[photo from Church of Bethesda-by-the-sea website] I was often overwhelmed during the seven years I worked in Forida . It was so far from everyone and everything I loved, and the teaching took a lot out of me. I’m an introvert who can project like an extrovert, then go home and collapse. I loved many of the students I taught—in ways I now think were probably not healthy—but their adolescent energy and dramas were exhausting. Two places of refuge existed for me. The ocean, only a bridge away to another world, was big enough to absorb my grief when my father died. Many nights after I returned from his funeral, my roommate would drive us to the ocean and I would sit on the seawall and cry. The ocean also cast up daily delights of shells and stones I collected in Mason jars. The second place, also across the bridge, was (of all the foreshadowing places!) the historic Episcopal Church on that island, Bethesda-by-the-Sea, a Spanish Gothic structure built in 1925. To enter its sanctuary, which was open during the day, was to enter a blue darkness. The magnificent stained glass depicted scenes from the Bible featuring water—the flood, Jonah and the whale, Jesus walking on water—all in glorious shades of blue. It was cool within the stone walls, the day’s almost inevitable sunny glare absent. A short walk outside the sanctuary through the courtyard led to a garden with a reflecting pool, complete with large orange koi and water lilies. In the lower part of the garden hung a della Robbia image of the Virgin. At the far end were two wooden gazebos, their tops conical like a dunce cap to offer shade; a lantern hung in the ceiling of each, festooned with spider webs. The stone walls enclosing the garden were lined with bougainvillea, crown of thorns and ixoria bushes. A demure fountain fed water to the pool; I could hear it splashing as I sat in one of the gazebos with my journal. Writing is the only way I can begin to make sense of the world; this has been true since at least sixth grade. During those seven years of teaching, I did write, though just short pieces, sometimes doing the assignments I gave the English classes I taught. I kept a journal, though, and puzzled over people who confused me and issues that disturbed me. The garden offered me a much-needed sanctuary from the hot, extroverted world and the hurts and difficulties I fled.
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Baptist GirlI was a conservative Baptist girl who grew up to become a career Christian, working first in a Baptist school and then in a Baptist college. For about three decades, it was very good until it wasn’t, and I had to leave. But the Baptists formed me. This is my homage to the good times and good people of the world I left, finally, at forty-three, when I became an Episcopalian. These are my memories; others might disagree with my recollections. So be it. Archives
January 2024
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