Last weekend in a car ride to Del Mar, I had an entertaining conversation with a friend and her hub. She brought up changing our circle's weekly Tuesday night dinner to Wednesday nights. "Tuesday Night Dinner" has become a tradition, since we graduated, where five of us buddies from The Naz* get together for a sesh of food and dishing. If we switch "Tuesday Night Dinner" to Wednesday nights (and change the name obviously) she would then be free on Tuesdays to attend a Bible study with some of her church ladies. Apparently up until this point, she has let these ladies assume that she's been unavailable on Tuesdays due to a long-standing other Bible Study! The church ladies have been fooled! Eating sushi and chatting with your girlfriends does NOT a Bible study make!
I found the fact that she didn't correct the church ladies to be quite amusing. We laughed about how one could make the stretch.
We drink a lot of wine and sometimes we eat bread...that's sort of like taking communion!
We go around the table and give updates...like "prayer requests!"
Sometimes we pray before our meal
The best part about playing with what to call our weekly dinner is that the hub calls it his wife's "Women's Support Group." Apparently the few times she's missed TND have really proven to him that it is an outlet for her and a valuable use of time. If he knows what's good for him, and apparently he does, he'll continue encouraging her to attend. He's a smart man.
This topic came up this week at dinner. A consensus was made that for some reason there is this stigma or shame in some christian circles, not all of course, in spending time outside of your husband and/or kids in a NON-Bible study setting. In other words, it is perfectly acceptable to go to your Women's Bible Study on a given evening (hopefully after dinner has been provided for your household) or to "fellowship" with women from the church, perhaps spending time at a cafe or in someones home praying for husbands and children. BUT, if you are leaving your hub or even worse your hub AND kids to go...eat, drink wine or maybe coffee, and just have a conversation with some girlfriends..you are a bad lady! I suppose one could just use the word "fellowship" and make it okay to do any of the crazy above activities (like eating a meal with your friends) but why should it matter what we call it? Why should my friend have to misrepresent what she does on Tuesday evenings when anyone in their right mind knows there is nothing wrong with it?
It's not like our Fight Club that we hold on Thursday evenings, now that's a different story!
*A pet name that only alumni with the highest respect and love for Point Loma Nazarene University consider using.
*church ladies in this scenario think the following topics are suitable for women/women's seminars: 1) Cooking techniques 2) Honing hosting skills 3)Reading Proverbs 31...again...and again...and again.
Comments