Thursday, August 27, 2009

Even if you park your car like so, divine the perfect seat just out of the pastor’s eyeline, and wear your Sunday best, the road through church can still wend its way to Awkwardville, province of strained and ungainly social interactions. That’s exactly where I found myself last weekend.

Service had concluded, bookending a solid message on diversity, and I was hurtling down a hallway at optimal escape velocity, when out of the corner of my eye I spied a fellow rapidly step out from behind his informational table.

“Hi there!” he exclaimed, all friendly-like. “Is this your first time here?”

The alarms had started blaring already, and I prepared for the worst. Second time, I told him.

“Well, there’s actually an international Bible study starting right now,” he said, gesturing down the hall, “and you can probably make it if you hurry.”

I played it dumb.

“International? How do you mean? Like–”

“Oh, there are Filipinos!” he explained, “And– And all different kinds.”

Certainly I understood his intentions were noble and came from a good place, and I happen to search for people from the Philippines anyway on Sunday mornings, but I had to put the kibosh on this.

“Do you…” I trailed off, grasping for the right way to express this. “Do you have anything more, uh, mainstream?”

Meaning, in Secondhand parlance, a circle of white folks studying the Word of God. Then things got weird, so I mumbled something about needing to go to Petsmart. Or something?

Look, it’s likely I made it onto this guy’s prayer list. But at the time I mainly had the book of Exodus–to my car, specifically–on my mind, and even if I had gone to the international Bible study, well, you can imagine how well I’d function. I initially felt guilty about my reaction, since it seemed at odds with the sermon that had been delivered minutes earlier. Really, though, how diverse is it to congregate with people who look like you? I just don’t feel the draw to cluster. But to be one in a hundred? I can work with those proportions.