November 29, 1998

Soup and Work

We spent most of Sunday just hanging around. It was John's birthday, but there was a soup and bread dinner at the church to get introduced to the new pastor. So we couldn't go out for dinner, and the dinner the night before had been fun and interesting enough.

Some of the morning was just my facing the fact that I didn't really want anything to do with the church anymore, but that my sense of fair play said that I really needed to give things a chance. But then sometimes I don't know if giving things a chance, yet again, is right for *me*. Cried some, thought some, and laid it all aside again. I'd face some of it tonight.

Mostly just football, reading, and I did a bit of watercoloring of old pictures and a few new thoughts. It's been a while since I've painted, and it was good to get that feeling back, and watch the painting come into shape and work out with how vague the colors can be with water colors. The reflections of mountains in lakes looked really good in that medium. I read bits of Bujold and finally pulled out Komarr to read as I've been saving it to enjoy. I only read a bit and savored it happily.

I should probably do some calligraphy again. Or knitting/spinning.

Odd to realize that I could easily fill in my Sundays with such delights rather than battling my reluctance to go to church. I anticipated bad things for the evening; but it turned out okay. Good, even. Companionship, good food, and plenty of people to work with, talk with and who were willing to be positive in getting things put back together and working again.

I'll admit that it helped being given really yummy soup, a salmon chowder that was smooth and creamy and rich and just the right kinds of crunchy with fresh corn, celery and the like. Good, fresh bread and eating with people seems to do something for me. Maybe it's ages old, deep conditioning, that the people that eat with you must be trustable. In some ways.

There wasn't any kind of the emotional abuse I'd been associating with the church lately, which was good. And I worked with John over the bags of food that we give to the local Feeding program, and what we had to do now that the membership has shrunk. So we took an inventory of everything that was there, marked down who was still there and who wasn't and basically got a good idea of what we had so that we could move on.

Seems an excellent metaphor for the whole situation.

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