Into the Lion’s Den
October 12, 2019
Hey y’all, can you feel it in the air? Fall is finally here! Although, by the time you read this, you might be feeling winter in the air. Regardless, this time of year is one of my favorites! I mean, who does not love sweaters and boots, hot cocoa and cinnamon, the drive down a road covered on both sides with trees changing their leaves? But perhaps the best part about fall is that those bloodsucking mosquitoes are finally dead! I don’t care if they are vital to the ecosystem, they are soulless beasts! My personal vendetta aside, fall is an awesome time of year.
Back in my grade school days, the changing weather meant one important thing: competition season was beginning. I used to compete in Sunday School competitions, and I was pretty good at those. For those of you who do not know what I am talking about, our diocese holds competitions every year for K-12 kids. It includes solo/group songs, storytelling, elocution, bible quiz, essay, and drawing competitions. While I tried everything that I could (because some categories have age limits), the ones I excelled at were elocution and bible quiz. Eventually I aged out of the competitions, but I stayed up until 12th grade. College and grad school came with their own headaches, leaving me no time to prepare for these kinds of things.
Now my church, as in the sabha, has an all-women’s ministry called Marth Mariam Vanitha Samajam (aka Sree Samajam). Essentially, it is an international network of Orthodox women aimed at the spiritual progress of women. It is not as high-collared as it seems, although I cannot speak on behalf of everyone. Overall, it is a fairly progressive group; one of their leading programs is preparing women to have theological training. Do I hear women priests? Maybe in my lifetime.
They also host this annual one-day conference, at the end of which is a bible quiz competition. In recent years, they assign a book from the bible as the theme and topic of the conference/bible quiz. The bible quiz was how they roped me into this conference, they appealed to my competitive side. You see, Sree Samajam is usually for married women/mothers, that type of age group. Seeing as that I am neither, they told me to join for the bible quiz. I was bored and I was good at these things, so why not?
The conference itself was not so bad. The speaker was a priest from a parish in Pennsylvania and he was animated! His speech was lively and kept the audience entertained. But it was what happened afterwards that is of relevance to this blog. I mean, I kinda walked into the lion’s den, what else should I have expected? All these aunties, some of whom I had not seen in a couple of years, came up to me and started asking the typical questions…mole, what are you doing? Mole, when are you getting married? Do you have anyone yet?
But I was prepared. I knew how to talk to these aunties, Aunty, it is all in God’s hands, when He wants it to happen it will happen. It will not matter what methods I try, God’s plan is what will always prevail. Honestly, this is one of my favorite deflections. As a good Christian woman, you are going to tell me that you can make things happen that are not of God’s will? Aunty, I do believe that is heresy.
There was this one aunty, we’ll call her Sophie Aunty, whom I have known practically my whole life, but not known well. Her daughter and I are around the same age, so we would often be grouped together when it came time for competition season. She came up to me and starts with, “Mole, are you looking for anyone? I know someone who I think would be a perfect match for you. The only thing is that he is in Texas.” Turns out that was not the only thing. This guy that she knows just so happens to be her nephew. Ugh. Aunty, that is cute and all, but seriously, how well do you know me that you think your nephew and I would work out? We used to see each other a couple of times a year, now we see each other when someone dies (seriously, the last time I saw Sophie Aunty was when my “cousins’” grandfather passed away). I should also include the grandfather was a member of Sophie Aunty’s church, it is not as macabre as it sounds.
How do you guys feel about that? Random, and sometimes not so random, people thinking they know you well enough to match you with someone. I mean, chances are they probably do not know the other person well enough either. For me, I am not comfortable setting up even my best friends with other people I am close to because who they are with me is not their whole personality, and that is fine. We are talking about a potential relationship, not a recommendation at Starbucks. You do not have to be your whole self with me, I am slightly different with each of my friends, it depends on what we expect from each other.
Just because I am one way with you, Aunty, does not mean I will be the same way with your nephew. Or is being single that awful, random people in my life would rather see me with anyone at all? Anyway, she said she would reach out to her sister, or sister-in-law, and let me know if anything comes of it. Okay, Aunty, take your time with that, no need to rush. I have a strong suspicion this will be another unrequited prospect story. So until next time.
- Aemi
