Category Archives: Friends

Considerate friends can be odd

My previous entry reminded me of something else I wanted to comment on. A couple weeks ago, my friend James and I talked on the phone. Recently, he and his girlfriend of three years got engaged. I congratulated him on this development and we talked about their plans. He spent a considerable amount of time talking about their wedding plans. It appears that there wedding will be nontraditional in a number of ways. (Knowing James, this is not exactly a surprise.)

However, what really got me is when he got talking about the religious undertones of their wedding ceremony. Understand that James, like most of the people with whom I forged friendships before 1995, is an evangelical Christian. James in particular is a United Methodist minister. He and Michelle met at seminary. To be honest, the religious undertones are to be expected. What surprised me is when he commented that he hoped it didn’t make me uncomfortable.

First let me say that it’s a sign of the kind of friendship James and I had that he’d even bother expressing concern about my comfort level during his wedding. It says a lot about his character. Of course, I assured him that I’m not concerned about it. I’ve sat through church services before. I think I can be comfortable during a wedding ceremony for someone I’ve been friends with for over a decade.

The one area in which I did appreciate his concern is when he mentioned that they will be serving Communion during the ceremony. Naturally, I won’t be participating in that part of the service, which is fine with me. What I appreciate is James’s understanding that being one of the few people (if not the only person) who does not participate in this part of the service can make you feel rather conspicuous. I’ve been to church services with my parents over the past couple years, only to find out too late that it was a Communion Sunday. There’s nothing quite as disconcerting as watching everyone else walk by you and giving you a quizzacle look because you’re not going forward to partake.

All in all, though, that whole part of the conversation struck me as odd.

Great Party

I had the most excellent time last night. My friends Michele and Belinda were invited by the Western New York Paranormal Society to come to their Christmas party. Well, Belinda was unable to go due to a previous engagement, so Michele wrote the hostess back and asked if she could bring me instead. After all, who wants to go to a party alone — especially one where you don’t necessarily know the majority of the attendees? Sarah said that was okay — in fact, she said all three of us could have come if we wanted to. So I went through my wardrobe, picked out something tastefull, bought and wrapped a small gift for the gift exchange, and headed to Michele’s house. From there, we hopped in her car to go to the party.

The party was absolutely spectacular. It was a great mix of friendly people, with personalities ranging from quiet and reserved to “Oh my goodness, I can’t believe he just said that!” I recognized a good number of faces from psychic fairs that I’ve attended with Michele (or helped with, in the case of the one sponsored by the Pagan Outreach Center, though the only person at the party I’d ever been formally intoduced to before was Ralph. But even having been involved in some of the same events (the paranormal group gets a vendor booth at many psychic fairs and similar events) made the situation somewhat more comfortable.

The gift exchange was quite a lively event, especially once a trio of people kept “fighting” over two sets of holiday candy dishes. I ended up coming home with a coin purse shaped like a stocking, which was rather amusing. And food and drink flowed freely the entire night. It was nice to be able to meet and talk with many more like-minded people for the night.

Michele and I ended up leaving at about quarter of midnight, as we were both starting to get a bit tired. I had to find a quiet place about an hour prior to that just to refocus my energies and strengthen my shields. While fun, parties like that tend to be hell on you when you’re empathic. Trying not to get bowled over by the mental and emotional state of at least twenty people congregated in a relatively small space can be quite a challenge. But let me tell you, if they were having another party tonight and saw fit to invite me again, I’d be in the car before they finished telling me I was invited.

Great Day Yesterday

I spent most of yesterday with Becky. We had a pretty good time. The day started with me going to the one office she works out of for a massage. I didn’t have anything in particular I wanted her to work on, so she basically did a full body massage. In practice, though, she spent most of the time on my legs.

She yelled at me during this part of the massage. I was having trouble relaxing my legs. Particularly, when she would go to move my legs, I’d move them for her. Apparently, that makes certain part of the massage process difficult to do effectively. I don’t know why it was such an issue for me. Probably because I have control issues, anyway.

Once the massage was over, I got dressed and we ran some errands together. Becky had to go to the printer to get flyers printed and get new business cards created. I ended up helping her with figuring out some of the details of her business cards — such as what color paper to use and the font to use for her name. Once we were done there, we swung by my bank so I could deposit a cashier’s check. You see, over Thanksgiving break, I decided to close out my savings account at the bank near my parents’ home. Because of the amount, I had them give me a cashiers check rather than giving me the balance in cash. So now that’s in my checkign account up here. Which is good, because I needed money to pay rent and a couple bills.

Once the errands were done, we decided to go catch a movie. After looking over our options, we finally decided to see “Deja Vu.” Personally, I thought it was a pretty good movie, though I found some annoying inconsistencies in the underlying concept. (Warning: Stop here if you don’t want any spoilers.) The big problem is they never made up their mind whether they wanted past events to be unchangeable with a single, permanent timeline or whether they would allow changes to the past to spawn alternate timelines. As a result, they ended up alternating between the two scenarios based on what was convenient for the plot. The end result was that they created a alternate timeline in the end, but allowed things that should have been only in the alternate timeline (such as finding the ATF agent’s fingerprints in the victim’s home) appearing in teh original timeline anyway. So it got messy. But other than that, it was a good movie. And Denzel Washinton was as great as ever when it came to playing his part.

After the movie, Becky and I went to check out Red Robin, which just opened here in the past couple of weeks. It was a pretty nice experience, though it’s quite obvious that they’re not kidding about their reputation of being a “Burger and Spirits” establishment. They’re just about the only things on the menu. But the BBQ burger I had was excellent and the desert was practically orgasmic, though entirely too big. Fortunately, Becky was there to help me eat it all. And of course, there were plenty of cute guys to check out.

All in all, I felt it was a delightful day.

Tarot Musings: Three of Cups

Deck: The Cosmic Tribe Tarot
Card: Three of Cups

Three cups rest towards the bottom of the card, forming an equilateral triangle between themselves. Hovering over these cups, positioned in such a way as to suggest they each just emerged from their own cup, hover three golden fairies. The two on the “outside” strike poses that suggest both playfulness and a bit of showing off. The figure to the left is holding the hand of the fairy in the center — who is also slightly lower than the outter two. The center figure appears to be reaching for the foot of the third figure, as if to grab hold of her as well. Golden rays of light also rise from within each o the cups, casting the figures and the entire card in a warm glow.

This card suggests both playfulness and togetherness, and the relationship these two qualities have with one another. Individually, each figure is light and free, full of joy and fun. And yet, by joining together, they each augment and improve on one another’s joy. The end result is a unified bliss that is more than the sum of each individual’s lone experiences.

The relationship between the figures in the image also suggests that is the fairy’s ability to free themselves from worry and have fun — both individually and collectively — that keeps the bond between them so strong. It is their unity in joy that enables them to maintain their partnership.

This card calls us to look at our own relationships, past present and future and examine why we maintain and cherish them. While maintaining healthy relationships are hard work, healthy relationships also lead to the kinds of benefits, most notably joy, which make that work well worth it. It is important that we keep that in mind in all of our relationships, lest we lose sight of why they are important to us during those moments when such bonds are painfully tested.

Bits and Bobs

The last couple of weeks have been more or less uneventful. Well, as long as you disregard the funeral I attended for a cousin. His battle with Parkinson’s finally took a turn for the worse. It was a pretty good service and well attended. I particularly appreciated the number of firemen who came to the event. Not that this is entirely surprising. The fire department was a big part of Tim’s life. Even after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, he spent as much time as he could at the fire house, doing whatever jobs he could manage. The head of the department commented at the funeral that he was going to have to find four new volunteers to replace Tim.

My sister and her kids are in the area. She decided to make the drive up from Mississippi for the funeral. Her husband told her she had to stay for at least a week, though. So she’s here until Monday. I plan on running down to my parents’ house tomorrow and spending the day with her and the kids. It should be fun.

I think the lack of employment is starting to get to me on some level. So next week, I’ll have to start getting more serious about the search for a job. I had really hoped one of the opportunities Rick and Kevin had found would pan out, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. So it’s time for me to get off my duff and take matters into my own hands again. The only down side to that is that I probably won’t find something temporary. I really wanted that because I wanted to eventually go back to the company that moved me into this area.

I’ve started walking again. I haven’t decided if I’m doing it to “lose weight’ (probably not), exercise (again, not necessarily), or just for the fun of it (I’m leaning towards this answer). It’s gotten me out of the house a bit more and that’s been well worth it. I’m rediscovering that I really do like doing things like that.

I’ve also gone on a couple outtings with Becky, which is always nice. A couple Thursdays ago, we went to a local coffee shop. I had a delicious drink consisting of hot apple cider, caramel, and whipped cream. Then we just sat and talked. It was pleasant. And I got to check out a couple cute guys, which is always a plus.

Rochester Pagan Pride 2006

Saturday, I spent the day at the Rochester Pagan Pride Festival. I had an absolutely wonderful time, and look forward to going again in the future.

Most of the day, I spent hanging out with Wendy and her friends. She was kind enough to let me put out a few fliers for the POC on her table. Quite a few people ended up taking them. With any luck, that means we’ll see some new faces real soon.

I didn’t attend many workshops, as I was having too much fun talking with friends and what-not. The one that I did manage to attend was the Crystal Singing Bowl meditation, led by the good folks from Singing Bowl Expressions. I’ve been to one of the monthly meditations that Dawn and Jeff hold at Psychic’s Thyme before. While I certainly enjoyed my experience there, it paled in comparison to the demonstration at Pride this year. This workshop involved ten different bowls, each vibrating at their own frequency. While I was not one of the many people who immediately found themselves out of their body, I could certainly feel my own energy channels responding to the experience. I also remember opening my eyes a couple of times and realizing I couldn’t focus my vision. It was an incredibly rewarding experience.

I also got a book on Pagan ethics that Patricia Telesco recently wrote under another pen name. As Ms. Telesco was one of the invited speakers at the festival (and I bought the book directly from her), I had the chance to discuss it with her. I told her about my desire to do some research and planning over the next year and put together a local workshop on Pagan ethics. She was quite happy about the idea and encouraged me. I also shared with her about my blog entry concerning the line in the Charge of the Goddess that declares “all acts of love and pleasure” to be rites of the Goddess. She paid me a rather high compliment in regards to how I approached that line and the sentences surrounding it. It was rather encouraging.

I think the person who impressed me most at the festival, however, was someone I never actually got the opportunity to speak to. That’s the young man, Adam, who stood about ten to fifteen feet from the entrance to the festival, handing out Christian tracts to anyone who would take them. According to one of the organizers I spoke with later, Adam is a regular “attendee” of Rochester Pagan Pride. And I think he deserves a great deal of credit for the level of respect he showed. Despite Adam’s obvious disagreement with the religious views of most of the festival goers and his desire to “save” us, he was able to offer his message in a rather unobtrusive way. He was alwas polite when people refused his tracts (strangely, he never actually offered me one) and never attempted to start an argument. I can totally respect the way he chose to demonstrate his convictions.

In a mostly unrelated topic, I’d just like to say that my friend, Becky, also thinks that the guy who waited on me at the sub shop we bought lunch at was interested in me. I’m not sure I agree with her, but it was kind of nice to entertain the notion. I just wish that if he really were interested in me, he’d have said something.

Remembering Juanita

I don’t think I could rightfully say what my first memory of Juanita was. She was someone that has always been a part of my life. When my parents first started taking me to the small American Baptist Church after I was born, she was there. She played the organ almost every Sunday.

I do remember that when I was older, I’d walk to the front of the sanctuary after many Sunday morning services and sit in the front pew just behind the organ. Juanita and I would talk as she continued to play the organ as people mingled and slowly filed out of the church. I think I was mesmerized by the way her fingers glided across the keys and her feet transitioned from pedal to pedal, making beautiful music.

In my twenties, when I bought a small keyboard (I had neither the money nor the space for a full sized piano), I sought Juanita to help me learn how to play. I’d practice on my keyboard and dutifully go to her house for my lessons. Some weeks, I’d bring my keyboard while other weeks, I took my lessons using her upright. We had a great time, joking, talking, and enjoying both the company and the music. I regretted quitting my lessons, but we both agreed that I was having too much trouble making the time for both practice and lessons.

After quitting my lessons and then leaving the church a year later, I didn’t see Juanita much. On occasion, our paths would cross as I’d go back to the little church to support family members who still attended. And the fact that her son, Tom, married one of my cousins gave rise to a few family occasions where we would see each other. On those occasions, we would greet one another with warm smiles and fond wishes.

Tomorrow, I’ll see Juanita one more time. This time, I will be paying my final respects. You see, Juanita lost her fight with cancer and passed away this past week. And a good number of us will miss her greatly. We’ll miss the music, love, and kindness she brought into this world on a regular basis.

But we will also remember her for these things. And we will remember that we are all better people for having known her. And hopefully, those memories will inspire us to emulate those traits we so admired in her. So in our sadness, we will also find warmth and joy.

After all, that’s how Juanita would’ve wanted it.

Finding good neighbors at the Village Gate

The last few months, I’ve been involved with starting up a Pagan Outreach Center. Today, we started to set up the office space we’re renting at Village Gate Square. A couple of us made trips to the various homes of people who offered furniture and other items to furnish the office.

One of the things I learned today while helping move heavy furniture is that contrary to what we sometimes think, there are still perfect strangers willing to lend a helping hand. While another volunteer and I were unloading a large and rather heavy display case from the truck, another delivery man walked over and helped us get it unloaded. Then as we were rolling it through the building on our way towards the elevator, we had to go through a closed door. As we were halfway through the door, a shopper passing by offered to hold the door for us to make our job a little easier.

Finally, a shopkeeper near the elevator saw our slow progress. We were moving the display case using a couple of old rollers off a printing press (a moving trick I learned from my father, who actually services such machines). It’s a workable solution — and certainly easier on the back than trying to carry such a heavy piece of furniture — but it makes for slow progress, as you have to stick a roller back under the front of the item you’re moving every six to ten feet. As we went by the one shop, the proprietor saw us and offered us the use of his cart. This more than tripled the speed at which we could finish the move, and both of us were quite thankful.

Each of these events reminded me that our society isn’t quite as filled with the self-absorbed and unhelpful individuals as we sometimes think. In a moment like this, there still are those people who are willing to offer a helping hand like the good neighbor we all wish we had. And it gave me a smile.

Of course, I immediately suggested that we send a thank you card to the shop-owner. (I’d love to send one to the other two a card too, but I have no idea who they were or how to find them again.) It seems that the right thing to do is for us to show that we can be good neighbors and properly show our appreciation for our “neighbor’s” kindness.

This experience certainly has made me feel pretty good about our choice to set up shop at the Village Gate. If everyone there is as friendly and community minded as the people I met today, it should be a great environment. And you can never have too many friends.

Bits and bobs

I haven’t put an update in here lately. I thought I’d go ahead and give the basic rundown of my life in a nutshell.

We’ll start with the major life change. I am now single. After four years, I have ended my relationship with Mike. It wasn’t an easy decision to make and it hurts like hell. But despite my best faith efforts to change things, it became perfectly clear where the relationship was heading. As painful as walking away is, I also know that continuing down that road would be even more painful.

I am leaving a number of message boards. I’m starting to discover that they’re little more than “distractions” to me. I really don’t get much out of staying there, other than the occasional bout of frustration. And at the moment, I just don’t have much to offer there, either. So it’s time to “cut bait,” so to speak.

In more pleasant news, my old college roommate has now been a Daddy for about two days. His wife gave birth to a healthy baby boy this past Saturday. I just found out this morning from an email. I sent my congratulations to the proud parents and look forward to meeting the little guy. Hopefully, that won’t be too far in the future.

I’m thinking over a couple of projects I’m considering working on. I don’t want to say too much about them now, but I just thought it’d be good to indicate that I’m looking to make life more productive.

I have officially decided to take a month or two off after my current job finishes. Given all the changes going on right now, I decided I could use some time to just relax and possibly do some intensive personal exploration. I’m not sure what this will really amount to, but time will tell.

About Stace

I’m in the mood for some uplifting thoughts and writing something absolutely glowing. As such, I think I will write about my dear friend, Stace. Now a lot of people probably know Stace. Around Bloop, she’s known as The Sentinel. And she writes an excellent diary which I highly recommend to everyone.

In reality, the real reason I’m writing about Stace is two-fold. For starters, I’ve thought about her in a couple different conversations I’ve had this morning. And she just seems to be on my thoughts. And since I really need to write a diary entry anyway and it’s always easy to write about whatever is on your mind, it seemed like a logical conclusion to make. (Besides, I’m also having fun imagining her blushing as she reads this.)

So, who is this person? If I sat and thought about it, and poured all my writing skill into my efforts, I still don’t think I could ever make a description of her that would be fitting. She’s just too nice and wonderful for that. She’s caring, intelligent, thoughtful, compassionate, and strong. I don’t believe in role models, but if I did, I think Stace would be high on my list of excellent role models.

Stace is a Christian. Stace is a devout Christian, in fact, and it doesn’t take long talking to her to realize that her faith influences everything in her life. And yet, she has a nature — a way of carrying herself, if you will — that makes that seem perfectly natural and desirable. It seems to me that for her, it’s not a matter of doing or making things fit. It’s a matter of her being who she is. And this makes it an attractive trait in her.

Stace has very strong convictions about things. She knows what she believes and why she believes it, and she makes no apology about it. And yet, she can interact with people who don’t share — or even oppose — her convictions and demonstrate a level of warmth, dignity, and respect that is astonishing. I often get the impression that she can say to someone, “I disagree with you,” and yet not feel the need to draw that disagreement into a long, distasteful argument thinly disguised as “debate” or “discussion.” To be honest, I think that’s one of the things that truly amazes me about her. Perhaps in part because it’s something that I envy about her. It’s something in my life that I — who still struggles with the urge to “have the last word” more often than I’d like to admit — still need to work on. And I think that seeing how she’s able to rise above that kind of smallness on a consistent basis inspires me. (Well, when it doesn’t shame me, at least.)

But the other thing about Stace’s convictions is that while she’s uncompromising, she’s also not above re-evaluating. That probably doesn’t make much sense, so let me explain. Being a Christian, she believes that the Bible is the inerrant word of God. She believes that it is the primary source — if not the sole source — of religious Truth and a precious gift from the Almighty. Now, a lot of Christians will tell you that. But I’ll be honest, I don’t believe all Christians who tell me that necessarily believe it. I’ve been known to get into arguments (you see, there I go not emulating Stace) with a small number of Christians who will use the Bible to “prove their point.” Often times, when they do this, they will use one or two verses, completely ignoring the overall message. (And worse, they sometimes take those verses out of context.) On very rare occasion, I’ve even seen some go so far as to rationalize their interpretation even after you’ve pointed this out. (I recently got into this argument over one Christian’s interpretation of John 1, and am currently trying to remind myself to swallow my pride and extricate myself from what has become a pointless argument.) But I have never seen Stace do this. Sure, I’ve seen Stace select Bible passages (though as I think of it, it seems to me that she chooses entire passages over single verses more often than not) to demonstrate what she believes, but she’s also open to re-examining her interpretations. And she also often talks about searching through the Bible to study on a particular topic. She does this to understand what she believes — or even to re-examine why she believes something and how Biblical it is. I have a lot of respect for someone who can openly show that the Bible is as much about her personal search for Truth as demonstrating the Truth to others. Overall, it just seems to demonstrate a tangible belief that the Bible really is a Holy and sacred thing.

The other thing that makes Stace wonderful is that she listens. Back in college, I had to learn about this concept that was called “active listening.” I don’t know if Stace had to learn that at some point in her life too, but just in conversations with her, I can tell that she understands the basic concepts involved and practices them regularly. She takes an active interest in people, and tries to understand them better. Even when their views don’t match up with her own. And most importantly, she doesn’t just inquire about these things for the sake of “getting more ammo.” There are some people whose questions I’m wary of answering. In my experience, some people ask questions and then listen to the answers just enough to formulate their next argument. But Stace doesn’t do that. She does it because she’s sincerely interested and wants to understand. It’s easier to to talk freely with someone who doesn’t always seem to have an “ulterior motive” hiding just below the surface.

But I think what truly amazes me is that she understands love and she’s a loving person. When Stace says she loves someone, they know it. Too often, people talk about loving others and say they do, but it’s in an abstract sense. The problem is, love is not an abstraction, it’s a real, solid thing. And it’s expressed through actions. Little actions, big actions, but always actions, and definite actions. And Stace demonstrates it through her listening, sincere curiosity, and warm heart. Some days, I don’t know how she balances standing for her convictions with her loving heart as well as she does. But I’m glad she days.

Like I said, I could never truly describe Stace in a way that does her justice. But I hope that I’ve at least expressed my adoration for her and described a small portion of her delightful and honorable nature fairly.