In Fairness

Ok, so I've discovered the simple truth: It is ME. It is not THEM. Well, everybody has a choice about saying hello to someone, or talking with someone, or simply passing by without a word. For whatever reasons, or excuses, I have drawn myself apart...

Where can I turn for peace? Where is my solace
When other sources cease to make me whole?
Where with a wounded heart, anger or malice,
I draw myself apart, Searching my soul?

Where when my aching grows, Where, when I languish,
Where, in my need to know, where can I run?
Where is the quiet hand to calm my anquish?
Who, who can understand? He, only One.

He answers privately, Reaches my reaching
In my Gethsemane, Savior and Friend.
Gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching.
Constant he is and kind, love without end.

(Hymns of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (1985), #129)

My own words reminded me of that hymn. It's one of my favorites for more than 16 to 20 years. It speaks volumes to me.

I go through periods when I am so very shy that it is difficult to initiate talking with others. Sometimes I have been depressed. Sometimes I have been overly sad. Sometimes my self-esteem is close to zilch. These things don't make reaching out easy. Sometimes it has taken great effort to walk up to a stranger and welcome them and find out who they are; every time I have done so, it has been worth the effort because of the way it feels inside.

I remember how it came to me one morning in Gospel Doctrine class (Adult Sunday School) an understanding about the story of Jesus telling Peter to cast his nets on the other side of the boat. Since Jesus told them He would make them fishers of men, it stood to reason that he was telling them about missionary work and to do it the right way. The teachers response to me made me feel ten feet tall. Those kinds of contributions, or rather any at all, are few and far between. If I don't get involved, I feel, well, bored for lack of a better word.

I want to be involved. I feel that generally speaking, I am viewed as someone who is unable to be industriously engaged. And if anyone thinks that way, I have given them that impression by sitting in the back and hardly ever contributing a word.

I got tired of all this -- the lack of my own participation as well as the lack of any recognition along with a general sense that no one wanted me to do anything -- It hurt less to stay home.

To those of you that used to go but have stopped going: What keeps you from attending church?