20130804.1928

My beloved wife and I went to church this morning, as is not inappropriate.  There, amid taking communion and enjoying a sermon from Bishop Alfred Johnson of the United Methodist Church of the Village, she and I were singled out by the associate pastor, Rev. Vicki Flippin.  Our impending departure has not been kept secret from our fellow congregants, and there was a very nice card sent around the week before, one which many people signed.  It seems that my wife and I have had an impact on that faith community (it has certainly had one on us!), and we will be missed.

It is flattering to know that we will be missed, that our absence will be felt as a loss by those people with whom we have shared worship and, often, hospitality over the years we have lived in The City together.  There have been many times, some of which I have likely noted, that I have felt disconnected from things and unvalued; my wife reports having felt similarly from time to time.  But at the Church of the Village, we have always been welcomed, even when our opinions have disagreed with those of more senior congregants and the clergy.  The people there have made an effort these past years to include us, to bring us in, to demonstrate that they value our contributions and even our simple presence.

I have noted that there are a great many things which I will not miss about life in The City (and I have a piece in the works, meant for another venue than this one, which will treat some of them).  There are, however, a great many things that it will grieve me to leave.  The Church of the Village is one of them.  It is through the pastors and congregation of that church that I returned to the faith of my family after having been away from it for a long time (for reasons I have discussed before, if in another medium), and my faith and my faith community have been of comfort to me, particularly at the end of last year and the beginning of this one.

It will not be easy, I think, to find such a place of worship, one that is so welcoming and inviting, where I am going.  Those whom I know who live in the area, who have lived long in the area, have remarked to me about such things, and neither I nor my people come from places dissimilar from that to which I am going--and I see quite a bit of intolerance even now in the hometown of my childhood.  (To be fair, there is a lot of the same in The City, and openly expressed despite the protestations of many that the place does not suffer such lights as racism and idiocy.)  But I have the hope that I can do as Rev. Flippin suggests in the card and "take some CotV with [me] to spread in the plains of OK."

I have the hope that I will be able to make a place where I belong once again.