This weekend, I took my girls to Disneyland, where it happened to be Gay Day. (Fave t-shirt: "Doing My Part to Piss Off the Christian Right") I normally love taking the girls to D-land, just the 3 of us, and couldn't figure out why Gay Day was making me feel left out, until it hit me. I miss being part of a community.
It's the major disadvantage of not belonging to any group/organized religion.
For the majority of my life, I belonged to the theatre community, but I learned that trying to mesh motherhood and theatre don't work together very well. I loved being a part of the Antioch community as a college student...then I had to go and graduate! Of course, there's the "forced" community of work, but that's not the same when your major common ground is the need to make money.
So I was feeling all sorry for myself, lamenting on the idea that instead of a community, I simply had a network now of online and email friends.
Then I came across two really upsetting articles, both having to do with the Roman Catholic Church, and their methods for paying out the court settlements having to do with the child abuse cases.
The first one talked about how in San Diego, they're asking their parishioners for the money. The really sad part to me is that some people are actually willing to donate!!
The second one was about the nuns in Santa Barbara that are being evicted from their convent so the property can be sold (yes, because so many NUNS were found guilty of child abuse).
It made me re-think the whole need for a community thing. I'm better off with the network idea: where I can be who I am, keep my priorities the way that I like, and pick and choose my friends. In turn, I can also let others be who they are, and while I spout off my opinions and may disagree with some things, I know that my friends know I will always love them and support them.
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