The Girl With the Weight of the World in Her Hands

I had too much wine at dinner tonight - in hope of relieving some of the burden that has been with me today. I suppose I could just blame it on the lack of sleep, except that it is what is driving my insomnia. Everything that happens becomes a question or a wall that I somehow feel a need to throw myself up against. And I carry all of it with me, the questions and the wall both.

Today we had a vestry meeting after church to talk about the potential for a capital campaign - anything dealing with money always leaves me with a heavy feeling. But the struggle is greater in this sense when I start looking at what the money we would want to raise would be going toward and I end up being embarrassed by my church. HOW much for a new organ again? It's a bigger problem than that of course - it's the tension between the formality of church as structure, as ritual, as a building and grounds....and church as simply ocmmunity that cannot and should not be contained within walls. On the one hand, I appreciate the beauty of the space, of the liturgy, of the mystery in the rhythms of the rituals - but there's a part of me that just wants to pick up a guitar, pile in a car with a few other folks, and head out to the mountains to pitch a tent and sing out hearts out in praise and worship. I miss the spontaneity and sense of abandon of the small group worship of my college days. I feel too "confortable" and I've always had this internal fear of comfort. And yet, I've never quite had the courage to let go of the formality, to quit playing "dress up" on Sunday morning.

It all makes me feel old, not fully alive - like I've grown up too fast and settled in too quickly. But there are deep undercurrents - if I could just break free of all the baggage (spiritual and material) I have somehow collected - the weight of the world I have created for myself that sometimes keeps me from what I see as a more authentic faith and life. I'm trapped in, to borrow a phrase, the "upper eschalons of mediocrity", or perhaps it is closer to what Paul means when he talks about not being able to do the good we want to do. Whatever the case, I am tired tonight, so I'll close out with bits from the Indigo Girls song that is tonight's theme music....

She won't recover from her losses,
She's not chosen this path, but she watches who it crosses
Maybe move to the right, maybe move to the left
So we can all see her pain she wears like a banner on her chest
And we all say it's sad, and we think it's a shame
And she's called to our attention, but we do not call her name,
The girl with the weight of the world in her hands.

I wonder which saint that lives inside a bead
will grant her consolation when she counts upon her need
It makes us all angry though we feign to care
But who will be the scale to weigh the cross she has to bear,
The girl with the weight of the world in her hands.

Pax,
A