I went to meet someone new last night. And had another "it felt like a date but wasn't" outing. Or maybe these really are dates and we just talk about starting as frienda to make ourselves feel less pressure. Really what is a date anyway?
This person I shall call "y". We had some snafu's in meeting. The place we were going to meet was closed and my cell phone battery was nearly dead (in the nearly dead way of "The Princess Bride). It died every time I tried to turn it on and call out which made me very very anxious. I finally got a text message out as to where I was. In the end we actually ended up meeting on a street corner no where near the closed restaurant.
She saw me first and hollered. She is black and beautiful with funky red glasses. She hugged me upon first meeting. A favorable first impression. We went and got coffee.
Since our conversation I've been thinking about culture, about inter-racial relationships, and the work and study I did for my master's thesis on racial reconciliation. She isn't originally from the US, but grew up in an English speaking country. She has lived here for college, graduate school, and work so she's fairly en-grained in American culture. But she still has a full culture apart from all that. There has got to be a ton of things that need to be understood by me about her culture to understand her.
Because of this I was just surprised with how familiar she seemed in spite of the fact that she has another whole culture that I know nothing about and that formed her. We have a great deal in common. We both have spent some time studying theology. We like many of the same authors and similar poets. I would name someone and she would know it. We both paint. We both write poetry. We both like similar music. With the exception of country, I don't love country music... although it is growing on me. We are also in similar places in regards to trying to figure out what to do with ourselves in our church contexts. Except she's doing it in the catholic church. Which frankly, I think is just a tad bit more crazy than me in my church context. But I do understand not being ready to leave a church that has been part of ones family and culture and upbringing. I am obviously not ready to leave mine.
All in all I enjoyed our conversation. I have no idea if she even found me attractive as a friend or otherwise. I found her attractive but I didn't feel any mad rush of attraction towards her. She did have really gorgeous fingernails which made me feel a bit insecure about mine. We hugged goodbye.
All in all a fine evening and now I have another new friend.
2 comments:
Hmm. It’s interesting that the both of you are into theology, yet she’s Catholic. In my opinion, even though it’s based upon the trinity, it’s almost cult-like and very strict upon what’s a sin or not. But, in the same aspect, Christianity has its basis of level of strictness, however each Christian holds different beliefs within that religion. Maybe you two can share the beliefs within the trinity, without the talk of “which” religion is better. I think you two can have a beautiful understanding of it all.
It sounds as though you two have a lot in common. Give it time…and give it a chance!
i think you would be quite surprised by the size of the gay & lesbian community in the catholic church. and not just among the ordained members:)
-b
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