protection focus

cannot speak the truth in love

it may hurt someone

So last night my brother in law posted something about covid - and how the church should be there to help people with their fear.  The post was a share from one of his pastor-friends, theologically incorrect, and pissed me off with the church-positive crap when we know it's an exclusionary, evil organization.

So I said something.  Not meanly, but thoughtfully, explaining why the theology was a bit off and reminding his brother that the hate the church spews is actually scarier than covid.  Bob's mom made a comment about Jesus commanding us to build his church on the rock - which to me means solid theology and understanding and to her means the first pope, Peter, which I think is beyond ludicrous.  I was not rude, btw, but really don't have any time for an organization that is essentially either a get rich quick scheme or haven for people who are incapable of working in the real world and who profit from hurting and excluding others.

I got a fun little lecture about not commenting on his family's walls and how they might take it personally.  But you know, I hate the organization and it's okay for his family to post stuff about something that has hurt me and friends, because I shouldn't take that personally.

So I essentially said that he's exactly why I hate people that attend church.  So worried about a fucking building and not at all about the people it has hurt, because their god is so big he can't be criticized.  Wipe out indigenous culture, enslave blacks, deny gay people rights, fight against women's reproductive rights.. but heaven forbid bob's wife say anything against it.

*eye roll*

 troubled, i listened

to words, thoughts, not sitting well

dreaming of escape

"If you could choose, " he started, out of the blue, as I puttered in the kitchen before starting work, "would you choose to live in the foothills or along the beach?"

And so started a difficult conversation between my husband and I, because he's desperate to move to Ecuador for winters and I am not even 50 yet and have several more years of work before retiring.

"But what if YOU only had 3 years to live?" he implored, "Wouldn't you be selfish, too?"

This is the anxiety I don't like living with.  Picturing living in a country where I don't speak the language, without my friends and support network, without the kids, just doing nothing but taking care of him and working remotely - likely constantly interrupted.  

 we look back, but not 

forward - would we change the past

if only we knew?

It's been a long week.  My friend's daughter died and this weekend was the celebration of life.  As I spent time looking at her photos and reflecting back on the last 3 decades - I wondered if we would choose to have kids, if we knew what was coming.

Does that sound awful?

Or would we do things differently - knowing now, years later, what moments defined them, and their relationships to us and to others?  Would I have stepped in, or not, knowing what I know now?

I think of one such incident.  It shaped us all - and there were warning signs along the way that I didn't know how to handle or identify, or wrote off either in ignorance or laziness.  I'm almost fifty now - and looking back over time, I see how incidents and moments bore out over time.  Some not nearly as tragic as I might have guessed.  Others, seemingly nothing at the time, causing ripples of trouble over numerous years.

As I sat in the garden yesterday and looked at my friend's daughter's fountain and wondered how a mother carries on after losing her child, I also wondered how we bare the weight of such responsibility.