It is hotter and more humid than it should be in May, as I take my lunchtime walk at work. I am preparing my mind for going to a conference on bringing poetry into the life of the church. In many ways, it is a major shift from being a social media manager at a health care center dedicated to caring for the underserved, but there are many similarities as well.

I have the typical anxieties of going to a conference in a new place, on a new topic, with people that will most likely be new to me. It is heightened by the signup form, where they asked what I did. The choices were all around roles in the church; clergy, worship leader, music leader, and so on. I chose the final option, other.

I always hesitate to call myself a poet. Sure, I try to write poems, but it isn’t my career. It’s only recently that I started writing more poetry, and I haven’t had anything published, or sought publication of anything in probably over three decades, other than what I publish on my blog.

Other

It is a word full of meaning, ambiguity, and perhaps a little fear; fear of the other. Yet we often don’t own our own otherness. When we do, we perhaps wear it as a badge, and a little bit of a shield.

Can I be open, vulnerable, there to learn, and not be defensive, and trying to assert my self-worth? What can I learn? What are my learning objectives, or to borrow from the rhizomatic group, my learning subjectives? How can I get something out of this if I’m disappointed? What can I learn about embracing my “otherness”?