I've Got a Word or Two

I arrived back late tonight from a day spent back on in da 'ham.

I love my family. I hate Birmingham. And I admit that I felt sad when I had to leave my parents, particularly my poor mother, who had been going through total withdrawal for having not seen me in person for three whole months. She is a Pisces mom to a T. She cooked and cleaned and prepared a "care package" of leftover food for me to take back home.

I said, "Mom, are you going to tie it up with brown paper and string, too?"

She just grinned.

But yeah, my family is still my family. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder. But not with Birmingham. The farther I stay away from that place, the more I despise it and realize how much I was getting the shaft just by being there.

While I was there, I heard through the grapevine that the Birmingham UU...I mean UNITARIAN...church is being totally reamed out by the new minister they've just installed. Seems that he's run into the same sorts of issues that drove me away. And nearly drove away the interim as well.

Good that they're being called out finally, but I'm glad I'm not there to hear it.

Every cliche of a small, insular, snooty, dysfunctional church home applies to what passes for the Unitarian Universalist Church of Birmingham. I hope that, in some small way, my leaving made an impression on the long time members. More than likely it did not--they went on fumbling around, sounding impressive, full of sound and fury signifying nothing, and doing their best impression of what St. Paul called "tinkling brass".

*gasp* Was that a reference to Christianity? Why yes, yes it was.

And it's in 1st Corinthians, Chapter 13--which should be an inspiration for all of us.

UUCA is a paradise compared to Birmingham. This is why I have really low expectations so far as actual Unitarian churches are concerned. It seems that I was just in a bad home church for a while and in a bad YA national movement.

My heart goes out, once again, to young adults who have had similar experiences and find themselves diving into the national UU movement because they have nowhere else to go to be appreciated.