The churches of Port Alberni

It's pretty definite.  I am pretty sure that I am heading into a good, solid depression.  Likely the most intense that I've had since before I married Gloria.  (She seemed to have a very mitigating influence on my depression cycles.)  I can recognize the symptoms.  I'm already showing signs of cognitive decline and difficulties.  I've had more than five decades of experience at it.  This is not going to be fun.

It is not likely that I will, actually, commit suicide.  I have been deferring the act for more than fifty years, so I'm not sure whether it is now pointless, or overdue.  However, every time somebody does commit suicide, everyone is terribly surprised, and always says, "why didn't we know?"  So, I'll set down, in advance, the reason for committing suicide after all of these pointless wasted years.  It's the churches of Port Alberni that drove me to it.

Now, of course, my previous churches can bear a little of the blame.  Nobody particularly cares.  The churches that I came from didn't particularly care when my wife died and I was left a grieving widower.  I am in pain, I am damaged, and, undoubtedly, I am not an attractive proposition either for membership, friendship, or, of course, romantic entanglements.  However, supposedly the church is supposed to take care of damaged, hurting, grieving people.  Well, they don't.  The churches in on the North Shore didn't particularly care, despite years of contacts, work, help, and other contributions that both Gloria and I made to them.  The churches in Delta that I touched on, helped, attended, and participated in their volunteer work, didn't particularly care either.  In the six months since I moved away from Delta, absolutely nobody has initiated any kind of contact with me.

But, no, it's the churches of Port Alberni that bear the brunt of the blame here.  As I was going around church shopping, I made no particular secret of the fact that I was a grieving widower.  Again, see above, for the fact that I realize I'm not a terrifically valuable person, particularly in the current situation, but there has been pretty much zero attempt to address any of my needs, by any of the churches in Port Alberni that I have attended or touched on.

Noted elsewhere, I am not exactly a novice at church shopping.  I have experience in a number of church situations over many years.  I know how this works, and doesn't.  But the churches of Port Alberni set a new standard for not attempting to do anything to or for me.  Definitely Teflon.  I'm getting more comfort from coffee than from the churches.  And I don't even *like* coffee!

It has been bizarre.  One particular group has fooled me over and over again.  They have, consistently, every time I have attended, talked about the importance of fellowship, and coming alongside, and caring for one another, as well as the importance of sharing truly and deeply when we share vulnerabilities with each other.  And so I have shared!  Truly, honestly, deeply, and vulnerably!  And no one has cared!  No one has come alongside.  There has been absolutely no fellowship, at all, from this group.  There is another that has talked about the need to reach out.  The need to connect with the community.  The need to extend the church into the lives of all around us.  And they talked, and they talked, and they talked, and when I, or other members of the group, have proposed ideas as to how we could reach out to the community, and stand up, and step out, and reach out, they talk about how we can't do that and why we can't do that.  And they do nothing.  There is no connection in this group that keeps talking about connection.  (Yesterday one of the sermons was on the need to confess our sins to each other.  In *this* church community?  Where the concept of "safe space" seems to be completely foreign?)

I've signed up for the Grief Share daily emails, which seem to be a year's worth of canned, standard, pieces of "Christian" grief advice, all numbered.  Number 34, which came a while ago, suggests that we need to be honest in grief.  Oh!  Gee!  What a concept!  Actually telling people what's happening!  Well, yes, I'm trying to be honest in this blog, even though I come across as a whiny complainer while doing so.  However, there doesn't seem to be any point to it.  Twice today, and three times yesterday, people asked me how I was, and I said terrible.  And then I listened to *their* problems (for half an hour per).

However, I know that honesty is not necessarily the best policy.  I mean, it's pretty pointless isn't it?  Nobody cares.  As the old saying goes: can't complain, if you do nobody listens.  As illustrated above, it doesn't matter if you're honest.  Nobody cares, nobody asks for details.  They just complain about their own problems.

I don't know whether there's any point in being honest or not.  Recently somebody asked, possibly for the first time ever, how I was.  I replied that I was terrible.  He said that that didn't sound like me.  I pointed out that he didn't even know me.  He said, but you always seem so cheerful!  Well, have you ever asked?  Have you ever cared enough to ask?  Have you ever cared enough that when you get the answer terrible, you ask for details?  Have you ever listened to the details?  No.

Of course, I am well aware that nobody likes a whiny complainer.  So, of course I always present as cheerfully as I possibly can.  I'm smiling, generally if I'm not actually crying.  I try to be kind to people.  I try to return a pleasant comment to any clerk or cashier that I'm dealing with in a brief transaction.  It doesn't cost me anything to be cheerful, it doesn't cost me anything to provide a kind word to somebody who's in a generally thankless job.  That doesn't mean that I'm not having a terrible day myself, but just because I'm having a terrible day myself doesn't mean that I have to be presenting at glum face, and being terse, or even nasty, to anybody I'm dealing with on a random basis.  When people that I pass on the street are kind enough to say good morning I try to return as cheerful a good morning as I possibly can.  Doesn't mean I'm not having a bad day.  Doesn't mean I'm not depressed.  Doesn't mean that I'm not grieving and in pain.  You don't even know me.

Maybe it's my own fault.  I have, after all, made myself useful to the churches around here.  To pretty much every church I have attended.  The first week I was in town, I filled in in the kitchen for a funeral service, so that the church ladies could all attend the service.  As previously noted, Port Alberni does not make it easy to do church shopping, by having all of their church services simultaneously, at the same time, on Sunday morning.  So I have found midweek Bible studies, small groups, and prayer meetings and attend them regularly.  I go to the men's breakfasts, and not only do I go, but I am now a regular fixture in the kitchen preparing the breakfast.  I've always figured that there was no point in simply going and sitting in the service and expecting people to take notice of you.  But, it does seem that what this has resulted in is the church's only looking at my utility value.  They don't care about me, as me.  I very strongly suspect that I would have had a better result, at least better for me, had I just gone in and said I was new here and demanded that they pay attention to me, and cater to my needs.  It's not exactly my style, but, from what I've seen in the churches so far, it probably provides a better result for the newcomer.

It's my own fault in yet another way.  If there are contributing factors for going into depression, then exhausting myself helping out, contributing to, and providing various things for the churches, as well as checking up on, and supporting, particular parishioners who were, themselves, in need, was probably not the smart thing to do.  Especially since the churches all seem to be just "users."

Then there was yet another men's breakfast day.  A friend was suggesting "The Men's Table."  He thought it started up in Canada, but it seems to be limited to Australia.  That wasn't the only hiccup.  Ironically, the friend is an atheist, but, when I went tot he Website, I could see that there is definitely some kind of Christian agenda behind it, given the language.  (I speak Christianese fluently.)  "The Men's Table" describes itself as a "safe space."  The men's breakfasts here are definitely not safe.  So, having made months and months of efforts to support the church (universal) and the related programs, maybe it is time that I gave up on this toxic culture.

Atheists probably can't see the full significance here.  If there is no God, the church is just another misguided social club, like the Loyal Order of Moose Antler Wearing Drunks, or the Daughters-Of-The-Third-Star-On-The-Left-No-Not-*That*-One-The-One-Over-By-The-Three-Trees.  If there *is* a God, then the church is disobeying the commands they were given in setting up the institution in the first place.

So God has, like He did with Ezekiel (24:16) taken away the light of my eyes, and my comfort, and renewed and intensified my depression just at the time that he has brought me to the town with the most uncaring churches in BC (and possibly all of North America).  It is hard to avoid the conclusion that God hates me.