Happy New Year

I'm strangely sad that 2008 is over. It wasn't an easy year. It wasn't an extremely difficult one either. We experienced a lot of crap from the outside, but I've already spoken of that before and these days I really don't dwell on it much. Privately it was the most bountiful year we've ever had. We worked and toiled the softened ground of our hearts and reaped a load of tasty fruit, and a bundle of fragrant flowers. Sounds corny, but it will be a year that will go down in the annals of our time.

We spent our last evening of the year with friends, and food and drink enough to fill 5 times our selves. As much as I enjoyed that, I often find it hard to really relax and enjoy myself when socializing, because it's been a year of seeing people estranged from our church be subtly scoffed at. It's especially difficult when people incorrectly assume you don't know the situation and if you were "in the know", then you'd "understand". When it happens, I suddenly find myself detached for the remainder of the event. In my head I end up asking God, "what do I do here? i like these people i'm hanging out with. how do i handle these feelings of anger and injustice? why the conditional/cold/non-existent love?? why do people play judge and jury?" We're no less judgmental than the next community.

I would find it easier to disregard if it weren't so prominent, if it weren't such a poison that is coursing through the veins of the church. If it was one particular person then you'd just figure "oh that's so-and-so, they're just like that". Thing is, it appears to me to be somewhat of a mob mentality situation.

Ah well. I suppose if I were a nice/good/polite little girl I'd hush up and not mention it. Tow the party line. Sometimes Jon tells me that all that matters is that we as a couple and family are healthy and whole, but if no man is an island, then no family is an island either.

Is it too much to hope that 2009 will have less judging, condemnation, gossiping, scoffing, favouritism, and as a result, less wounding? Maybe. Maybe not. Time will tell.

"Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us." ~ Hal Borland