This is really a postmortem about my time in Colombia and in Costa Rica, as opposed to this pandemic which, unfortunately is still unfolding, Gentle Reader. I think that what has really made a difference in my life since returning to Vancouver is the way my life was torn open when I was in Colombia. I had an interesting phone chat and meeting with a supervisor, who has also become a friend, about this. He suggested, wisely I think, that by putting myself in a new and unfamiliar place I was making myself vulnerable to change and opening to becoming more flexible and adjusting to the new and the unknown. Or something like that.
I am remembering what one presenter on the Ideas program (radio for the mind) on CBC said recently, about the importance of vulnerability. That vulnerability is not weakness, but strength. We don't really begin to grow or change until we make ourselves vulnerable. For several weeks following my time in Colombia I was quite fixated on the events and the persons there who helped me become vulnerable. The emotions were very powerful. But now I am in a different place and in a different time. I am home again, re-established in my home and community, and no longer at the mercy of events or of well-meaning friends and hosts. And I am in a very different era, as are all of us, coping with this pandemic.
I still feel half my chronological age, though I am quite certain that I still don't look a year less than my 64 years. When we are younger we are usually more flexible and more adaptable to change. It is the authentic fountain of youth! Now, what is this going to mean for the coming days, weeks, months? My future still feels much like a crapshoot. I am still disgusted with my church, and if I do return once the restrictions are lifted, I shall be attending only out of the very barest sense of charity and civility, plus the desire to see certain individuals I have become fond of, but certainly not the priest, who I have come to view as a complete write-off, she has proven to be indifferent and untrustworthy, refuses to meet with me when I was going through some issues about the church that I was hoping I could talk with her about, but has shown no interest in letting me debrief with her, and has so clearly defaulted on her pastoral obligations, and I likely will not be receiving from her the sacraments, nor will I be available to exchange the peace with her, unless she makes some sincere effort towards reconciliation with me, so that could also complicate things somewhat.
Fortunately, she is temporary, and eventually we will have a full time rector.
While on that subject, it does concern me that my church even exists, given how evidently useless this place appears to be as a witness and presence of Christ among us. Yes, people there are very nice and very friendly, but for most of them, their Christianity does not appear to extend beyond the precincts of the building itself. There are some who are not like that, and I do have the privilege of their friendship, as they have the privilege of mine. But one of them even admitted that she does not appear to have what would be a personal relationship with God, and this appears to be the case with a lot of people in the parish. In other words, they are typical Anglicans. No devotional prayer life or scripture readings throughout the week, on their own, and so completely dependent on the church service and the priest for their spiritual nourishment. Which, of course, keeps Anglican clergy employed and remunerated.
Pathetic.
I have also noted that clergy appear to occupy two distinct camps about this. Some actually want parishioners to cultivate a personal relationship with Christ, no matter how distastefully evangelical that might sound to some ears. Others would prefer to maintain their own hegemony of power and influence, by insisting that it is all going to come from the actual eucharist itself, and that anything individual with God is to be frowned upon, since they want us to be in a perpetual state of need and codempendancy towards their ministries, services and sermons, so that we will want to keep coming back for more. And this will also keep their paycheques coming.
Full disclosure here: I have a relationship with God. I read the scriptures and pray privately every single day. I feel nourished and sustained by this and the presence of the Holy Spirit for me is a constant reality I do not need church, neither do I really get a lot out of going. When I was in Colombia with my friend (not a professed Christian) who hosted me, and meeting people who were really needy and downtrodden on the streets of Madrid Cundinamarca, Bogotá and Medellín, Christ felt infinitely closer and more present to me than he ever has in a church service full of mostly white middle class Anglicans whose Christianity seldom extends much further.
I will probably still go back, if on a limited basis. I don't want people to feel abandoned, you know, and I would like to continue to nurture some friendships there. But Anglicanas really have to radicaly change in regards to their own relationship to God if we don't want to die out altogether. And even if we do disappear, who would even bother to notice, or care?
Repentance must begin in the House of God!
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