church rambling, part the nth
Sep. 19th, 2004 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wisdomeagleHey everyone! Welcome to the flist. About five or six new people, thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
metagate. So I'm going to welcome you all, naturally enough (unless you count the S/D smut from this morning) with something as totally unrelated to fandom as you can possibly get in my life. Don't worry, I'll try to give enough backstory for everyone to understand, and you can, obviously, feel entirely free to skip any and all real life posts I make, if I happen to make any.
So, in the middle of waking up this morning, I thought, "Dude, I hate the ministerpeople." Which in the context that those of you who are new have (i.e., none) makes little sense. Because, see, I loved the ministerpeople so really truly deeply. Still do. But I hate them. Because I'm blaming them for feeling lost right now.
So yeah, some notes. St. John's is technically the church I'm a member of. It's about fifteen minutes by car away from campus, and I attended it for the first three years of college. The ministerpeople were the sexy, sexy, sweet, spiritual, awesome pastors there for the first two of those years. They left just over a year ago. Old First Church is the church I grew up in. It's in New Jersey, and it's my home. I adore the people there, all of them, so endlessly that it's not even sane. They're my family.
When the ministerpeople left Virginia last year (without warning, without saying goodbye, with nothing more than a "so very sorry,") I ranted and raved and cried and groaned and yelled and hated them loved them hated them loved them but swore I would stick it out at St. John's until a new minister arrived. Then we got the new minister, finally, and she's nice and all but. She's no ministerperson. So I've left. I haven't been back this fall, and I'm not going back, and I feel almost no regret about it as things stand, but I miss them. I miss having a place to go to. I went to First Pres, across the street, this morning, and it was... it was fine, whatever, but it wasn't home.
Not that St. John's was ever home, but having the ministerpeople there made it more than tolerable. It made it something to look forward to. Because they were there. It was as simple as that. Now that they aren't... I don't have anywhere to go. I don't look forward to Sunday mornings anymore. So when I woke up this morning and was like, argh, must go to church... it was argh, must go to church.
I'm just tired of feeling this empty about church. I miss Old First, I miss the ministerpeople, and I miss God. And I just don't know how to get any of that back.
It occurred to me that I could add "go to New Jersey and work for a year while attending Old First" to my list of options as to what to do after graduation. And I realized it was something I really wanted to do. Perhaps the only thing I really want to do, the only place I really want to be. But then... I'd never leave. You know I never would. And that is really not what I want out of my life.No, really, it's not.
So anyhow, I'm feeling so spiritually dry here. It's weird; growing up, I never had answers to these questions. Jeane used to ask me what my parents would say if I said, "I don't want to go to church this week," and the question just confused me. I couldn't imagine not wanting to go to church. We always did; we were like, the most church-going family ever to be so liberal. It wasn't a moral obligation, it wasn't a duty, it was just what you did. And I loved it. I loved church starting around the timeI fell in love with Jeane Jeane became my Sunday school teacher and it didn't go away until... well, until the ministerpeople left St. John's. Until then, there was something. Whether it was the familial love at Old First or the super wonderfulness of the ministerpeople, there was something. And dude, I loved church so ridiculously much. I once biked seven miles to church because my parents were going to different churches and I wanted to go to my church.
And now I don't love church anymore. This has been a theme in this journal for about a year, and I still have no idea what to do. I stuck out St. John's for awhile, but then the Backup Unsexy Ride (Unsexy as opposed to the ministerpeople, who are most sexy) turned out to be... well, let's just not go there.So I decided to leave.
And I just don't know. First Pres seemed really nice, except I wish people would stop asking me where I'm from, and I wish they'd get what my name is.
My name is NOT Ruth. I say, "I'm Ruth Ellen," and they say, "Hi, Ruth." I feel like Benjamin Nushmutt, from Wayside School. No matter how many times he said his name, no one ever understood what he was saying. I've always felt a great deal of identification with him. He's my hero. *twitch*
It somehow really bothers me that fannishness affects how I look at the world more than Christianity does. And I am a Christian. It was just a year and a half ago that I was so certain that Christianity was what I wanted for my life that I was baptized. And now... now forcing myself to get up for church is that: forcing. A burden. Like going to class. Something you have to do, but don't especially want to.
So I was going to attempt to recap some fannish stuff, but I'm just so wiped. I'm going to bed, and hope that tomorrow I'm inspired enough to post something sensical and also to do the huge amount of homework I have.
*iz ded*
Oh, but one other thing. I'm so inspired by canon this season that I'm tempted not only by the possibility of a McKay ficathon, but by a Sam/Daniel fuckathon. Is anyone else running Stargate challenges this fall? Anything at all? I need ficathons, people!
metagate. So I'm going to welcome you all, naturally enough (unless you count the S/D smut from this morning) with something as totally unrelated to fandom as you can possibly get in my life. Don't worry, I'll try to give enough backstory for everyone to understand, and you can, obviously, feel entirely free to skip any and all real life posts I make, if I happen to make any.So, in the middle of waking up this morning, I thought, "Dude, I hate the ministerpeople." Which in the context that those of you who are new have (i.e., none) makes little sense. Because, see, I loved the ministerpeople so really truly deeply. Still do. But I hate them. Because I'm blaming them for feeling lost right now.
So yeah, some notes. St. John's is technically the church I'm a member of. It's about fifteen minutes by car away from campus, and I attended it for the first three years of college. The ministerpeople were the sexy, sexy, sweet, spiritual, awesome pastors there for the first two of those years. They left just over a year ago. Old First Church is the church I grew up in. It's in New Jersey, and it's my home. I adore the people there, all of them, so endlessly that it's not even sane. They're my family.
When the ministerpeople left Virginia last year (without warning, without saying goodbye, with nothing more than a "so very sorry,") I ranted and raved and cried and groaned and yelled and hated them loved them hated them loved them but swore I would stick it out at St. John's until a new minister arrived. Then we got the new minister, finally, and she's nice and all but. She's no ministerperson. So I've left. I haven't been back this fall, and I'm not going back, and I feel almost no regret about it as things stand, but I miss them. I miss having a place to go to. I went to First Pres, across the street, this morning, and it was... it was fine, whatever, but it wasn't home.
Not that St. John's was ever home, but having the ministerpeople there made it more than tolerable. It made it something to look forward to. Because they were there. It was as simple as that. Now that they aren't... I don't have anywhere to go. I don't look forward to Sunday mornings anymore. So when I woke up this morning and was like, argh, must go to church... it was argh, must go to church.
I'm just tired of feeling this empty about church. I miss Old First, I miss the ministerpeople, and I miss God. And I just don't know how to get any of that back.
It occurred to me that I could add "go to New Jersey and work for a year while attending Old First" to my list of options as to what to do after graduation. And I realized it was something I really wanted to do. Perhaps the only thing I really want to do, the only place I really want to be. But then... I'd never leave. You know I never would. And that is really not what I want out of my life.
So anyhow, I'm feeling so spiritually dry here. It's weird; growing up, I never had answers to these questions. Jeane used to ask me what my parents would say if I said, "I don't want to go to church this week," and the question just confused me. I couldn't imagine not wanting to go to church. We always did; we were like, the most church-going family ever to be so liberal. It wasn't a moral obligation, it wasn't a duty, it was just what you did. And I loved it. I loved church starting around the time
And now I don't love church anymore. This has been a theme in this journal for about a year, and I still have no idea what to do. I stuck out St. John's for awhile, but then the Backup Unsexy Ride (Unsexy as opposed to the ministerpeople, who are most sexy) turned out to be... well, let's just not go there.So I decided to leave.
And I just don't know. First Pres seemed really nice, except I wish people would stop asking me where I'm from, and I wish they'd get what my name is.
My name is NOT Ruth. I say, "I'm Ruth Ellen," and they say, "Hi, Ruth." I feel like Benjamin Nushmutt, from Wayside School. No matter how many times he said his name, no one ever understood what he was saying. I've always felt a great deal of identification with him. He's my hero. *twitch*
It somehow really bothers me that fannishness affects how I look at the world more than Christianity does. And I am a Christian. It was just a year and a half ago that I was so certain that Christianity was what I wanted for my life that I was baptized. And now... now forcing myself to get up for church is that: forcing. A burden. Like going to class. Something you have to do, but don't especially want to.
So I was going to attempt to recap some fannish stuff, but I'm just so wiped. I'm going to bed, and hope that tomorrow I'm inspired enough to post something sensical and also to do the huge amount of homework I have.
*iz ded*
Oh, but one other thing. I'm so inspired by canon this season that I'm tempted not only by the possibility of a McKay ficathon, but by a Sam/Daniel fuckathon. Is anyone else running Stargate challenges this fall? Anything at all? I need ficathons, people!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-19 09:07 pm (UTC)in other words, yes please? sometime that's not the next two weeks?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-19 09:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-20 04:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-20 01:50 pm (UTC)On the Sam/Daniel fuckathon. Oh yeah. That could be exactly what I need to finally churn out a S/D fic.