In the evening glow shadows sprawled across the floor of the sparsely decorated back room of the church. I was tired and didn’t have the desire to sit through two hours of parsing the almost overwhelmingly depressing book of Jeremiah with our geriatric Bible study group. At first I thought the confusion was from my sleepiness--- it had been a long day. But then I realized, no, actually, I was hearing what I was hearing.
“How are you doing Callie?” Lindsey asked the octogenarian in the corner.
“I’m doing everyone and everything as many times as I can…” she replied.
Ummm..excuse me?
Then the group became solemn as two women shared about the deaths of friends and family members (since everyone is so much older than me and my sister this is a usual activity in the group). When they finished sharing, there was barelty a moment of silence before Jon said in his thick Welsh accent:
“To give you an example of how expensive it is in Britain, the gas prices are at TWO DOLLARS a liter.”
My eyes widened as I turned to look at Lindsey. No one seemed to notice that the comment made absolutely NO SENSE in context.
What had these people just eaten? Where am I?
Without a beat the group dove into this topic of gas prices as if in some tangential way it related to the death of loved ones. I stayed silent--trying not to look as shocked and confused and amused as I felt. Next, we charged into the fire and brimstone of the 25th, 26th, and 27th chapters or Jeremiah.
“These people are really going to get their comeuppons you see,” our leader said eagerly clasping her gnarled hands together and smiling.
Comeuppons? Their-what-uppons? And why are you smiling? These people are being slaughtered left and right because of their disobedience or whatever, and you think it’s exactly what the doctor ordered?
I love that woman, but I am fearful of her delight in God’s wrath.
Before I could hardly recover from the chapters we moved on to prayer.
“Now why don’t we all spend time thanking God for the good things he does for us instead of just presenting requests, ok?” our leader stated and then bowed her head.
Callie started.
“God, thank you so much for Anna whose sister choked to death yesterday. We thought she was fine and usually they just use Heimlich maneuver but it didn’t work this time and she died and…”
I had to bite both lips together with my teeth, hold my head down so hard my chin poked into my chest, and squeeze my eyes shut as hard as I could to keep from spewing deep, boisterous laughter all across the room.
The thing that was so bizarre about the night is that while everyone took turns speaking, each person was so consumed with their own thoughts and sharing them that they didn’t even notice everyone else was doing the same thing. So no one was heard. Except by Lindsey and I who couldn’t even decipher what was being said anyway.
Sometimes I feel as though the world works this way—particularly in communities bound together by a common philosophy—like churches or ideological community groups. Political dialogues are a good example. It’s so important that everyone’s story (or position) gets told that no one seems to get heard.
Maybe Jon needed to expound a tad more about his trip to the UK. Maybe Callie needed to discuss people dying more than the time we allotted to her. And maybe she didn’t need to be told to thank God at the moment—maybe she needed to just whine to him in her grief at the moment. And though our leader seemed delighted that the people in Jeremiah who were giving the prophet such a hard time were going to get their comeuppons and wrath from God—perhaps the deep desire in her heart is to know that her obedience has been noted and God is waiting to reveal his deep and scandalous grace on her life as much as he was eager to give it to a people (Israel) who rejected it so thoroughly in our study.
And I think because we aren’t listening to each other (myself included) we have no idea where to begin to address one anothers' needs. I know I don't.
“How are you doing Callie?” Lindsey asked the octogenarian in the corner.
“I’m doing everyone and everything as many times as I can…” she replied.
Ummm..excuse me?
Then the group became solemn as two women shared about the deaths of friends and family members (since everyone is so much older than me and my sister this is a usual activity in the group). When they finished sharing, there was barelty a moment of silence before Jon said in his thick Welsh accent:
“To give you an example of how expensive it is in Britain, the gas prices are at TWO DOLLARS a liter.”
My eyes widened as I turned to look at Lindsey. No one seemed to notice that the comment made absolutely NO SENSE in context.
What had these people just eaten? Where am I?
Without a beat the group dove into this topic of gas prices as if in some tangential way it related to the death of loved ones. I stayed silent--trying not to look as shocked and confused and amused as I felt. Next, we charged into the fire and brimstone of the 25th, 26th, and 27th chapters or Jeremiah.
“These people are really going to get their comeuppons you see,” our leader said eagerly clasping her gnarled hands together and smiling.
Comeuppons? Their-what-uppons? And why are you smiling? These people are being slaughtered left and right because of their disobedience or whatever, and you think it’s exactly what the doctor ordered?
I love that woman, but I am fearful of her delight in God’s wrath.
Before I could hardly recover from the chapters we moved on to prayer.
“Now why don’t we all spend time thanking God for the good things he does for us instead of just presenting requests, ok?” our leader stated and then bowed her head.
Callie started.
“God, thank you so much for Anna whose sister choked to death yesterday. We thought she was fine and usually they just use Heimlich maneuver but it didn’t work this time and she died and…”
I had to bite both lips together with my teeth, hold my head down so hard my chin poked into my chest, and squeeze my eyes shut as hard as I could to keep from spewing deep, boisterous laughter all across the room.
The thing that was so bizarre about the night is that while everyone took turns speaking, each person was so consumed with their own thoughts and sharing them that they didn’t even notice everyone else was doing the same thing. So no one was heard. Except by Lindsey and I who couldn’t even decipher what was being said anyway.
Sometimes I feel as though the world works this way—particularly in communities bound together by a common philosophy—like churches or ideological community groups. Political dialogues are a good example. It’s so important that everyone’s story (or position) gets told that no one seems to get heard.
Maybe Jon needed to expound a tad more about his trip to the UK. Maybe Callie needed to discuss people dying more than the time we allotted to her. And maybe she didn’t need to be told to thank God at the moment—maybe she needed to just whine to him in her grief at the moment. And though our leader seemed delighted that the people in Jeremiah who were giving the prophet such a hard time were going to get their comeuppons and wrath from God—perhaps the deep desire in her heart is to know that her obedience has been noted and God is waiting to reveal his deep and scandalous grace on her life as much as he was eager to give it to a people (Israel) who rejected it so thoroughly in our study.
And I think because we aren’t listening to each other (myself included) we have no idea where to begin to address one anothers' needs. I know I don't.
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