I was at a local Mennonite conference, hanging with people I knew. The conference minister asked me to teach a workshop which explains two biblical views of homosexuality. That put me in the center of the whole controversy that every denomination seems to be caught up in, I expected some anger and hurt during the workshop. But after that, there were people yelling at me, spreading gossip about me, lots of drama and people who think I'm on their side saying "thank you." Emails telling me that I don't understand logic.
I wasn't on anybody's side. I was teaching about staying together.
I didn't expect the drama, I guess. I should have.
Meanwhile, in Anawim, they are working through stuff without me for the first time since we closed down and opened up again. No problem, I thought, we've been through this before.
Yes problem.
Chaos reigned and a couple people lost it and started screaming and threatening. It started just a few hours after I left, and continued to all the next day. That was really frustrating. Not expected, and there's a bunch of people I need to talk to now.
But what I really didn't expect was my reaction to all this drama. I plunged into the deepest depression I had experienced in ten years. A day and a half of feeling pointless, feeling that nothing I do is any good, that everything falls apart. This is really unlike me. I'm the super confident guy, finding the silver lining around every bad circumstance. But I couldn't escape the depressed, self-rejecting thoughts. They rolled in my head and picked up where they left off after sleep.
I slept and slept and slept. That was good. By Monday morning I felt a lot better. But I still needed more sleep. Same on Tuesday (today). I had too much to do to get the sleep my body needed, but tonight is the first time I've been ready to write since last Thursday.
Today I went through the exercise of explaining why what we do actually works and why it's not pointless. I also spoke of my personal weakness, and how everyone looks to me to keep things together, but I'm a weak human being.
I hope I'm ready to get really working again tomorrow
No comments:
Post a Comment