A Street Called "Straight..."

Taken in Ashland, Oregon.  copyright 2013, Constance Schroeder

Yesterday's epistle reading was the one where Paul has a vision and is asked why he is persecuting Jesus.  The upshot of the deal, is that Paul is blinded and led away to a street called straight.  According to Tony Hutchinson's (our rector at Trinity, where I attend), "straight" in the Greek means "upright." (It doesn't have a thing to do with being a slur against LGBTQ people!) And Paul waits for some man named Ananais to come and lay hands on him so he can regain his health.

Tony's sermon yesterday left me with many feelings, and in fact I spent part of the afternoon doing a bit of weeping, trying to understand exactly what was going on in me around it all.  I'm still not sure I quite understand what the Spirit is stirring in me, but I am leaving the work in God's hands, and just trying to stay out of the way.    

I do know that since moving here to Oregon, I have been doing my best to do things differently.  I don't want to go back to the things that left me more broken, more confused, more covered in mud and pain.  Arriving at Trinity has been a bit like arriving at a "street called straight," a place where I have found people who live lives rooted in hope; people who treat others, even the stranger, with respect and with kindness.  And my life has become the better for it.  Little by little, as my health allows for it, I am choosing to serve in the ways I am able to serve.  Little by little, I look for ways to use my creative mind in ways that might be helpful to others. 

Funny, how one's early years can demolish so much potential in a life.  It can take a very long time to heal enough that others do not continue to humiliate and destroy the possibility in a life.  It can take a very long time to learn enough not to do it to oneself.  Forgiveness, praying for one's enemies, and finding sisters and brothers who live on a street called straight is the way for one rooted in Christian tradition to heal and lead a life that God can use.

Someone once said what a "waste" childhood sexual abuse is in this world.  And it is true.  Years when one should have the energy and exuberance of youth, get stolen away.  Relationships are marred.  Bad choices get repeatedly made.  The pain, the destruction continue, even when actual abuse has long ago ended.