Guess who couldn’t hear the two mic’d women on stage (I did look up the proper way to format mic’d but consensus is mixed)? Me! Again. (I could hear one woman when she led the second verse of one of the songs. So one-fifth a gold star to the mixer). Next week’s sermon is called My Big Fat Mouth. The back of the card had: “How words can wound or they can heal… Learn to control the unhealthy.” When the pastor uses words I deem unhealthy so damn often, why would I take advice from him? Like when he called depression an emotion we must learn to control. Pretty damn unhealthy.
A comedian came up to do some bits. He’s doing a show tonight. He was pretty funny. Made the usual lose-weight-resolution-didn’t-lose-weight-new-goal-stand-next-to-fatter-people joke. His bit on the drum cage being a time out zone was funny though.
The pastor said, “He fits with us because a lot of his jokes are just a little inappropriate.” I don’t fit with us. The bulletin had a few lines on the Safety Team. I noticed a man in the parking lot in a yellow luminescent monogrammed jacket. Middle aged men, probably untrained, are just walking around as “safety.” Weirdly, I don’t feel safer. Do these men take women’s concerns seriously? Or just brush them off as hysterical and don’t intervene when a woman is stalked at a running pace into the bathroom? (throwback to when I was stalked after a pastor told me the deacons would “watch him”).
A missionary this church has supported for years gave the sermon. It was kind of just him talking about his mission work with a few Bible verses at the end so not really a sermon. His intro video with all the clips of him with black and brown people was backed with a song straight out of the eighties. I googled it- it’s from 1984. The missionary opened with a joke about how nice it is to be around people with shoes and clean clothes.
Poverty shaming. Coupled with him being white and serving in a black majority country, it’s pretty racist too. Then he talked about his wife and how she’s a hero and the most godly person he’s ever met. “I wish I could be half the woman she is!” Cue laughter and his chuckling… Does this count as negging? Idk if it counts as negging but I don’t like it and I’m not into it.
This missionary sounds more legit than the average white savior on a week trip to Mexico. He speaks the language and he and his wife have lived there for thirty years. He started a free traveling aids clinic as one of the outreach services. Last time he came to talk, probably seven years ago, he explained the non-sexual and non-consensual ways people can contract aids before talking about the clinic. Even then I felt like he was justifying treatment by saying some people get sick from rape or a nick from a rushed hair cut with a bloodied knife. It didn’t sit right. I lot of the church bullshit I bought into. But I loathed him having to justify spending donations on medical care for a “promiscuous” or “gay” disease.
He talked about purpose and sharing Jesus name throughout the world. Belle, it was so easy and natural for me to shift my purpose from someday being a stay-at-home-homeschooling-mom to working toward my library science degree. So easy. Career nourishes me, even just the idea of one, more than dreaming to be that perfect Christian wife ever did. The missionary said, “Don’t let your education ruin your life” and “don’t ruin your life” so you can hear god tell you “well done, good and faithful servant.” My education and “living for myself” as he put it is making my life. Helping me live my purpose. Not the one I think/thought god wanted for me. Mine. All mine. It’s so fucking glorious.
Did you struggle to adjust? I don’t think you were raised or as impacted by the Proverbs 31 shit. Were you? Why haven’t we talked about this yet?
Now he’s shaming people who spend their life traveling for kicks as “worthless” after death. Everything is worthless besides obeying god, “saving” people’s souls (cough cough people can’t save people, only god can, read your bible), and tithing.
“There’s always somebody who has less than you” was his closing line after encouraging us to give to our communities. While he’s right, this is a shit reason to give. I have no intentions of giving to any charity until my loans are paid off. I matter. My finances matter. God should have given me more money if he wanted me to give 10% of my income (and the good Christians give ten percent before taxes).
“Bringing Light to the Darkness” is his mission tagline. While it’s meant spiritually, when it’s spoken over the closing video showing black people next to a white missionary, “light” and “darkness” have another more racisty meaning. It’s subtle, and not nearly as awful as other bullshit, but I’m still not a fan. There are plenty of other Bible/saved metaphors to choose from.
The boyfriend dropped me off, but I was going to lunch with my parents. Which meant hanging around after the sermon while my mom cleans up her Sunday school classroom. The main pastor was chatting with two women I knew so I went over. We exchanged pleasantries. Then he commented on how adult I am now that I wear shoes.
My entire life, my family has been at the church when the doors are open. Before and after every service. Before and after most special events. And I have been there too. All through high school, I would get to church an hour before the first service with mom, and stay until after tear down following third service. I would spend up to six hours at church. Every Sunday. So I would kick off my shoes and prep for whatever grade I was teaching that day, and run around barefoot. It was comfortable, and I had some religious convictions to worship god barefooted. Approaching god barefoot like Moses did at the burning bush.
This pastor has joked with me about the shoe thing every time he’s managed to say hi before I slip out the back door. I get it. You know one thing about me has changed. But it didn’t stop there. He then said,
“I’m glad you no longer act like a homeless African.”
That’s verbatim.
I respond with my usual I can’t believe that happened smile and said, “You shouldn’t say that.” It’s all I could manage past my shock. The ladies on either side of me laugh. Then the pastor grabs my glasses. Off my face.
He looks at the arms, which are striped, and talks about how pretty the design is. He takes off his glasses and tries to hand them to me. Like I want to see his as a fair trade for him removing my VISION from me. I have mostly good eyes. But did he know my prescription before dragging my glasses off my face? Fun fact. Never take anyone’s aids without at least asking. Glasses, canes, wheelchairs, even sunglasses can be aids for people with light sensitivity! Don’t fucking take things off other people’s bodies. This isn’t hard.
Me. White American who hated wearing shoes for HOURS every Sunday. Homeless African. Sure.
I managed to tell my parents in the car the pastor’s comment was racist. Mom replied with, “Oh but you know him!”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t racist.” Mom’s thought of the pastor being a “good guy” therefore it’s okay to say racist things he doesn’t really mean isn’t good enough.
They changed the conversation. At least I said something without that awkward smile instinct. I gotta work on that. I can’t believe the pastor did such a power play to change the topic by taking my glasses off my face unprompted. He wanted to back out of that conversation so hard without being pressured into apologizing. What a dick.
-Love Rachel