982 under duress from a very traditional and conservative rector of a very traditional and conservative parish.  Not a great beginning.  I was considered too charismatic and evangelical by many of the people there and I also in my youthful zeal had an unfortunate tendency of speaking my mind rather often. 

A build up of miscommunications resulted and I soon discovered how cruel, unforgiving and ruthless many so-called Christians could be.  A particularly corrupt clergyman, who since was basically run out of the priesthood given some of his own egregious behaviour, still succeeded in turning many people against me and this is what triggered the deterioration of my mental health in 1997, culminating for me in a period of homelessness and extended underemployment and extreme poverty. 

There is nothing like being betrayed and experiencing the destruction of your mental and emotional wellbeing by those who are supposedly there as Christ's representatives.  It is one of the cruelest ironies that can ever befall one.  Or, we could say, three hundred thousand burned heretics and witches can't be totally wrong.

The bad relations, poor communications and mistreatment snowballed and followed me in each parish I moved to.  I appeared to be living under a curse, one that lasted for thirteen years.  To this day I am also certain that there were also individuals implicated in the black arts also trying to destroy me during that time, in retaliation for some of the places that ministry and outreach had been taking me.

In the past ten years I have been enjoying a tremendous trajectory of healing and restoration in my life.  In the middle of the night, last night, I was awake and praying for forgiveness for all those who had hurt me, naming each by name.

I believe that a process has been completed.  I also wonder if the breakdown in my physical health early this month might have been partly due to the accumulated stress over the years.

Still, as I am starting anew, I am also very vulnerable right now, and from all of you who read this I am soliciting your prayers, your friendship and support.  I still might need to be protected from myself given some of my outspoken tendencies so I am asking all of you to please watch me.  As many of you know I am also very alone in the world, without any living family still interested in me.  I cannot realistically expect the church to become my family but I do need to know that this time I will not be abandoned or betrayed by Christ's Body.

Thank you.