I suspect that the above title could be used by me were I to describe most of the occasions when I leave the bubble of home and dare to mix with members of society at large.
This weekend, as usual, I attended the Sunday morning Bible study which Penny and I have been attending for the last couple of years. The teacher/facilitator of the study is someone with whom I share a friendship, as well as a kinship in our mutual experience of diabetes.
The class is composed of people who come from a wide variety of Christian traditions, Catholic and Protestant, Wesleyan and Calvinist. Notwithstanding our mutual friendship and the fact that we shared a similar distant background exposure to the Reformed tradition in Christianity, my friend and I we do not always see eye-to-eye in the interpretation and application of the Biblical text. So, it is not to be unexpected that his insistence in teaching the Reformed tradition as "the only tradition" has also been the cause of some restless stirrings among other members of the class as we have proceeded through the Biblical text which he has been assigned to lead the class during his turn on the rotation.
Every now and then, he arrives at what he considers an appropriate break point, and he will ask for questions or comments. Occasionally, he is surprised when, upon his reaching such a point, no one asks a question or offers a comment. At such times, he is not above a teasing remark addressed to any one of a few of the class members from whom he expects some point of difference. I am one of those few.
Often, simply his turning in my direction and mentioning my name causes an undercurrent of laughter. Yet, I beg you to remember my having said previously that I do not think I am all that funny. Still, my personal opinion does not seem to amount to much good in reducing the laughter when it occurs.
This Sunday, however, after one such break where he specifically asked me if I had any comments, I replied by shaking my head in the negative. He shifted his focus then from the primary text which he was presenting to include Biblical text that talked about "the world" deriding Christians for their holding to the faith. He got particularly loquacious in presenting the fact that this still occurs in American society. He began to cite the names of people along with a few comments about these people as examples of such criticism for their stand for their faith. Had he been brief, I am sure even now that I could have kept my mouth shut.
He mentioned Sarah Palin as one of his examples. Had he just left it at mentioning her name, even then I think I could have kept my mouth shut. When he reached the point in his presentation wherein he said, "... and we all have seen Sarah Palin get trashed by the media when she invokes her Christian faith, and ..."
Whatever followed in that instant was not heard by me, as my mouth starting moving, and as my ears heard a voice coming from inside my head saying, "Sara Palin gets trashed by the media because she is a nut, not because of her claim to being a Christian."
The outburst of laughter gave me some relief to my own chagrin at the momentary look I got from my friend as his exhortation was interrupted. And, to his credit, it did not stop him from quickly moving on.
------------------
Comments may be made by clicking on the word Comments in the box below. Feel free to comment, to offer suggestions, or even to throw stones. But, in doing so, please note, my request for a certain deference to decency in language and civility in tone.
No comments:
Post a Comment