Let me float...

I learned a cool new word (to add to apotropaic!)
adiaphora = "a thing of indifference"
(adjective "adiaphorous", from Greek a- "not" + diaphoros "different")

I learned the word when I was looking up Mary's Assumption for the girlette's upcoming "When Mary Became a Parade Balloon" parade on August 15. Anglican doctrine considers the Assumption of Mary "adiaphora"--irrelevant.

(What happens to Mary after Jesus is killed is not recorded in scripture, but there are lots of folk tales (fan fiction!) about her--some of which, like the Assumption, the Roman Catholic Church took up as doctrine.)

Anyway--I am trying my best to be adiaphoric! (Is that the correct formation?)

I. Let Me Float Above the Swamp

See, a fairly new volunteer at the thrift store, a productive and practical woman who is a recently retired doctor, has been talking to me about improvements that could be made to the store. She has all the good ideas I had when I started five years ago:
"Wouldn't it make sense to add/change x.y. z.?
Wouldn't it be easier/work better if we... ?"

Certainly this volunteer could get some things done. She knows people on the board, and that's something.
She asked me for my ideas, so I sent her a list of four practical, infrastructure improvements--including replacing the front window with the bullet holes.

In reply, she wrote a list of possible systemic changes---improvements to management--stuff like implementing job training and volunteer management.

omgno

I told her I wanted to be clear and honest with her.
I said to her--not in these words--you are mistaken in thinking in Middle-Class Terms, lady, as if this were a Place of Business.
No.
This is a A Fairy Tale SWAMP. You will get nowhere if you don't feed the trolls, and as we know from the Internet, trolls do not offer a good exchange rate.

What I really said was,
I have no energy to give to management or system changes, only to one-time, practical doable improvements, like knocking down the walls of the dressing rooms we no longer allow people to use (because they were turning into a shooting gallery).
I have not gotten anywhere with management, I said, but if she felt she could, she should go for it.
_____________

II. 9 a.m. Half an hour later...

Ah, relief. The exchange with the volunteer had knocked me off center. So half an hour ago, at 8:28 a.m., I biked two blocks to attend Mass.

Ever since I went back to the Christian stories--and also to Grimm's Fairy Tales--(after the dreadful therapist), I've been missing Mass. I hadn't liked the priest at the nearby church, but this morning I thought--so what? It's not about him.

I feel back on point now. As we prayed "deliver us from evil," I thought--let me be indifferent (adiaphoric)---deliver me from my own fearful reaction. It's not "evil", but it's sure not helpful!
Let me step aside from/FLOAT ABOVE  the volunteer's plans and carry on in what I do best.

The priest was fine. In fact, better than fine. He started by telling us he would be doing a funeral later this morning for a young woman who'd been killed by her boyfriend. Then, his homily was about our human propensity for fear and violence and our call to cultivate a culture of love.

This applies directly to what I face at the store. I don't want to or need to mess with management. I want strength and clarity to continue to cultivate the things I love, the things I can do:
Books & Toys, and also, trying to be present to the people I encounter every day.
That's enough of a challenge!

Speaking of challenges, how are the girlettes going to shape their parade?
They're pushing me to recreate this illusionistic fresco in the dome of the Cathedral of Parma (where the ham's from) (via Wikipedia)!

This is beyond me.
I vote for this sort of thing, below, instead--Mary definitely looks like a girlette here, with her little smile.

It's Eastern Orthodox--it seems Mary's assumption (or her dormition--"falling asleep") was more? popular (or popular from an earlier date) in Eastern Christian art.
Don't quote me on that. The history and theology is fun for me, but the minutiae is not personally important. Adiaphora!