Diane...calling Diane...Get your head out of your...way

OK. I admit I am going out on a limb here talking about "hearing a voice" that is telling me where to go to church but what the heck. It will not be the first time that people have questioned me and surely will not be the last.

So this is what happened today.

Its Sunday...that most troubling of days for me since last October. Now in the last couple months I have made some half hearted attempts to find a community to worship with...a place to go and heal I have found some good people along the way but my sense of call within the community has not been satisfied. My sense of call has remained in limbo. Now this may seem strange since I run The House of Concern...a food pantry, close closet and general referral agency... but it hasn't been the same for me since my derailment. I think that is a good word..derailment... As a train on a track, when the derailment happened..I got woefully off course in all things and with many people and that includes my job. For the first time in almost three years..it became a job. it was no longer part of a call it was a job.

So part of my Lenten discipline was for me to let go of the anger and the sadness that has taken over in my life.

I realised to do that I needed to go to churches where I have been and where I was part of community. That worked last week but this week I felt myself wavering. I was going to head to Trinity today but could not get up the energy. I lay in bed this morning reading an email from the good Rev Dr. Tembeckjan and read her sermon from last week and it was good and it got me thinking and I thought maybe I just need to head to Camillus to hear her but that did not seem right.

So I decided not to decide! I mean that in itself is a decision.

I got myself ready to work out at the YMCA and went to do a cardio/strength training full out workout. So I am working along and working up a sweat and I keep hearing this nagging voice in my head... which is saying go to that church on Grant Avenue up by the movie theater. It was just that plain. Go Go Go.

I kept thinking this is crazy i do not know what time services are... it is already 10:00 and I am sweating and in sweat pants and haven't washed my hair since Wednesday and I am wearing my House Of Concern hoodie and have no make up on and I do not even have any money for the collection plate.

So I finished up. I got in my car intended to head home and next thing i know i am on Grant Ave and I think I will drive up and look and see what time the service is and maybe i will go another time. So I drive up... see lots of cars and think OK it has started and i am not going in and then i see a couple walking in and I drive by the front slowly and see a big sign that says"Come as you are".

Okay I get it.

So I park and in I go... met by a very nice woman who gave me a gift bag and found me a seat. There were people singing...some of that Praise modern singing that i am less than impressed with but they were doing it with gusto and I do like that and the band was good. The sound system was good and despite my clothes I did not feel all that out of place. So I am checking the place out and I think to myself If God wanted me here and I believe he did..there must be something I am supposed to get from this.

So the first reader comes up and he reads" There are many kinds of gifts" And I thought yes, yes there is.

Then we were on to the video and it is this man from Syracuse and they are ending a series on exercising your spiritual muscles.

This week was about service and how we serve and who chooses us to service.

He talked about being chosen by God to serve. That we are all chosen to serve by God. Chosen by God. Picked by God.

I keep being derailed because I forget who chose me. I am only derailed from the Episcopal church... i am not derailed from service. I am not derailed from worship. I am not even derailed from community unless I choose to be.
God has picked me as he picks us all.

We get to come as we are. Stinky, unwashed hair, sweats, it is to follow him...as we are. He makes no conditions for me that I am unable to follow. He does not care if i am a deacon in the Episcopal Church..it will not make him love me more... or less.

He does care if I let myself get derailed. That is not serving and that is not following.

That is my ego getting in the way of Gods bidding.

So will I go back next week..perhaps..I might even clean up a bit. I do know that if God is talking I am listening and I am following.

Amen

Breesus... a savior????

Now I am not a huge football fan. I am not a huge fan of any professional sport. Too much money. Too much adulation, too much focus on a SPORT. A GAME.

I watched the Superbowl more or less. Dozed some, read my book, cut out coupons, you get the idea... not real into it. And I would not have given it much of a thought except for the AOL headline about Drew Brees... Breesus being a new Savior. Really???

That just seems to be a bit of overkill.

It occurs to me that one of the problems that we as a society have is that we place so much emphasis on entertainment, things that are fun, personalities,we treat it as not just important in our life but actually imperative.

Now I get it is really big business for some but for the average person ...deep breathe...it is merely a game, a movie, a TV show, a personality,it is not real to our life except for the entertainment value.

It is not great for the focus of our adulation either. Take Drew Brees...That poor guy has to live up to a flippin lot now. He might want to call Tiger Woods, or Charlie Sheen, John Edwards, or channel Micheal Jackson. Once you have been labeled a savior the fall will be great. Not saying this guy will have all these problems but it is not looking good for him.

I mean if you take someone and tell them you are great, you are the best,we love you, have this, have that, take what you want... we love you. Eventually they have got to start believing their own publicity. They start behaving special.

Then we all get mad at them until they go to rehab, sex rehab, drug rehab, some rehab, and then they are sorry, and then maybe we forgive them...if they still have the goods, and if they can sound a great deal like a repentant victim. They have to repent..every time.

See I look at the past couple years and it has been one celebrity/sports figure/ politician after another..going to sex rehab, falling down in our eyes.

In our eyes.

We go from worshippers to judges and we decide if they should they be forgiven.

That is frankly just f---ked up!

Now call me crazy..it has been said before... but who the heck are we to get to decide anything?

Now I can decide to not watch 2 and 1/2 men anymore because Charlie seems like a creep but that is really the only judging I should be doing.

And I probably shouldn't call him a creep but..I did.

That is really all the judge I need to be. It is not up to me. What happens to him is up to him and God. Not my business.

Then there is Tiger Woods... talk about a fall. DAMN!

Now what made that so hard to take for so many and such an interesting story is that he was supposed to be so squeaky clean. Now turns out he had feet of clay. He was human and life is hard even for a multi millionaire who is banging so many women. No one knew. Well maybe the inner circle but no one even hinted at his activities.

I would take an aside here and posit that many golfers may try to emulate him in hopes that is what made him so great and to that i would say" do not try this at home".

So Tiger is a sex addict.

I would think with all of them out there it must be one of the fields that college grads may want to consider when they are looking for careers that will be profitable in the future.

I think Tiger is just spoiled. He was told he was great,, he was told he was invincible and he was told take what you want and he did. He acted like a child with no manners because we, as the public..let him. Until he got caught and did not live up to his squeaky clean image that we all made for him. Then we were outraged.

So, lets right now do a favor for Drew Brees. Lets not call him a savior. Call him a great football player who helped to bring a win to a losing team and some happiness to a place that has has had huge loss and tragedy. That is pretty good. Let him be thrilled with his win and his family and let him continue with his humanitarian works.

Lets not set him up. Lets not make him a God and lets all of us refrain from playing God ourselves.

Oh and if you need a savior there is one I can point you to. He has been around a long time and so far so good...