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commune

There's an old joke that if you put two Episcopalians in a room together, they will immediately try to build community.

I've started to look at my own behavior in community lately, and I'm just not that impressed.

It seems like I always perch myself on the edge. There are always plenty of things I use to justify that, but the truth is, I'm the one putting myself there.

At St. Ned's, of course, the separation is that I am Staff, and therefore perhaps Part of the Problem. As I've written before, it frequently puts me in difficult and awkward positions when people don't agree with something that's happening at St. Ned's. So I am in the community and outside of it at once. I think that's one of the reasons why I am so sad about the fairy godchild and her family leaving - her mom has always been the person I could talk to about the weirdness of church staffness, since she has worked at churches a lot longer than I have. But it's easier to talk about missing the baby, you know?

Skool is all about community, too, but again I'm finding myself on the edge. Ok, so maybe I'm not the typical student - I'm way younger, I have the sense of humor that I have, I come from a parish that doesn't really do the traditional liturgy we're being taught, I just got married, my life isn't all that settled, and maybe my identity is a little more in flux than some other people's are. See, I told you I can find ways to justify being on the edge.

I love my classes, and am genuinely jazzed by the stuff I'm learning, but I dread the rest of it - for example, we're all supposed to eat lunch together, which is just the middle school cafeteria all over again for me, and I feel defective because by the time lunch rolls around, I've burned a big chunk of my People Calories for the day and I just want to set up my laptop at the free DSL cafe up the street and write, or just sit and read one of the free weeklies at the taqueria. Skool is making me feel sort of defective in general. I'm trying to pinpoint what's causing that so that I can see what can be done to change it. I think I'm going to demand my solo lunch at least on Saturdays, because otherwise it's ten straight hours of People and I just can't deal.

So, yes, I am depressed. Today is retail therapy day - I'm going to a sample sale with Ryan and I always feel better after I hang out with her.
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