Heresy and Rockroses in Everyday Ramblings

The rockroses are coming in. It is so funny how I am becoming more comfortable with the color pink as I get older. It was anathema to me as a girl even though I was a pretty girly girl.

On Sunday I watched Raw Faith, a well done documentary about our former minister Marilyn Sewell. It is available for streaming if you are a U.S. Netflix subscriber. Not sure if it is available in Australia or New Zealand, or South Africa.

The house she lives in during the period the documentary was shot is about a block away from where Sammy lived when I adopted him (Sammy’s wild years) and a half a block from where I lived during almost my whole relationship with Mr. Finch (Noko’s wild years, or some of them :).

When we would go walkies, which we did rain or shine practically every day of the year so he could smoke and I could get exercise and take pictures of the lovely gardens, we would walk by Marilyn’s house.

One of my yoga students is struggling with making the decision to retire from nursing and she had watched this movie last week and said that it helped make it possible to set the date to let go and move on with her life. Marilyn was my minister for 11 of the 16 years I’ve lived here in Portland. I heard every sermon that is referenced in the documentary.

I had a complex relationship not exactly with her, though we chatted sometimes briefly in the store (say getting a squirt gun for her new kitten’s behavioral modification training), or on the few times I was at events in her house, but about her.

Even then, before I became a yoga teacher her kyphosis (the hunching forward of her upper back) made an impression on me. I noticed that towards the end of the documentary her posture gets better, not carrying the weight of the church on her shoulders anymore.

She has much to teach me by example about being self-contained, about giving back, about finding and accepting love and about suffering.

I love that thing she says each morning..."I'm available, what's next?"

I am trying to imagine what it would be like to see this powerful story about someone I didn’t know. She came back to the church recently to preach and I missed that. I am going to look for the sermon online.

We are Unitarians. I still feel a bit odd saying that I go to church because people assume I am Christian when I say that and I am not. As endless folks who have tried to convert me, including Mr. Finch, will tell you. Without judgment I sort of see myself as being more than Christian, that there is no either or, there is just more, but I suppose that in and of itself is heresy.

I remember Marilyn sitting on that front porch with her new fellow after she had made the decision to retire. I am glad for her that love did arrive at last.