Is the Presbyterian Church Harmful to My Health - Part 1
I am putting my blog on my transgender friends on hold for awhile, since I have a pressing issue that will have to be resolved soon. On Sunday, I took my first steps to join Sixth Presbyterian Church. Several days later now, I am wondering if I am even going to stay in the Presbyterian Church. Chances are, I will. But it has to be resolved soon, so I might as well blog about it.
Everything was going pretty well until very recently. There were problems, but I was handling them. Recently, however, I have found that I’m having trouble getting things done and I am feeling depressed over my church situation. It is suddenly affecting my life, my ability to look for a job, my ability to visit my mother in the nursing home. So it has to be addressed. I’ve noticed changes which could be nothing but which make me think. For example, I’ve lost any interest in watching soap operas! I remember that every time my mother went into a serious depression, she would lose interest in her soap operas. Maybe I just have so many other interests now that I’ve lost interest in them for good reason. But you notice little changes like that as warning signals. Worst of all, the last couple days, I have had trouble eating. It starts to turn into a very serious, dangerous situation when this happens, because I am a recovered anorexic.
Something happened this morning which was a bit like a light bulb going off in my head. I received a message in my in box from Pittsburgh Transgendered which claimed that most of the transgender people in Pittsburgh go to the United Church of Christ because they are accepted there. I haven’t noticed any transgender people at Sixth Presbyterian, even though it has been a More Light church for a long period of time. It makes me wonder if the Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh is ready for transgender people at all. How does this affect me? I’m not transgender, but I hang out with transgender people. My two closest friends are male-to-female transgender persons. If the Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh is not attracting transgender people even when they have More Light churches, are they really ready for someone like me who is very close to transgender persons and is even part of a support group called TransFamily? Obviously, More Light Presbyterians as an organization may not be ready for me, as I’ve been finding out.
Sixth Presbyterian is a very nice church. I can’t think of anything negative to say about it. I’m even become close to a lesbian who attends the church. So why does the Presbyterian Church seem to be becoming harmful to my health? Maybe if I keep blogging about it, I’ll figure out why.
I thought I would start from the beginning. I grew up attending Round Hill Presbyterian Church. For a brief period of time, I attended a very liberal Presbyterian church called Noe Valley Presbyterian in San Francisco. In January, Round Hill started a rock and roll church service on Saturday night. It was supposed to appeal to people who had stopped coming to church, and that was certainly me. It was ten minutes away, I like to sing, and it was tempting to have something inspiring to do Saturday night, so I went. I loved the service immediately. However, the second week, a passage appeared in the bulletin stating that the homosexual lobby, Democrats, liberals, and Ted Kennedy were trying to ban the Bible. This was apparently because they felt these groups of people supported hate crimes legislation to protect gay people. Anyway, I was angry, and I was feeling that I was probably no longer welcome at the church where I’d grown up. The anger eventually evened out into hurt. I also felt it was totally stupid for them to put something like this in their bulletin so early in the life of the new service, when they were trying to appeal to a group of people in the community which is hard to assimilate into church. This is not a majority Republican area of the country either. John Kerry won here 60-40 percent.
I decided not to stomp out of Round Hill or react with anger. Rev. Meek had preached at my father’s funeral. He still visited my mother in the nursing home. I didn’t want to drop my childhood church so easily. I also felt I’d been at that church longer than Rev. Meek! Also, when I did decide to go back to church, I had decided I did not want to be an angry person. I wanted to be a loving person who reacted with patience and understanding. I did not go to church the next week, and I started to spend the next few weeks talking about what had happened on the internet.
To be continued…
Everything was going pretty well until very recently. There were problems, but I was handling them. Recently, however, I have found that I’m having trouble getting things done and I am feeling depressed over my church situation. It is suddenly affecting my life, my ability to look for a job, my ability to visit my mother in the nursing home. So it has to be addressed. I’ve noticed changes which could be nothing but which make me think. For example, I’ve lost any interest in watching soap operas! I remember that every time my mother went into a serious depression, she would lose interest in her soap operas. Maybe I just have so many other interests now that I’ve lost interest in them for good reason. But you notice little changes like that as warning signals. Worst of all, the last couple days, I have had trouble eating. It starts to turn into a very serious, dangerous situation when this happens, because I am a recovered anorexic.
Something happened this morning which was a bit like a light bulb going off in my head. I received a message in my in box from Pittsburgh Transgendered which claimed that most of the transgender people in Pittsburgh go to the United Church of Christ because they are accepted there. I haven’t noticed any transgender people at Sixth Presbyterian, even though it has been a More Light church for a long period of time. It makes me wonder if the Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh is ready for transgender people at all. How does this affect me? I’m not transgender, but I hang out with transgender people. My two closest friends are male-to-female transgender persons. If the Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh is not attracting transgender people even when they have More Light churches, are they really ready for someone like me who is very close to transgender persons and is even part of a support group called TransFamily? Obviously, More Light Presbyterians as an organization may not be ready for me, as I’ve been finding out.
Sixth Presbyterian is a very nice church. I can’t think of anything negative to say about it. I’m even become close to a lesbian who attends the church. So why does the Presbyterian Church seem to be becoming harmful to my health? Maybe if I keep blogging about it, I’ll figure out why.
I thought I would start from the beginning. I grew up attending Round Hill Presbyterian Church. For a brief period of time, I attended a very liberal Presbyterian church called Noe Valley Presbyterian in San Francisco. In January, Round Hill started a rock and roll church service on Saturday night. It was supposed to appeal to people who had stopped coming to church, and that was certainly me. It was ten minutes away, I like to sing, and it was tempting to have something inspiring to do Saturday night, so I went. I loved the service immediately. However, the second week, a passage appeared in the bulletin stating that the homosexual lobby, Democrats, liberals, and Ted Kennedy were trying to ban the Bible. This was apparently because they felt these groups of people supported hate crimes legislation to protect gay people. Anyway, I was angry, and I was feeling that I was probably no longer welcome at the church where I’d grown up. The anger eventually evened out into hurt. I also felt it was totally stupid for them to put something like this in their bulletin so early in the life of the new service, when they were trying to appeal to a group of people in the community which is hard to assimilate into church. This is not a majority Republican area of the country either. John Kerry won here 60-40 percent.
I decided not to stomp out of Round Hill or react with anger. Rev. Meek had preached at my father’s funeral. He still visited my mother in the nursing home. I didn’t want to drop my childhood church so easily. I also felt I’d been at that church longer than Rev. Meek! Also, when I did decide to go back to church, I had decided I did not want to be an angry person. I wanted to be a loving person who reacted with patience and understanding. I did not go to church the next week, and I started to spend the next few weeks talking about what had happened on the internet.
To be continued…
posted by Theodosia @ 11:14 AM
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