third friday of easter

after running my errands and a little light geocaching, i had time to walk the line a while.

maybe it is a trick of the light, but i was able to see the faces of more of the drivers and struck by how kind they are.

two different drivers at the intersection did not go through the stop sign until they were certain that i'd seen their thumbs up.

in other news, the husband of the pastor who should be fired was out front when i went by the parsonage on some of the passes, and i have never seen anyone check a mailbox so resolutely.

i am thinking today a lot about that morning brian godwin came out of the church while i was out to offer me advice and tell me that the sign wasn't winning me any points inside.

i wish i could remember his exact words, because i want to know what he thought i wanted from anyone inside. i would really love to know what anyone in there thought they could offer me at that point or what case i needed pleading in there or why anything they could offer at that point would be worth anything to me.

perhaps he though that i was looking in some way for readmission to the community that had ejected me.

it is typical of the williston federated church to do too little too late.

all i want now is to stick the knowledge of the assault and the failure to act appropriately and the absence of moral standing or even the truth or that "radical welcome" they talk about- to take the knowledge of all of that and how they have to necessarily support the victims or become the people who blame the victims- to take that question and that debate and stick it firmly in the public eye and in the institutional culture and to intertwine the questions and pains of it in the cultural heritage of the church so that a generation from now it will not yet be forgotten.

what i want now it to make the protest be permanently linked with the church in community perception so that it is the pastor's legacy. what i want is for the church to be known and recognized for THAT.

i want THAT to be the first thing anyone thinks of then they think of the williston federated church.

it could have been otherwise. i could have stayed and been let to mend my own fences and patch up the hole left in the wake of the assault and the church's failure to properly respond, but i will accept this solution.

it is good enough.