First, a disclaimer…I would very much prefer not to overhear other people’s conversations at the gym. I try to go at least twice a week, three times if I’m lucky, and what I want to do is get in the pool and move. I’m not much of a swimmer, but I used to take water aerobics classes, and now I just go to the pool when I have the opportunity and do “freestyle water aerobics for one”. I don’t ask for much–I just want my own little spot near a wall where I can just do my thing and tune everybody else out. If conditions are right, that’s where I can do some of my best creative thinking. But if people within earshot are having a conversation, then conditions are most definitely not right, and I can’t tune them out no matter how hard I try. I have just got to get myself a waterproof MP3 player or something.
Anyway, yesterday, despite my best efforts not to, I overheard most of a conversation about Super Tuesday and the prospect of a woman president.
I was actually in the shower, not the pool, so I couldn’t see who was talking, but I had passed some older women on the way to the shower. Several of them–I’m guessing at least three–were having a conversation that I kept catching bits and pieces of…
“I stayed up way too late last night watching the returns.”
“So, what do you think?”
“I don’t knooow!”
“Well, our governor has endorsed Clinton.”
“Boo!”
“I’m not ready for a woman president.”
“Me neither.”
At this point, I really wanted to be able to tune out, because I was afraid I might hear something that would annoy me enough that I’d feel compelled to butt into their discussion. But the water wasn’t loud enough to drown them out, so as I finished up my shower, I heard the conversation turn to the subject of women priests, and how one of the women had a friend who is one, but, “something about that is just not right.” Also, apparently the women’s movement is to blame for “the mess we’re in today”. Whatever that is.
But I wouldn’t be sharing this story with you now, if it didn’t have a positive twist. Here it comes. One of the women said (paraphrased)
“I used to think like that. Then my husband left me when I was 40, and I was totally unprepared to support myself. I vowed that I would never again let myself end up in that situation. … Sometimes your situation changes, and then you change.”
I didn’t hear what the other women said in response, but inside I was saying “Right on, sister!” Because every day, in small ways we have opportunities to speak up and give the other side of the story. And an alternative perspective, when shared by “someone like you” has a better chance of taking root and possibly, as time goes on, softening (or even changing) some of the judgments people make.
Oh, thank god that conversation took that turn because as I was reading it I was getting so sad and pissed off.
As I get older I am more inclined to pass up on judging people and the decisions they’ve made in life because I’ve done some things that I never thought I’d do because of situations I never thought I’d be in.
As I get older I am more inclined to pass up on judging people and the decisions they’ve made in life because I’ve done some things that I never thought I’d do because of situations I never thought I’d be in.
Yep. Who knew there would be so many “valuable learning experiences” in life. 😉
to the “reformed” morman church in Independence. As far as I can see the difference is that they didn’t want to keep going west. She says that women should NOT be preachers cause God told her so. I said God told ME something different! We can still both be right because IMO God is a personal thing and not an institutional thing (although evangelicals will probably differ – but hey – that is THEIR conversation with God!) She and I (the woman referred to above) are friends, but I cannot fathom her church. Nor can I fathom why women prop up Catholicism without asking for better service and better terms. Evangelicals, IMO, just seem to want to spin off into space (or spaciness) freely but also want to keep hatreds and fears and boogeymans and what have you alive. But hey – I’m not prejudging!
The church thing is tough. I know it felt threatening for me to even begin to question aspects of my faith (raised Catholic). Looking back, I think it was like, if you find a loose thread on a sweater, you don’t want to tug at it, because the whole thing might unravel. For the longest time, I figured it was best to leave those loose threads alone.
Eventually, as I was just mentioning here, I did end up leaving the church. But I’m glad there are women, like Sr. Joan Chittister, for example, who stay. It’s harder for organizations to change without continual urging from voices on the inside.