I went to church yesterday, which is a little rare right at the moment. I had been offered a ride (in the cold, for which I was grateful) that got me there an hour early, so I wandered into the adult forum and sat down a minute or two after they had started. I consider myself so bright, so able to switch gears on a dime, and yet it took at least ten minutes to fully figure out what the discussion was about. There were references to a woman, but at first I didn't know whether they were talking about someone in the congregation, or a public figure or an author. Then, slowly but surely, I narrowed it down to an author, and grasped that several of the attendees had books in their laps. Finally, the topic of the book began to become clear, and after several people read significant passages and I listened to their personal experiences with the subject of the book -- and the nice lady next to me handed me the book to look at -- I shook, Quaker-style, because I was feeling led to contribute an observation of my own.
But that first ten minutes was so interesting, like being a person from a foreign country, utterly clueless, not understanding the language, feeling adrift. I was a sleuth, trying to put the clues together. And as I sat there looking out the window at a bare black tree trunk and branches filling the grey sky, I though, this is what I have been feeling like since the summer conventions, like I have entered a world I simply don't know, don't understand, and whose vocabulary is grating to my ears and my soul. Who are these people? What is happening? Was all of this in front of me all the time only I didn't see it? Why does nothing make sense to me?
And unlike the discussion group, I somehow think it is unlikely that a kindly lady will hand me a little book that will elucidate matters. Somehow I suspect that intellectual brilliance won't help -- and indeed, using logic may make things much harder. It consoles me, however, that there appear to be millions of us in the same situation. May we all hold each other in spiritual kinship, and never lose heart.
