December 17, 2003 07:33 PM

So I'm going to miss you guys and gals . . .

Yes, I am going on "indefinite leave" from the blog world. I will still be lurking in the shadows, reading your work. Feel free to e-mail me whenever you like . . . I'd love to hear from you. And keep inviting me to parties!!!

Just about everything in my life is spinning right now . . . in a really wonderful way. As you may know, I've been on a really intensive spiritual path for the last four years. This website has been a very helpful part of that path, as have the fabulous people I have met through the great fraternal (& sororital?) order of blogdom.

But I now realize that this has been a four-year cocoon. I crawled in as a little worm, and I built a wonderful, cozy world around myself. And now I'm ready to break out, to let the cocoon dissolve around me . . . to let myself discover who I have become underneath all the layers.

So much surrender . . .

I won't be writing here. I think I'll stop writing altogether for a while. Words have become very unsatisfying to me. They never quite express the truth that is behind them.

I am seriously contemplating an extended sabbatical from theater and music. I'll be letting go of some of my involvement in my current church.

Why?

Why not?

What will I be doing instead? I'd like to get my apartment really clean for once. I'd like to pay my bills on time and have food in the refrigerator. I'd like to sit down and enjoy a few meals, instead of constantly eating on the run. I'd like to get more massages, soak in more hot tubs.

I'd like to spend more time with some of my "acquaintances" and "associates" . . . maybe upgrade those relationships into real, honest-to-God friendships.

I'd like to lay down for a long time in my backyard hammock and watch the grass grow.

I'd like to be home when my partner is home . . . to enjoy more of those random, agendaless, goofing-off-together kind of evenings. I'd like to be available to go places with him on the spur of the moment, to hop in the car and just do . . . "whatever."

I've been working my whole life to "get somewhere." And suddenly I realize . . . I'm there. For a time, at least. Who knows how long.

But for now . . . I'm done. No more reaching. No more striving. No more achieving. I've got what I want already . . . a comfy apartment, a decent salary, a wonderful relationship, sanity . . . humanity.

It suddenly seems like an incredible waste not to spend every possible moment just kicking back and enjoying it all.

So maybe I'll be back. I'll go ahead and renew the domain. Maybe one day I'll bring you funny stories of my sojourn in the arcane world of Non-blog-ia.

But, to be honest, part of me hopes that I won't. Part of me hopes that this soft, fuzzy yellow glow I feel myself stepping into will sustain me for the rest of eternity . . . that it will gradually drain out of me the angst and tension and frustration that have been the driving forces behind so much of my writing here . . . that it will free me from the incessant desire to "process" and to "figure out."

So if you don't hear from me . . .

believe me . . .

it's all good.

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December 6, 2003 10:07 PM

OK, by now you probably know that when I'm silent for a while, something's up. Not usually something bad . . . but something.

This time it's kind of . . . well . . . what to call it? A crisis of faith, I guess. That sounds so dramatic, but it's the only phrase I can come up with right now.

I went to a Quaker Worship Meeting last week. And I had a . . . what? A peak experience of some kind. I felt a very deep sense of identity . . . I felt that the worship style of the Quakers (aka the Religious Society of Friends) was what I had always been looking for. Or, in fact, what I had been practicing for a good chunk of my life without realizing it.

This realization was BIG. From my own life experience, I can only compare it to the day I met my husband and fell instantly in love with him . . . or the day when I realized for sure and certain that I was gay.

So anyway, the inconvenient thing is, I'm an ordained minister (a "Reverend") in another Church. And I'm really into that Church. And I feel that I have a continuing spiritual path with that Church.

And, of course, the Quakers - at least the ones I feel connected to - don't believe in ordained ministers . . . or honorific titles like "Reverend."

So for the next few months, I guess I'm going to be figuring out how to arrange a kind of religious "open marriage" to accomodate my connections with these two similar-but-different Churches.

Anyway, one of the things that draws me to the Friends (Quakers) is their process of decision making. They seem to feel that truth comes through many voices, and they endeavor to listen to as many of those voices as possible when making Church decisions. Many Quakers also recommend that people listen to voices in their community when making major personal decisions, in order that more voices might make the truth easier to discern.

So I figure I'll give this a shot in my own way . . .

My friends in cyberspace, my online community . . . what do you think? What do you perceive? Do you have personal experience of Quakers? Of religious conversion? Does this all sound interesting, or just vaguely schizophrenic?

Speak to me in your many voices. Help me find my truth.

(E-mail me if you prefer.)

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