This is my fifth Sunday attending Mt. Soledad Presbyterian Church. I think I may have finally found a church home. Pastor John is most generous and brings examples from his life to his sermons. The music is a mix of new and old hymns, with the words displayed above the platform and the musicians, so everyone can sing along. I've also enjoyed the Pastor's Bible studies the last two sessions, which occur before the 10 am service. I've met some wonderful people, friendly, and eager to please, but nothing feels forced. There's a casualness that is refreshing; I don't feel like I have to be anyone than who I am.
I know that sounds a little odd, but in other churches I've attended there's been an expectation of conformity, almost ritual, and certainly unpleasant. Here I feel comfortable engaging members in conversation about their experiences with the church and their daily lives. But I also want to serve. Last Sunday, a member spilled a little root beer on the floor (appropriately, for Father's Day, the brand "Dad's Root Beer) and I went to retrieve some paper towels, dry and wet, to take care of any stickiness on the floor. This morning one of the attendees at the study was cold, so I took out my flannel shirt from my pack and put it over her arms. I'm eager to help in any other ways I can.
I hesitated turning in the tear-off sheet from the bulletin, providing my address, phone number, and other information because I wasn't sure if I wanted to go to the church. I am about 80 percent sure now, especially after this morning's experience.
Joe Mann, one of our library volunteers, has an odometer, a "FitBit," that tracks how many steps he's taken each day. The popular goal is 10,000 steps, and today I've done, 8,300. Yesterday was 13,000, another time 11,000. I thank Joe for giving me a nudge to do that much walking, as I heard his tales of walking 10k every day. Asking him if it wasn't boring, he said that he greets people, enjoys the scenery, pets a passing dog, pick up trash, any number of things. And that's what I have also done, and found it quite pleasant.
This morning may have been an exception, and I hope one that doesn't repeat itself soon.
I wanted to walk to the church from the house, but it required a walk uphill for about a mile. I tend to lean forward when I'm walking uphill, and once I got to the intersection of Nautilus and La Jolla Scenic Drive, I should have rested. Instead, I looked at the time and had about 5 minutes until the study started, so I continued walking, this time on a slight incline. But my leaning forward was a mistake, as I continued on without realizing how much off balance I was. Luckily, when I fell, it was in grass, wet but soft. My left leg was soaked; I fell into the grass face first. I really wanted to get up and, fortunately, a car stopped and a fellow and his son helped me to stand. They asked if I needed a ride anywhere, but the Presbyterian church was just across the street.
When I arrived at the church I spent at least 10 minutes cleaning myself up. trying to soak up some of the water on my pants, toweling off my arms and face. I was late to the study. When John asked if I was okay, I said yes, but that I had a tumble and fell in the grass in front of the Catholic church. He was surprised I'd walked up the hill, but I didn't sit down for the next 45 minutes because I wanted my clothes to dry (I had jeans, sneakers and a tee-shirt on.) I told him and the three others what had happened, explaining that I was really fine, but more embarrassed than anything. Everyone was very kind, chatting with me on the way out, and Cindy returned my shirt, which I put on to cover the grass stains on my teeshirt.
But it was the sermon later that has changed my life. It was about the last of the 10 commandments, Thou Shalt Not Covet. When John described coveting as wanting something that isn't, by right, yours, the most obvious being coveting a neighbors wife. She's the partner of her husband, and my claim to her would not only be absurd, but abhorrent to me. I can't have her because she's not mine.
My epiphany came when I realized that covetousness, in my instance, coveting the gay lifestyle, has been a life-long affliction. I wanted something that wasn't mine, and I paid the price, as Eve and Adam paid the price of coveting the fruit of the tree of knowledge, which wasn't theirs. Just as their lives fell apart, mine did, too. Because of my desire to have something I shouldn't have, I lost my marriage, my ministry, and all the friends I had made up until then, including 20 years of friendships with the Living Word Fellowship, and the experiences, the fasting and waiting of the Lord, for which I had devoted myself for so many years. All gone as a result of wanting something that wasn't mine to have.
Yes, I have made friends, a few, in the last 20 years, but nothing as deep and meaningful as I experienced with that fellowship.
So now my work is to cut every tie I've created with the gay side of my life, which hasn't been much of anything in practice, but in imagination. Obsessed with pornography sites on the Internet, watching movies of men together, telling Moreen how much I longed for a relationship with a man, as others have experienced (just saying this to her two days ago.) I have to find something to fill the time that I had given to that lifestyle. All the web sites off my computer, cancel any memberships or email newsletters, delete photos, and that was my first step today.
The real struggle is when I lie awake in the middle of the night and, in the past, longed for male companionship...now what do I do? God help me to find something else to desire, but this time a more righteous inclination.
