http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3wujkozv9E

Just a little moment of inspiration. Don't know if you are familiar with Faith
and/or this song. Thought you might enjoy.

Don, I'd like to drop in, maybe flexible-schedule a half hour with you. When I
disappear, don't come by to pray for weeks/months, I am disabled to the point of barely functioning. I know Bill told you about my multiplicity, and while I don't disclose often, I'm okay with you knowing. (All Saints accepts goofs of every type imaginable :).

Anyway, my alter (personality), Ester is beyond hope and can't access my faith. I'd like to make it easier for her to drop in, as now she is so shame-filled she can't to been seen, even at church. Her complete isolation only feeds despair and
utter hopelessness. She's "related" to Gladys filled with doom and gloom,
extreme terror of hell's fire and damnation (from early religious abuses).
Another reason to fear faith communities. I'd like to help relieve their pain
and fears, and I think you can help, too.

I know this DID (dissociative identity disorder) seems surreal…even to me
after 8 1/2 years of knowing about it). I'd like to try to open up a bit more
of myself to you and this faith community I feel comfortable in. I've come up
with a simply, but maybe power way, to help Ester and Gladys and, therefore me, use A/S to help break the isolation.

Ultimately, I'd like to encourage her to drop in for 15 minutes or an hour a
day. To make that commitment to me and to herself. Just to sit by the fire, or
in chapel. Maybe someone would drop by and need to unload supplies for the church, need a door to be opened or envelopes stuffed while there. Anything to feel a tangible, concrete connection to another soul, if only for the moment it takes to hold open a door or unload a grocery bag. To feel, that in the most basic of senses, she can make a difference in someone's life…That she has something, anything, to offer to another, to life…. For Ester, this would be a huge leap of faith. She is that shutdown. She wants to give of herself but is beyond clueless on how to do it.

I'd like you to get to know Ester a bit, if you're game. You already know many
others of me including Gladys, as you know me. Ester, well, she hasn't been
around the church much except for services with B. (You can recognize her by her inability to maintain eye contact) Conversations we've had that I don't
have a clue about are my others living through me. Of course, it's all me,
Laura, as they are simply parts of me shut off from my conscious reality. Hope this doesn't freak you out. It is what it is, you know.

Anyway, hope your day is going well. And hey, inasmuch as I will probably be a snow widow Friday night as Bill plows, I'm stopping in for the first time for your open house. Laurie Cz offered to pick me up.

See you Friday,

Laura