I have been reading a book about writing by Ann Lamott where she encourages authentically writing about your experience, whatever it may be. I don’t know if she would consider it wise to write (for the public) when one is feeling low. I should ask her. Or maybe I should really go hide in a corner. Instead, here I am.

Someone told me this week they wonder if I should consider “throwing in the towel” at PNC. They didn’t mean I should step aside for someone else to do the job. They meant close the doors. If it is possible for tears to well up in your stomach, then that is what happened to me. They started to slosh around, rise up and finally escape out my eyes. There were few words at first.

Then the words started to pour out of me, so fast they overtook the tears. I talked about how unique it is to have a community whose core is made up of people who are not traditional leaders. I talked about being a church without our own walls and how we do so much with the little that we have. We don’t spend money that isn’t there. We rely on partners, and they in turn on us. We love being together. I wanted to scream, “listen to our story!”.

PNC is a motley crew of people: we have different skin colours, cultural backgrounds and life experiences. We are a beautiful tapestry, woven together not by our differences, but the ways we are alike- our common humanity. I cannot imagine disbanding our group. Not for a single moment.

I can understand, on some level, why someone would suggest that stopping might make sense. We don’t have a building; our funding isn’t secure; my “office” is the street. Those, and I truly mean this, are just the surface things. Would it be nice to have those things? Absolutely. Can we rely on them? Absolutely not.

And so I am feeling weary and raw and quite defensive of my community. A community that doesn’t have a “church”, we are just trying to be one. I am not going to throw in the towel.