I've resumed my weekly church attendance since Spring semester let out. I haven't gone often during the year - maybe just a random Sunday here and another there. Not too many people recognized me at first so they ask about me, including my major. When I tell them I'm a Government major, they shoot me a surprised look, then bouts of skepticism in their countenances...probably on my character or spirituality.
Don't say that I'm being a little to quick on judging - even with my few 18 (almost 19!) years of life, I've come to experience many variations of skeptics' facial expressions (due to the fact I'm one adamant idealist).
One occasion particularly stuck out at me in a Sunday school session. We were split into small groups and not all of us knew each other. We all stated our names, occupations, and your major if you were a student. At the end, we took turns praying in general, for each other if we felt necessary. This lady started to pray for me asking God to lead me in the right direction (spiritual-wise, not career-wise) as I pursue the field of knowledge that I am pursuing. Not that I'm being unappreciative - because I did feel good that someone was praying for me and acknowledged my presence and my background - but I realized afterwards that despite the fact there were quite a few students who stated their majors (that weren't Government), I was evidently the only one who needed that prayer. I didn't really know how to feel about that.
Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but there was also another time something just stuck out. When I raised my hand to be back-up facilitator (someone who keeps it running smoothly, not a spiritual guidance) for the small group, people also gave me shocked expressions. I mean, sure, that could be for a million different reasons - because I'm young, a new comer, not the most righteously pious person in the world (though you shouldn't even know that yet), etc. But why act surprised when I take the initiative? And maybe even, why doubt me? I am responsible enough to be a facilitator, I wasn't asked to be your spiritual mentor.
Not to mention another story during the icebreaker. We all secretly wrote down three things about ourselves and balled up the piece of paper and threw it on the ground. Each one of us randomly picked one up and read it aloud one-at-a-time. Everyone had to guess which piece of paper corresponded with who. One said, "I've drank only lemonade once for seven days to lose weight." Immediately, everyone looked my way. Seriously? Why? That wasn't even me. Stop pre-judging.
I admit to being a little defensive, and even too assuming myself. Though I also must inject that there is at least a little driplet of truth in all this. And I admit to needing infinite improvements upon my character and spirituality. But just like me, so does everyone else; you can never be done with self-improvement in any and every aspect of living.
This sounds really incoherent and disorganized, but I suppose what I'm trying to communicate is that don't make me, or anyone else for that matter, feel inadequate when going to church. Instead, make me feel genuinely welcome in addition to saying, "You're welcome here anytime! Just let me know if you need anything!" or superficially smiling at me. I'm young but I often can read people's suppressed, or not so suppressed, thoughts rather well. I've been a big-time Jesus freak once upon a time in my life so I can say that I have the right to claim I know at least a little about what it's like to be really religious. You don't need to think I'm unaware of how the spiritual life works because I am. Do I know or practice it in the best way possible? No, but nobody does, you're just on a higher level than me (or are you?).
In fact, this is how I gradually extracted myself from church in the first place. Because once I did something wrong, I immediately got all these lectures and advice on how I should be living life...at the ripe, old middle school age, where I have yet to even really experience life itself. Maybe the matter(s) is/are more serious than I thought but it doesn't necessarily have to be approached in that intimidating and subtly belittling way. And I'm still young and I still have yet to make the myriads of life mistakes that I inevitably will be making. It's just life. I really genuinely am happy for you if you're better than that and I'm extremely glad that you have your head on straight. But I'm not better than that, and I don't need to be that clone - I'm me, myself, and I, just another young lady who needs some room to grow.
And that's about all I have to say. For now anyways :).
Thought I'd comment on each part separately. Just the way I've always done this sort of thing. :D
ReplyDelete"When I tell them I'm a Government major, they shoot me a surprised look, then bouts of skepticism in their countenances...probably on my character or spirituality."
This might be one of the reasons for their skepticism, but also keep in mind: you're a good-looking girl that they don't know; as widespread as sexual discrimination has become, you've got to keep in mind that a lot of people generalize majors/jobs like that to a specific group. Think about it this way, McGinty majored in government, and you two have pretty different personalities.
In fact, I think most of the skepticism in what you posted is due to them assuming more about your character than your spirituality. Especially when you volunteered to be the back-up facilitator. These are just people, and like it or not everyone makes assumptions based on appearances. There's the possibility that they assumed you'd be the ditzy type of girl, and thus were both shocked that you would be willing, and reluctant to think you would be able to do such a job.
So yeah, dunno if it was them judging your spirituality or just based on appearances.
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Now when the lady was praying for you, it's entirely possible that she was judging you more than the others there, but it could also be that she already knew most of the others, and you being new she just wanted to make that prayer for you (she probably didn't know if you'd ever come back to that church, so she might have wanted to make a general prayer like that just in case).
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Pretty much all I can think to say at the moment.
And if I'm right about the preconceived notions being appearance based, then there's really not much you can do about it aside from uglying yourself up (haha). Best way to approach something like that is to give them the opportunity to get to know you and see how deep of a person you are.
Haha, I do the same as well, respond in blocks. I will, however, summarize this one since it's a response to a response.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I'd like to thank you for reading this and for the attractiveness comments, haha.
Next, all the points you made are very true. In fact, it may have subconsciously crossed my mind because they have a familiar resound. So I want to thank you for materializing it and thus allowing me to realize the challenges to my assumptions. Putting all this into words lets me face the "Okay, yes you're right, I'm wrong" reality that I tend to push to the back of my mind (much to my dismay...and others' dismay).
Last, thank you again for reading; I really, really do appreciate it!
No problem, I learned as much from your post as you probably did from writing it all out. :D
ReplyDeleteAnd definitely keep posting things like this if you face any more problems in churches or other spiritual topics. Much more interesting to me than Nutty Bars. ;) haha
Nice chatting with you, and God bless.
I would like to apologize on behalf of all Christ followers. You are right, we should not cast judgement or be skeptical of people's actions. But no one is perfect, we all fall short of the glory of God and I am sincerely sorry that you have had to witness such awful examples of the love of Christ. We suck at being Jesus- like. That is why I am so thankful that our God is a God of grace and that we no longer have any condemnation for our sins because we are in Him. If doing good works, being religious, or following the rules is the way to heaven, no one would be able to enter. Jesus should be our only example, because no other human can live his way out. I want to apologize one last time for our lack of love for everyone and us failing to be good examples of Jesus.
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