Letters, 4.

This may well not appeal to certain readers; as ever, I write this for myself. If you wish not to read it, don't.

Dear Colin,

It has been a fair while since our last correspondence. Frankly I have been trying to concentrate on more important things, so I let the fact that during the children's talk a few weeks ago, you suggested the children follow the leaders of our church blindly instead of thinking for themselves about whether they are being led in the right direction and the making a decision for themselves, go. This morning's sermon however, frankly appalled me. Preaching on Esther and Mordecai was a good topic, preaching on standing up, and trying to challenge people's thinking and doing something to make a difference was inspired. You then exhorted us to use our God-given gifts to do the same. If I had not being trying so hard to restrain my sarcastic laughter, I would have cried. Given the events of recent months regarding my own use of my gifts and attempts to challenge people's thinking and your response to that, forgive me if I ask How Dare You? How ******* DARE you?

Yours etc etc

According to certain parties, parts of my blog are not very amusing, indeed, apparently my *Letters* are becoming "tiresome". Sorry about that, but as I have said before, my blog is mine. In other words, it is not for you, it is for me.
I never promised entertainment, in fact I believe what I said was that most people would probably not enjoy it. It is what it is. Cathartic. Therapeutic. Maybe it's not what you had in mind but as I have also said before, this is a free country. May I respectfully suggest that if you are not enjoying reading it, perhaps you should stay away for a while until I have finished venting my spleen. To your suggestion commenter, do you not think that if there were that I would be doing?!

Letters, 3.

Dear Colin,

I must say that this has come somewhat sooner than I expected but I find myself so puzzled by the email you sent following the one concerning Christmas that I thought I had better drop you a quick line and clarify a couple of points.

You say that you imagine that I find "all this discussion about Koinonia rather frustrating" - sorry, what discussion would that be, exactly? The last time I recall speaking to you at all, as I remember it, I was sat at the office computer swearing under my breath because I had just lost two whole hours worth of my work as it was doing that annoying thing where it refuses to recognise any external discs and won't save anything and then it crashes so you lose everything again. Now to the best of my recollection, the conversation went something like this:

BW: Are you working on the Koinonia?

T: Yes and I am not best pleased as I have just lost two hours work...

BW: Oh, why's that?

T: Because it is doing that annoying thing where it refuses to recognise any external discs and then it crashes so you lose everything again so I am not in the best mood.

BW: Yes, it can be frustrating sometimes, well I guess I'll leave you to it.

T: Yeah, see you.

Obviously, that may well not be verbatim, my memory is not fantastic at details when I am irritated, but it was something like that. So when exactly did we "discuss" anything?

On the other hand, I do most definitely recall that at no time did you ask me when I would be finished, or what I usually do with the Koinonia when it *is* finished. Which, incidentally, is to put a hard copy on Megumi's desk, with a big old note that says "Megumi, here is the absolute final version of the Koinonia." A fact which, had you bothered to ask, you could easily have found out. I also remember quite clearly that you did not ask if you could see it when it was done. Now I realise that you do have a right to see it before publication since you are, in accordance with the church by-laws, acting on behalf of the pastor in his or her absence -(we will leave the "discussion" as to why you are only choosing to do this with selected duties, not all of them, for another time.) - however, I think it only courteous to actually ask the person doing all the work for their permission before taking it and bandying it around an admin meeting. Especially since most of them wouldn't know a decent piece of writing if it jumped up and slapped them in the face, let alone appreciate the fact that the People in Profile alone piece took 6 hours of my life which I will never get back and that's not to mention the time it took to type up Hugh's boring archaeological epics since he doesn't have a computer and they sent me asleep every time I started one so I can't even measure how long they took!

What I am really having difficulty understanding though, is what business it is of admin's anyway.... after all, the constitution does not say "the church newsletter must be approved by the congregational President, vice-President, Clerk and Treasurer, as well as the Pastor" does it? No. It doesn't. In case you haven't quite picked up my feelings about admin yet, let me iterate that I think they are well representative of the congregation at large with the exception of a few. That is to say ingrate Philistines.

Lastly, before I continue to address my concerns about your mismanagement of the church and the appropriation of admin as your personal posse in another epistle, may I just ask why it is exactly, that when I slagged off the entire congregation for being rude and noisy during Ms Nishimura's divine solo one Choir Sunday, no one raised so much as an eyebrow. When I dismissed the novel "The Da Vinci Code" for being a load of dross written by someone who only knows three adjectives and who has created a cast of cardboard cut outs with the emotional depth of a piece of plywood (or something like that) there wasn't even a murmur. But when I write about something that is actually important, that requires readers to actually think about someone other than themselves for more than 30 seconds for their lives, THEN you and your little coterie want me silenced?!

I hope you have a good explanation ready.


As usual,

Yours etc etc

Terri

Letters, 2.

Dear Colin,

Before I start proper, I thought I should perhaps apologise for being overly harsh in my last email; I said that I knew about 300,000,000 more words than you, actually though, to be fair, it's probably only about 250,000,000. So sorry to have maligned you.

To continue; I was wondering if you could tell me exactly why you and the admin team seem to think that a congregant wanting to celebrate Christmas by worshipping on Christmas Day is so strange? After all, thanks to the Romans, who were already celebrating Mithras Day, we celebrate Christ's birthday on the 25th of December, do we not? Why is actually opening the church on said morning such an odd concept to you? What really bothers me about the episode is that several of us offered to run a worship gathering ourselves and we were denied the chance to do so. I am wondering whether you are actually trying to bring people into our church or get rid of them. If indeed you are attempting the latter, may I say what an absolutely stunning mastermind of a plan it is that you have. You say that you discussed the issue with the "admin" and the Worship and Music elder. Well, since the "admin" have now returned from their thrice annual, seemingly interminable trips back home, I am sure they will be able to provide me with a sensible answer since you seemed to find it difficult. As for the Worship and Music elder having taken part in this discussion, since he is in attendance at weekly worship about as often as I am absent, which is to say hardly ever, I have to tell you that I find that fact oddly uncomforting.

Secondly, you kindly let me know that you hope if a congregant has an issue that you hope they would raise it in a constructive way. Well, perhaps someone could explain exactly how one is supposed to do that? Granted, I could have written you a 70 page epistle of epic poetry to convey my point, but frankly since only Ms Fuller would have truly appreciated it and she has gone right down in my estimation of late, I did not really see the point and in any case, I did not have the time. Also short of emailing the admin team, I wonder what it is you are expecting us to do? If you consistently ignore polite emails, you can hardly be surprised when they become terse now, can you?

Lastly, you generously informed me that threats to leave the church are unhelpful, I would never have guessed. But for the record, I did not threaten to leave the church; I pointed out that if forced to attend St Albans, there might be those of us who did not return. This is called sarcasm, the English use it a lot. The fact that Americans are not, as a rule well versed in its use, can hardly be considered my fault, you should have worked out by now that you work at Tokyo UNION church, not the American church in Tokyo. It is up to you to understand and appreciate other cultures, I know all I need to know about yours, having been bombarded with it through the media practically since birth.

Until my next missive,

Yours etc etc

Terri

Letters, 1.

Inspired by Mel's marvellous idea for a play called Talks with JK Rowling, in which she has a one sided conversation with a poster of JK, and spouts witticisms about popular culture for an hour or two, I have decided to introduce a series of letters into my blog. In these letters I will spew all the pent-up venom I am currently stewing on, they will not be pretty and it is most likely that they will contain some extremely vulgar language - but thankfully, this space is not regulated by the "admin. thought police" and Big Brother was killed off at a freedom of speech rally, so the only person who can criticize my work, is me. At a much later date, I probably will have a go at my own bile too, but until then, I give you, to ignore as you wish, the first in series of "Letters to Boy Wonder."


Dear Colin,

It has occurred to me that I have been remiss in our correspondence recently, having received a number of emails from you that I have not yet answered. There are several reasons for my apparent lack of response; at the top of the list is the fact that your first email took such a patronising tone, that it made the blood rage through my veins at a temperature so hot that I was temporarily incarcerated in a mental asylum as I was a danger to myself and everyone around me; the doctors said it was a good job I do not see you on a daily basis, otherwise I might have found myself serving a life sentence at Her Majesty's pleasure. In short I was unavailable and could not reply for several weeks. Unfortunately, by the time I had regained my composure, you had sent out yet another poisonous little missive. Secondly, judging by your efforts, it seems that your vocabulary is disyllabic, therefore it has been necessary for me to attempt a note of epic proportions that expressed my dissatisfaction in a style that even you can understand. I do not work with idiots terribly often so as I am sure you can imagine, it took me rather a long time to write something that even someone as obtuse as you would appreciate. Regrettably, it took somewhat longer than anticipated, resulting in another irritating little jibe from you before I had had time to respond to your last. Finally, and quite frankly, despite the fact that I know about 300, 000, 000 more words than you obviously do, it took me an ice-age to think of a sentence that would suitably articulate my thoughts without being vulgar. In fact, surprisingly, I have not yet managed it, so until my next epistle, I will leave you with this simple opinion: I think you are full of shit.

Yours etc etc

Terri.