Early April Monte Report

Believe it or not, I celebrated Easter this morning by going to church. I am now letting the cat out of the bag: I've begun to attend church regularly. For someone who has professed to be an atheist for most of the past twenty years, this is a significant change for me. It all began with my psychiatrist. He professed that a healthy mental state can oft be found if four particular pillars are present in one's life. For lack of better definitions, he called these four pillars Clan, Community, Team and Church -- each of which, notably, involves interpersonal relationships. (I think that "family" is left out because one doesn't choose one's family in the same way that one chooses the other types of relationships.) The more robust the involvement in each pillar, the more likely the person is to be mentally healthy - their "table" has four strong legs to stand upon. For me, my "Clan" was pretty clearly my coworkers - a fairly strong leg holding up this mental health "table." My "Community" involves neighbors and friends - a weak leg, particularly in terms of my neighbors. (My assessment of this leg as being "weak" has more to do with my insecurities in my friendships, rather than the quantity or quality of said friends.) The best I could manage for the "Team" pillar is my involvement in the local birdwatching community - another very weak leg, considering that the only time I go birdwatching with others is on New Year's Day each year. (I'll take some credit, however, for my attempts at both golf and softball in the not too distant past.) And then there's the "Church" leg. Certainly my doctor wasn't suggesting that I simply find a church and start attending it regularly. Rather, this pillar has more to do with trying to define some sense of spirituality, and then finding other like-minded individuals with whom to share it. And, as fate would have it, litterally just a couple days after my doctor made this suggestion, a friend invited me to attend his church with him. It was a no-pressure sort of thing, and when I communicated my doubts about the existence of a divine power, he relayed a notion that his pastor had relayed to him: that if we wait to act until we are 100% certain about something, then we'd likely accomplish nothing in our lives. In other words, there's no harm in trying. And so I mulled it over for a few months, and finally decided to try it out. This was sometime last Autumn - I don't recall exactly when. Since then, I have joined my friend and his family many times on Sunday mornings - and I have come to really enjoy it. The pastor seems like the kind of guy I'd love to sit down and have dinner with, and the sermons are generally very interesting and relevant. Today, for example, the Easter sermon had to do with the Resurrection of Christ, and whether we should believe that it really happened just because the Bible says so. Anyway, the relevance to my life came when he talked about our own selves being resurrected not from death, but from despair - and believing that such a "resurrection" from despair to joy is possible in our own lives. Hearing him speak in such a way about something that hit so close to home for me brought tears of hope to my eyes.

With my move to Washington pending, I'm eager to find a similar outlet in my new environs. From what I've found on the internet, the nearest Presbyterian church is an hour away. Ugh. As un-adventurous as I am, I'm unsure if I'll have the courage to explore other types of churches that are closer. But, we'll see. In the meantime, I hope to attend as many times here in Santa Cruz as I can. (To pat myself on the back some, I also want to point out that I went to church solo today for the first time, as my friend and his family are out of town. In the past, I've always chickened out on going alone when they weren't available . . .)

Now, back to the present. I've been done with work for a week now, and it's been a mixed bag. My typical pattern is to get up pretty early (often before sunrise), and spend the day alternating between packing, reading, and working on the computer. Almost invariably, though, my mood declines as the day progresses, and I end up in a drug-enhanced sleep by around 8 or 9 o'clock. One would think that I would go out of my way to get out of the house in the evenings, spend time with friends, take myself to a movie, that sort of thing. But that's where the Catch-22 of Depression comes in to play. Rather than doing something positive on my behalf, I instead become paralyzed and just curl up in bed. Fortunately, I've got a few "dates" lined up over the next few weeks - mainly "good-bye" dinner dates with folks from work. And surely that'll be good for me, even if I'd "rather" be curled up in bed instead.

Lastly, there were a couple of notable birds this week. My first Black-headed Grosbeak of the year came to my feeder on April 4th, heralding the arrival of Spring. (My thanks to John Laws for his kind permission to use his artwork.) And on April 6th I saw a Brown Booby, a large seabird that is rarely seen this far north, but which has been hanging around the wharf here for the past couple weeks. I "chased" it (that is, specifically went looking for it) probably seven or eight times before I finally saw it. Though it's not a "lifer" for me, it's a first for the mainland U.S. (I've seen them in Hawaii before.) (If you want to see what a Booby looks like, I'll let you google it . . .)