elainegrey

The flight out of Pope AFB was canceled, so my folks are flying out of Andrews AFB this morning. Roll call was at 7:40 eastern, i called them at 8:40 eastern. They'd just been accepted on the flight and had taken their baggage to be put on the plane. (They get 70 lbs of baggage as well as "free" seats.)

A will assume they'll be here for a late lunch/early dinner.

I am interested to watch how i must find out as much information as i can.

--==&infin==--

I did all the things i'd planned to do yesterday. I read the next section in the Quaker theology book, To Be Broken and Tender in the morning, preparing for the discussion later in the day. I reflected on how i must have learned trust from Christine in the first year of our relationship, some nonrational, experiential lesson. I certainly did not learn trust in relationships from watching my parents. Christine and i chatted a little bit about it. I wonder if the experience of gender dysphoria led her to value authenticity much earlier than in the normal developmental track. I think i learned from her groundedness, although, objectively, i suspect no one would have judged her actions grounded. I think it was how she related to others.

Somehow in there, i learned a type of profound trust, and when i got to college, there was a night where i wrestled with some choices: between security and stability and authenticity. I don't think i had the language to describe the choices that way then, but i made a conscious choice then: choosing pain and beauty vs the safe path.

I've thought back to that choice often, wondering with gratefulness from what fate i was saved, certain that the choice saved me from deeper depression, numbness, and a long spiritual death. I might have lived, and i imagine i would have reawakened late in life if i survived. My suicidal thought patterns, though, lead me to wonder whether i would have made it.

I certainly experienced making that choice in the presence of the Divine. Reading To Be Broken and Tender i wonder if i would have named that presence "Christ" if that name wasn't locked up with the image of the Victorian depictions. If i had know the writings of medieval Christian mystics, if i had known a translation of the old testament that retained more of the feminine image of Sophia, would i have named that presence Christ or Sophia? In the discussion yesterday afternoon, another Friend was explaining a moment of transformation he had in college and now, years later, he can name that an experience of Christ even thought he did not know that language then.

Some Quakers -- half in the small survey the author did of the Evangelical-Liberal women's discusion group -- think the name applied to experiences of such presence doesn't indicate a true difference, but believe there is one universal with many names. I am aware of my strange relationship with belief as i write that: i think it is a useful premise, yet when i turn it around i wonder. Does such a belief stand in the way of listening to someone else, particularly someone Different? Is this a belief that has inherited the Christian principle of appropriation and absorption? There are two sides to that belief: one is the side that recognizes a quality of mystical experience for which words are insufficient, confining, limiting. But the other side seems almost imperialist: appropriate, perhaps, for an interchange in dominant Western culture, but if i reflect on how this seems to those who feel left out of dominant Western culture or who are oppressed by the culture -- is this a respectful premise?

I digress.

That morning reading helped me take the nagging spurs of thought i'd received during the week. One, a local news article where a speaker had claimed that driving cars was near criminal, and i felt the Light illuminate my often stated desire to not drive to work, store, or Meeting which is constantly ignored with excuses. The other, a Friend laying down hir membership in a Meeting, wanting a community where the values were made visible by the actions (food closet, shelter, etc), with the claim, "If you really looked at our actions, most of us just want to be comfortable." I felt called out on that, listening to audiobooks and crocheting, watching birds at the feeder, learning the binomial names of wildflowers.

During Meeting my experience of trust and the nags came together with a vision of a little girl, so excited about planting seeds, that she dug them up to examine them every day. I don't know why i feel so compelled this spring to learn wildflowers, but i do. I've trusted this feeling, this little Leading, and have followed. Am i to stop right now and say, "Obviously this is indulgent twaddle, i don't see meaningful results, i should drop and move on?" Watching the seeds, disturbed over and over in my mind's eye, i think no. I may not be as fertile ground as i would like for reducing my gasoline dependence, but the desire is there and i care for it. And the best i can do is to grow my true authentic self, and this journey of botany is definitely part of my authentic expression. I do not know how it will change me and how it will bring change to the world, but i believe it to be right -- for many reasons -- and i will follow.