Writing, Parenting, and Working in the Mess: Authentic Spirituality and Social Justice

Ever since she came to me, S has been seeing a therapist two hours away. So, once a week, we drive to the therapist's office, I sit in the waiting room for an hour, and then, we drive back. Sometimes, if the appointment is early enough, we stop somewhere for food or shopping--but most of the time, we literally leave around 5 and drive back at 8 or so, putting us at home by 10, if we are lucky. I have mixed feelings about this therapist. I call her before each appointment to talk on her answering machine about how the week has gone; that way, if S is hesitant to bring something up, she has a little background. But it does not seem to me that the therapy itself is doing much good. In fact, our family therapy (with a therapist literally a block away from us) seems to be much more helpful. S goes back and forth about whether the therapist is helping her; sometimes, she says she is, and other times, she tells me she needs someone more qualified or smarter. Anyway, around the time when S...

I got a couple phone calls on Tuesday saying something was going on at the church I used to attend. To make a long story short, I attended a church in town (a Methodist and United Church of Christ church—in small towns, even seemingly completely different Protestant faiths tend to combine to make churches viable) for about five years, and during that time, the church began to grapple with whether to become an Open and Affirming/Reconciling congregation—publicly welcoming, in other words, to GLBT people. Ultimately, the process was so painful for me that I left, just before the church voted the idea down. I have since really missed going to church, and I miss some of the people. I even tried to go back after S came into my life, but she didn’t feel comfortable there—looking back, I now suspect that she sensed my discomfort. I knew the minister was retiring, and that the church would be calling an interim, UCC minister (I still get the bulletins—in fact, in her last bulletin message, the...