My friday
I have a bad cold that will never leave. Unfortunally, when my immune defense is down, my anxiety has plenty of room for maneuver. I know it is a physical defect and I try to not listen to much to the voices of dread and worry that fills my mind. This cold too will pass and then the sick part of my anxiety will rest for a while.
This morning I had a small attac in school and I got nauseous, dizzy, my hart was beating to fast and my breath was short. A couple of years ago I would have been sure it was a demonic attack or maybe some cardiac problems. Now I know more about myself and when my body tells me to panic I just feel bored and disconnected.
I got a new assignment in my history class. I three weeks I have to do a 20 minute dramatization of a person or a event of my choice under the subject social history. A fun challenge.
At lunch I followed my only weekly routine and went to friday mass at the cathedral.
I attend the Church of Sweden, an evangelical lutheran denomination. Its structure is the same as in the 11th century when sweden became a part of the Roman Catholic Church but when Sweden was reformed in the 16th century we ditched the pope and the confession but kept most of the other customs. Nowadays the Church of Sweden is affirming and liberal.
Our bishop conducts the friday service (if he is in town) but a layman almost always reads an extract from the Epistles. The layman is often one of many priests or deacons (a clerical title you get ordain to) in the audience not in duty, but today a nervous, stressed out but very honored transguy got asked to read the Epistle text. It was a nice but weird experience. Our cathedral has a.. hmm, I don't know the english word, lets use resonance time... of 9 seconds. The time it takes from that when you let your tongue deliver a word until the huge church is done with juggling your voice across every corner in the cathedral it takes nine seconds. It is about 800 years old and back then people really knew how to build a building to reinforce a single voice to something truly impressive. It was fun that I, a openly gay transdude was asked to do the reading and it was very nice to get to speak up and fill the Church with my voice. I wonder how many of my kind that have been silenced in that place during the millennium it have been a place of Christian worship.
5 comments:
Wow, that is tremendous! And you expressed it beautifully!
"Our cathedral has a.. hmm, I don't know the english word, lets use resonance time... of 9 seconds. The time it takes from that when you let your tongue deliver a word until the huge church is done with juggling your voice across every corner in the cathedral it takes nine seconds."
I am so impressed with your commitment to write in English. I struggle so in expressing myself in Spanish on my other blog. Thanks for the efforts you make! You are wonderful at expressing yourself.
Thank you for your wonderful compliment! The ability to express my self in words is one of the most important things for me. My words are my means but also my end. I remember when I tried to post my first Marvin-comment. It was this spring. It took me two hours and finally I erased it because I couldn't get it ok. I tried again the next time Marvin posted and after one hour I posted a few sentences after looking up almost every word in a dictionary. A lot has happened since then.
Wow, Alex, your English has really improved if you started writing in the spring.
Also, do you have a problem with anxiety? Did you describe this in the post? I ask because I have problems with it, too. You are not alone if you have anxiety attacks!
Now I'm getting nostalgic.
It was 14th of May I wrote my first comment to Marvin. It wasn't the first thing I ever written, It is obligatory to take English in school and in 2004 I wrote six posts on a community about home births but it took to much energy and people didn't really understand what I was writing. Then I reconciled with the thought of never ever try to write in English.
Then Marvin came and I fell in love and things love can make you do...
And Joe, yes, I have problems with anxiety attacks. I think it is a fairly common problem but people seldom talk about it so mentioned it just to take a small step in the direction of making it less taboo talking about.
"It was fun that I, a openly gay transdude was asked to do the reading and it was very nice to get to speak up and fill the Church with my voice."--I'm glad that you got to have that experience. I, too, know how amazing that feels.
"I wonder how many of my kind that have been silenced in that place during the millennium it have been a place of Christian worship."--Probably not too many.
Great blog. You get another gold star! And a cookie. And a pat on the back. And even a gruff, manly hug, if you want one.
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