Some photos of my Dad.  I really love the first one.  So candid.  So happy. Taken when I was 4.  In my opinion, a brilliant photo.  I took a picture of the picture and STILL it looks pretty good.  That's my retro table in the background, all you vintage fans. 

And this one - which he sent to my mother when they were dating, I assume by the address on the back - it had been printed as a postcard (earliest photo messages) and then cropped - the date and postmark missing but part of the address there, which I recognize as her shared house address when she was a young career girl here in the big city.  He apparently saw the other guy in the photo as a comparative subject posing no threat. 

And last up, another one from my childhood.  I love the ocean.  I am certain that my love for it was born on this particular trip.  We moved around a lot (six times in 18 months, each move in and move out counted, because if you have moved very often, you know they BOTH count.  And there were four young children, one a baby, involved in the moving.  Probably you can multiply that count by three for my mom for the emotional and physical extremis.  Oh wow - that is a word she would have used... my mom.  Anyway, there we were in California and not so close to the beach, but close enough to make the trip.  And neither of my parents being swimmers, it ASTONISHES me to see the picture of me WAY WAY WAY out in the surf (read undertow) all by my non-swimmer self.  Not that they were careless parents at all, just did not instill fear of the water in me even if they held it themselves.  This I appreciate.  So here he is deeply engrossed in the fascination of moving water and shifting sand.  Shells appearing and being washed out again.  I love that pastime.  I love this picture.  I am having it enlarged a bit and framed for my sewing room.  Where I sometimes use a machine that has an extended cord for the foot pedal which I myself changed as Dad talked me through it on the phone.  Because he believed in me doing that stuff.  And hence I have this belief that if somebody can do some task, and I am somebody, then I can learn to do it, too.  Thanks to my Dad. 

Okay, this is a little personal, but I think clearly sometimes when I type, so maybe I can reach some kind of conclusion... or a whiff of clarity.  Even that would be good in my current state of indecision.

What happened that I gave up on church?  Here is the way it goes.  I will miss the community of church, so I will try to go to one here that seems to "fit" and I will weep through the whole thing.  And not because it is particularly profound or pertinent or convicting, unless that is denial.  And it doesn't meet the "missing" that I feel, so it might not be the place/service part I am hunting. And not that I don't cry easily, because I do.  It is one of my primary forms of expression. ??????

I have not turned my mind or gut from the belief I have, but the whole of organized religion has me so confused.  Yes, I got hurt, just like everybody has (or will) because the church is full of humans.  So it is not that I expect it to be a perfect environment.  I just found it to be so bland and narrow and inconsistent that I just couldn't stomach it anymore.  (Which is an interesting idiom, isn't it?  I was reading today about morning sickness - because I am indeed an eclectic reader - and it connected it to the body's instinctive protection of the developing baby - that the mother is repelled by foods which have a greater potential for harm due to concentration of toxic chemicals, etc.  That seldom are women repelled by grains or plants, but often by meats and animal products such as dairy. So to not be able to "stomach " something is a deep instinct to protect something which is vulnerable and developing. Like my spiritual state.)   

It was the inconsistency that really got stuck in my craw - more nourishment idioms - the insincere 'love' for those who had an icky messy problem like looming divorce or addiction or children who wandered from the Gap-wearing role "model of Christian Youth Deportment" that was held in such high regard.  It was just better if those people with those issues just quit coming, because that was hard to deal with.  Now, I KNOW that these words were never uttered or even thought in that way, but listen, the behavior was clear as crystal.... 'let's not talk about that stuff.  Jesus is the answer for all that.'  He is.  He really is, but that is a mighty general concept there:  the answer.  What does one do to survive, protect self and others, cope, for heaven's sake (ANOTHER interesting idiom) until that final perfect answer is made manifest?  That is where I found the broadest sweep of neutral.  Ignoring is not a solution. 

So there it is.  My dilemma. Help? 

And if you tell me to give it to Jesus and trust Him to be the answer, I will delete your comment.  Because that is bland and might be full of toxic chemicals. And it tastes bad.