prairie point

out of the blue

Out of the blue recently Tricia got an email from an old friend who had been missing for a couple years. A job-related move had taken K and her husband out of the area and they had quickly fallen off the proverbial cliff.

K is a truly amazing character, part 60's hippy chick, part Jesus-freak. She ran away from home at 16, worked as a topless dancer and somehow earned a PhD. I think she looks like Veronica Lake, in case you happen to know who that is. She is also a great writer and I have tried without success to get her into blogging. She does not really have the discipline to write a journal though. In fact using the word discipline in the same sentence with her name would probably be enough to send her running.

But her main claim to fame as far as I am concerned is that she is reponsible for Tricia and I getting together. K had been telling me about this new church she had become involved in - a "cell church" she called it. Small groups met in each others homes on a weeknight and then on Sunday mornings all the small groups met together in a traditional service. She was enthusiastic about having found the true religion.

Since I approach church as a kind of anthropologist, I felt like I needed to check out this new species that she had discovered. I went to a couple of the cell meetings at her house and then decided to acompany K one Sunday. Like a lot of other churches they had this custom of having everybody greet the neighbors in the seats around them. When it came to that point in the ceremony I turned around and found Tricia sitting directly behind me. She was there with friends too. That was our first meeting.

For a little while Tricia and I both became regulars at the cell meetings. We found we had a lot in common with each other but not so much with the rest of the ones there. The church was kind of the opposite of "inclusive." In fact they were pretty much up-front that their point of view was that "there are a lot of other churches out there and if you are not like us then you should go check out one of the others."

To make a long story short K obviously did not fit in, even though she really wanted to, and eventually the minister came to her and asked her to leave. Lately there has been a controversy in the news about a commerical in which one church trumpeted its own inclusiveness. It's more uncommon than you might think.

I guess I kind of rambled on and got off the subject I started with. Anyway we're glad to be back in contact with a long-lost friend and glad she is in a place that seems really idyllic .

Posted by Bill Hopkins on December 12, 2004 08:07 AM