By the way, Gentle Reader, I am not going to feel sorry for myself. Yes, life has handed me some rather limited options, being queer, Christian, poor, ageing and having had to shuck off the stigma of a mental health diagnosis. I am also socially isolated, having no family, and often not knowing just how secure these friendships are. I am not the only person who lives with this. On the other hand, I am healthy, strong, and I would say brave, and creative, as well as intelligent. I am doing okay. It's the idiots that surround me, especially in church, that concern me, but then, I really need to know when to stop letting others be my concern. Perhaps as an act of therapeutic selfishness.
The challenge with living with limited options is how to maximize the little we have. I have been told that I am talented in this area. I mean, how many people in this country, earning less than twenty thousand a year can actually afford to travel every year, and for one or two months at a stretch? On the other hand, I pay scandalously low subsidized rent, don't drive or have a car, don't drink alcohol, or smoke or take drugs, and I don't go to movies or restaurants. I also don't have a smartphone or TV, just an old fashioned landline phone and a laptop computer. And I think that I have enough. I feel very rich. There must be something wrong with me.
I really cannot understand how the people in my church remain so hobbled by and addicted to their privilege. They are soft. And corrupt. Really corrupt, at least by the standards of the Gospels, but that tends to be the story with Anglicans. I feel sorry for them, but with a couple of exceptions (and these are really good people), it seems to be a waste of time trying to befriend any of them, so I have decided to not bother any more. I consider these people to be beyond hope. They will never really know the riches of Christ as long as they are holding onto their worldly wealth and privilege and what is really sad is that few of them seem to even appreciate how good they have it. Maybe that's why they become so elusive when I approach them in friendship. They don't want to know me, perhaps because they don't want to be reminded and challenged. I don't have to say anything or bat an eye. They are still going to feel judged around me. Well, too bad for them, I guess.
Of course I am going to go on attending this church, because I have come to love those people, though we have little in common. And I have made two good friendships there that I would like to nurture and sustain. Anybody who has the humility to want me for a friend must be either crazy, or incredibly good, perhaps both. To the others, I have a sense of pastoral concern, so I am not going to abandon them either. The clergy? I don't trust clergy. I know better than to trust Anglican clergy. I suspect that they might need me at least as much as I need them. They probably need me even more. But I have dropped all expectations towards those people. I am going to be away for the next two months. Then, when I'm back, well...time will tell, I guess.
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