This post is the first in a series of essays examining how the #Four Foolish Rules we’ve considered over the last several weeks would apply to specific situations. You may want to go back and read this series, including the introduction, before you consider this post.
The Scenario
A group of women had just gathered for their weekly Bible study. It was a weeknight, just past the supper hour, in that time of the year when evenings are dark and the air is frigid. These friends had been spending time together for awhile, most of them, in various roles in their church. They were meeting in the conference room just off the main entrance, where they always did.
The Bible study had barely begun with the usual check-in and a prayer when Susan, sitting near the door, became aware of a small commotion outside the room. Someone had entered the building and a voice was heard out there, an unfamiliar one. Susan leaned back to scan the hallway, then stood up and mouthed to Joni, who had heard the noise, too, “Be right back.”
It didn’t take long for Susan to return, and all the voices fell silent at the sight of the young woman who followed her. This stranger wore a black jacket that was too thin for the cold night. She looked around the room, out of place, her eyes hungry with unspoken questions and a facade of scorn. Susan stammered out an explanation, “We’re…um…just starting…our Bible study.” She motioned to an empty seat and then sat down in her own chair, her eyes seeking out Joni’s, not sure what to do next.
Elizabeth smiled at the woman and said, “Can we offer you a cookie?” She motioned to the tray in the center of the table, which still held a few cookies among an assortment of crumbs. The woman looked back, her eyes blank. “I need more than a cookie,” she said. “I haven’t eaten in a couple of days.”
The women looked at one another, distressed. The question “What now?” ricocheted silently around the room. After an uncomfortable silence, Marcella’s voice broke through. “Honey, we don’t have anything but this couple of cookies.” She picked them up, made a small packet of them using the napkin sitting nearby, and extended it toward the stranger. “Girls, maybe we could give this friend a little money for that cafe across the street.” Marcella looked purposefully at the women around the table, and soon a small amount of cash was collected, folded together, and pressed into the young woman’s hand. “Here you go, sweetie.” And accompanying her out of the room, Marcella went on, “You see if you can’t get yourself a good warm dinner over there at the cafe, all right?”
She stood not far from the door watching as this young stranger walked away from this gathering of Christian friends and then pushed her way through the door, back out into the night.
Some Observations
Well, it’s obvious this was an uncomfortable situation for this Bible Study gathering. I wonder what you notice about what happened, and what you wish had been different.
Here are a few of my thoughts:
- We never learned the stranger’s name.
- It would have been easier to have a conversation with the stranger out in the entryway, instead of as the center of attention in a room full of listening women.
- No one ever asked why she was there, or anything about her circumstances.
- The primary effort in this scenario, as I’ve told it, seemed to be to deal with this woman and get her “handled” as swiftly as possible.
Now, I could have written this scenario a different way, to address one or all of the above comments. But we’ll take this as a starting point for our consideration. It’s not hard to imagine things unfolding this way, when someone wanders in on a cold night.
By the way, in the Bible Study group on whose actual experience this scenario is loosely based (with names and details supplied by this author), the women looked at each other in some dismay after the stranger was gone. This had been unsettling and unsatisfying for all of them. In that moment, one of them said, “I think we just failed Bible Study.”
Applying the #FourFoolishRules
Let us now consider how the #FourFoolishRules could have informed the participants in this encounter:
Rule #1: Everything Belongs. This young woman belongs. Her inadequate coat and her evident hunger, the scorn on her face and her decision to take her chances in this church whose lights beckoned: All of this belongs. Her reticence to initiate any conversation, and the absence of any “thank you” for the cookies and the cash: Belongs, belongs, belongs.
The seeming discomfort the Bible Study women have in this situation belongs, too. Susan’s failure to really talk to the stranger in the hallway, her faltering effort to welcome the woman to their group: these things belong. So does Elizabeth’s immediate instinct to offer the cookies, and Marcella’s decision to take charge, and her misplaced terms of endearment. Most of us have probably played some of these roles, at various uncomfortable moments. All of this belongs. It’s human, it’s based in some good impulses, and they’re all doing the best they can.
Even the desire among some of the women to get on with their study of Deuteronomy belongs. They’ve prepared; they have a lesson to cover. This interruption will put them behind, and their underlying feeling of impatience is natural. All of this belongs.
We could imagine the stranger reminds Bev of her niece who’s in prison and she reminds Danielle of the co-worker who ripped her off awhile back. Maybe Lara regrets not offering the stranger a saving word about God’s love or the sinner’s prayer. And Greta is annoyed that she missed out on the last of the cookies; she just came from work and is starving. Brenda didn’t want to pull that last five-dollar bill out of her wallet for this vagrant; she was just laid off, although she hasn’t told her friends yet, and she’s alarmed about her money. All of this, whatever feelings we can imagine around the table: all of it belongs. It might not all be laudable, and it need not all be expressed. But letting it belong allows us to acknowledge it, even silently. Making room for all of that is a good first step to making room for this young stranger.
Rule #2: Relationship First. Before Bible Studies or cookies, before money or words like “honey,” let’s pause for a moment to remember that this stranger isn’t a problem to be solved. She’s a human being with a life of her own, a name, and any number of relationships, hopes, failings, and more. She might even have a warmer coat in a closet nearby that she didn’t think to grab this morning. Relationship First means we try not to see just the “interruption” or a “distraction” when that person wanders in. The first thing we do is see a person.
A good place to start with a person is with names. “Hi, I’m Susan,” Susan might have said. “I don’t think we’ve met.” In a non-COVID-19 time, these words might have included a hand extended. If the stranger takes the hand or receives the greeting without giving her name, Susan could go on, “What’s your name?” or “I’m sorry; I don’t think I heard your name.”
Let’s assume the stranger says, “I’m Fiona.” It’s a great idea to say it back to her. “Great to meet you, Fiona.” It helps to cement it in our memories and now Fiona knows she’s been heard.
Next, I wonder if Susan might have said–while the two are still in the hallway–something like: “We’re just starting a Bible Study in the conference room. Were you coming to join in?” This would be an obvious starting point, especially if this is a group that’s open to new members and publicized in the church’s communications. Even if it’s not–and it’s just a group of friends that uses this space without any real plan to welcome strangers–it wouldn’t be a bad segue in the conversation with the woman. We’d learn something from her response, either way. It feels to me a little more welcoming than, “What brought you here this evening?” or the much more abrupt, “Whaddaya want?”
The point of “Relationship First” is that before we make any assumptions about Fiona, or why she’s come, or what (if anything) she might want from us, we draw her out. We make room for her to say what she wants to say. It’s part of the basic practice of hospitality to do this in a generous, supportive manner. This sounds easy, but it’s often not our first impulse.
Maybe Fiona will say, “Could I use a phone? I seem to have lost mine.” Or “I heard you have a preschool and I wanted to find out about it. I saw the light on and thought maybe someone could help me.” Maybe she needs directions or the Sunday School packet or to see if the pastor would talk about her upcoming wedding.
If she came for any of those purposes, those Bible Study friends wouldn’t have known. Not having asked, but building on various vague clues, they assumed they knew what this woman needed. Maybe they were right. But maybe Fiona had been fasting because of a medical procedure that she didn’t want to talk about, and she received the women’s largesse because it was simply easier than telling her story.
It may be that when we encourage Fiona to say why she’s there, we’ll get more than we bargained for. She might talk for a long time. She might be drunk, or high. There’s an outside chance we’ll discover that she means to hurt us. But if she does entrust us with a bit of her story, and we learn something real about this complicated, precious human being in our midst, we will know we’ve had a holy encounter. It might be hard for us to hear what she wants to tell: maybe she’s just been assaulted; maybe she just got away from a house where she faces violence from an intimate partner. In such a case, wouldn’t you hope that she’d be able to speak those words as a first step toward the healing for which she came?
Rule #3: Good Boundaries. Remember that Rule #3 has two aspects: the boundaries we set to address behavior in our midst that interferes with what we’re trying to do together; and the boundary between what belongs to us and what belongs to “them.” We’ll consider these in turn.
First, we ask whether Fiona’s behavior that evening is interfering with what we’re trying to do together. What do you think?
It depends a bit on how we think about “we” and what “we” are trying to do. If we define this narrowly, “we” consists of the women in that conference room, and what they’re trying to do is get through their lesson on Deuteronomy. But we could enlarge either of those definitions. Maybe when we’re part of a church, and we’re meeting there, it’s worth remembering that “we” includes what we’re doing as that church, that whole body of Christ. How we respond to Fiona and others like her will reflect on the church as a whole, right? So maybe we need to pull back the lens and think bigger about the “we.”
Even if we don’t, we could think more expansively about what the group is doing there. I hope it really is bigger than getting through that (potentially tedious!) lesson on the book of Deuteronomy! Bible Study surely ought to be about understanding how the Bible informs our life as followers of Jesus Christ. Those lives include our interactions with persons like Fiona. The reaction I mentioned above–“we failed Bible Study”–expresses that group’s awareness that Bible Study is inherently bigger than the specific lesson the group is pursuing that day.
So, did Fiona’s behavior get in the way of what the group was there to do–under any of these definitions? All she did, at its core, was show up unexpectedly, appear potentially needy, and admit she was hungry. The group’s whole interaction with her lasted less than ten minutes. If it did interfere, it did so minimally. It’s the rare Bible Study group that doesn’t get off track at least that long, at least some of the times they meet!
If she did demand more time and attention, or if the conversation I described under Rule #2 had occurred, we would have to consider whether that “interferes with” what the group is trying to do. We could imagine ourselves into a scenario where that could be true. She just won’t stop talking, or she threatens group members. In such a case, it would be appropriate for someone to say, “Fiona, we’re so glad to have met you, but we need to get on with the work we came here to do.” Circumstances will determine whether that would be followed by, “Would you like to stay and join in?” or “I’m sorry, but we’ll need you to go now,” as we walk her to the door.
The second boundary question is for us to consider what belongs to us–as members of that group, or of the church–and what belongs to Fiona. Her lightweight jacket, her hunger, her unexpected arrival at the church: these things belong to Fiona. We can have compassion on whatever’s happening that make those things true. But those things remain within her boundaries; they do not belong to us.
That said, we may choose to help. We may reach into our wallets to find a few bucks toward her late dinner, or arrange for an Uber ride if she asks for that. Having made the decision to do those things, we have (in a way) moved our boundaries to include those immediate actions. That doesn’t require us to do the same thing if Fiona turns up again tomorrow, or next week. But for now, we might take that action with joy, because of our care or concern for this new friend.
I should note: Marcella’s decision to offer Fiona money for dinner is a matter of Marcella’s boundaries; it does not require Brenda and the others to adjust theirs. When some or each of these women reach for their handbags, they should do so aware that this is a move outside their own boundaries, an adjustment to what they’re responsible for. Marcella’s request does not change that; only we can decide to move our boundaries. If we do so, let it be with joy and real consent.
Rule #4: Clean Up Our Messes. I’m not sure there’s a specific action to be taken under this rule, in the scenario before us. I suppose that, on realizing “we failed Bible Study,” one or more members of the group could walk over to the cafe to see if they could find this young woman. If she’s there (she may not be), they could introduce themselves and undertake something of the conversation we imagined under Rule #2 above. “We got to thinking we should have spent some time talking with you.” They would introduce themselves, and see if this stranger would make room for them now. Along the way, perhaps they could apologize for jumping to their conclusions without really finding out what Fiona was doing there in the first place. That would seem a reasonable step toward correcting the mistake they sensed they had made.
Even if they cannot find the young woman, they could process this situation within the group along the lines of what we’ve discussed here. Revisiting the steps, and the possibilities, and questioning what they assumed and did not ask: All of these are steps toward healing, even if Fiona never appears again in their midst. They will be better prepared the next time such a situation arises. They will have made more room in themselves. A “spring cleaning” of sorts.
So how do you see this scenario, and the application of the #FourFoolishRules? What do you notice that I have missed? I will look forward to your insights as we keep learning together here, and with a new scenario next week.
Photo by Maria Lysenko on Unsplash.
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