And that's done.

Today was the formal "leave-taking" of our now-former minister. As part of this, as I was head elder, I had to read part of a "liturgy of forgiveness" (I was not a fan of the idea in isolation, but in the context of the service, it made more sense).

I managed not to cry during the thing. The minister himself was shaky-voiced at the end. I did shed a few tears during the "special music" afterward (well, the lyrics did reference a couple things that also reminded me of the people I've lost recently - something about "going on other journeys")

His sermon made reference to something that apparently happened in a refugee camp where children had been bombed out of their homes, and most lost their parents (it might have been world war II). The people running the camp tried to help the children feel safe, to know they had shelter and food and would be cared for, and were safely away from the fighting, but even with all that, the children could not sleep. Finally, one of the volunteers came up with the idea of handing each child a piece of bread to hold at night when they slept, as a reminder that they had food today, and a promise they would have food tomorrow.

(And that struck me, in more ways than one. Most oddly, perhaps: could my fondness for having stuffed toys around when I sleep be that they are a stand-in for friends, like the bread is a stand-in for full meals?)

The bigger thing (the bread illustration was from a book on the topic) was the idea of something like what the Jesuits call "Examen" - basically, looking back over your day each night, and determining what brought you joy and what brought you pain, as an attempt to define your life's purpose or figure out what you were meant to do.

(I suspect a lot of people do something like that; I remember my parents asking about "one good thing, one bad thing" when my brother and I were kids. But maybe not with the reflection on "how does this say something about my life's purpose?")

The larger idea being: there is a lot of good we as a congregation do, despite our small size, and the idea of "examining" our purpose into the future may help us plan. And that's probably correct. (One of the points he made was us being a welcome place for college students Tuesday nights - where they get fed - and, I didn't realize this, but: a number of the students come are people who are gay or lesbian, and many other churches make them feel unwelcome, but the DoC denomination is different.....and so, even though not many of them come Sunday mornings, we ARE doing out reach to younger people, a group that now, apparently 40% of them are totally unaffiliated with any faith group....)

But yeah. That's another thing done, another thing processed. The big thing that remains is my dad's memorial service in about a month. I am hoping that is the end to "officially" dealing with the losses of 2019.

***

Kind of tired and sad today, two bad dreams:

- My house was infested with mice, rats, and other creatures (what woke me up? There was a dead-white, hairless, rabbit with white eyes in my sink, and I went to grab it by the ears - someone told me a rabbit could be subdued that way - it bit me)

- a dream back in the kitchen in Hudson, my dad was there and I was told "oh the hospital made a mistake, he's alive after all" and there was also something about LED bulbs that melted? I think?

Anyway. Just as I would very much like to be able to turn my emotions off some times, I would like some times to turn off dreaming. (The rat dream is a common one when I have to do something I don't want to do, but the creepy devil-rabbit was a new thing this go round). It seems a bit much when a person is already kind of stressed that they have to have bad dreams too.

***

And also - thinking over all the various losses, in my periodic funk of "Maybe you just let yourself get too attached to people; maybe if you could just learn not to care about anyone, ever, you wouldn't deal with this so often." I know that's impossible, but....yeah, just as I would like fewer emotions I would also like to care less some of the time. Because often what I feel isn't reciprocated, or even if it is, something happens and that person has to leave, or dies, or....whatever.

And I'm also sad seeing people report their Rhinebeck fun, which is fun I never get to have. And yes, I also know: I hate travelling and I hate crowds and I probably wouldn't be happy going because it's far away and expensive (I am also cheap in some very particular ways) and unless I went with a group of people I'd feel uncomfortable both because I'd feel "unguarded" and unprotected, but also that I stuck out like a sore thumb (as I so often feel, in the world of couples and families I live in) and so I AM often listening for that mocking laughter or similar, like I thought I heard (but probably did not) yesterday at the Kroger.

But yeah. It's midsemester so I am feeling kind of worn and sad and taken for granted and while I have "fun," it's not the big fun some other people seem to get....