PTSD

I’ve just noticed that I’ve developed an inability to trust people in dealing with religion. This is not a problem I had before.

When I moved to A’ville, the folks at St Nicholas parish reached out to me: the Deacon took me into his own house and fed me every weekend. His kids called me “Uncle Raphael”. Other members of the parish gave me furniture, offered help in moving, made sure I never went hungry or that I was able to come to Liturgy in bad weather. I’d hear bad things about the Greek parish in town (or silly stories about every priest over the last 10 years), or about the ROCOR parish or about the Carpatho-Russians or the other Antiochian parishes in our area - and know that I’d made the right choice. When people would leave the parish, I’d hear gossip about them from the priest.

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Posters…

I was amazed at the anti-drug posters in SF. I’m so used to the drug problem being a country, poor-of-all-race issue (western NC gave up the stills for meth labs and supplies a large portion of the stuff to the world). I had forgotten that, outside of the rural areas, meth is also a major gay club drug.