Cottage Bible Study I

I’ve got a lot to say and a lot of catching up to do… a lot of stuff I don’t want to forget. First of all I went to work on Friday and my boss is having me redo his webpage which is pretty cool because I love to do that stuff. The other assistant thought I should charge differently for it and make him pay extra but I’m happy just to do it for him on work hours at my regular pay. Heck, what a joy. And when I DID have clients that I did web pages for, I really only charged them $15.00/hour which is not much more than what he pays me already, so it’s no big deal. It’s all very cool with me. I’m not going to squeeze the guy for every penny because he doesn’t squeeze me for every ounce of energy. Plus I SO enjoy building pages and doing all the writing. I’d likely do it for a lot less LOL.

Then, on Friday night, I went to what they call Cottage Bible Study at the home of one of the church members. I went to this one other time right before Christmas and had a wonderful time. It’s sort of like a potluck dinner party and Bible study rolled into one. There’s a group of about a dozen fun people who assemble. Everybody brings something then we sit and eat and socialize, then do a Bible study and then do a lot more socializing. And these folks are SO much fun. I’ve never socialized with a group of white Christian people before. This is a whole new thing for me. Keep in mind I was with my other church for about 13 years so the only Christians I socialize with were African Americans really. When I was growing up the people my parents socialized with all seemed so phony, gossiping and judgmental, but really they didn’t socialize with Christians much once we moved to New York and I was only in second grade then. My perception of middle-class white people were that they were phony and judgmental. No one I had met prior to this really had done much to change that perception. I had met one or two ladies when I was in ISA (Incest Survivors Anonymous) who weren’t like that, but that was pretty extreme and I didn’t really socialize with them out of the group.

Anyway, what’s wonderful about this group is that I feel so wonderful there! At the old church I felt great, but never really felt like family. I always felt like company. It’s hard when you are the “odd man out.” Being white, most of the time I felt as if people didn’t mind me being there, but I was never TRULY accepted by most of the people. To be honest with you, I think that many African Americans are more biased against white people than white people are biased against African Americans (at least in middle-class/mid-America). I just think it’s more subconscious. I think a lot of the people were glad our family was in the church because then they could be good Christians by extending fellowship to us and embracing the white people. I would guess that about 25% of them ended up forgetting we were white and really did just accept us as other church members and family. Then some addressed the white/black issue which was sort of cool. Like the woman I roomed with on retreat said, “I’ve never roomed with a white woman before and this was fun. It was just like rooming with a black woman!” And another member once chuckled and told me I was a “reverse oreo – white on the outside and black on the inside.” On another occasion we were having dinner on a choir outing and someone’s son was joking about how badly the white girls were dancing on In Living Color and the mom looked mortified and shushed him. But see, it didn’t bother me so much because the son obviously forgot we were white. That was sort of cool.

But, there I go… off on a tangent again, what I was really going to say there was, at the Cottage Bible study, there was none of that… I belonged… new maybe, but a place of belonging, a place where I fit in. The jokes were great. I understood what EVERYBODY said (because that was also an issue for me in the black church, to be honest, sometimes I couldn’t understand what people were saying and/or I just didn’t get the humor because of cultural differences). Also, these folks actually have wine, beer, or even a mixed drink. I didn’t drink at the first one but I had a small glass of wine Friday night. That was sort of cool. I just had SOOOOOO much fun. Granted it was more of a social experience than a spiritual experience for me, BUT – last time I learned a whole lot about how the Bible says Jesus was crucified and the third day HE rose again yet we do the Friday through Sunday thing. And this time I learned a ton about Holy Week. Also, the Thursday morning Bible study and Bible study after Sunday services are very much about spiritual growth so if the every other Friday night study is more social, big deal! I have no real social life outside of my family, so why not?

I have decided that I definitely want to write down my first impressions of the people there because I often have gone into new things and ended up close to some people and not close to others or had certain impressions etc. and wished I had recorded my first impressions before I knew the impact this or that person was going to have on my life. Maybe it will turn out that none of these people will have any impact on my life, but just in case, I want to capture my first impressions so I can look back in case they do!