Last Friday we were at a friend's house for a church get-together. Our pastor is resigning, so it was kind of a farewell gathering for him and his wife, who everyone will miss very much, including Nathan and me, who only met them two months ago. Our church, part of the Scottish Episcopal church, is not very large, but has provided wonderful encouragement for us in the last weeks. It is a beautiful and biblical combination of the true preaching of the Word and the true celebration of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. I have never, in all my life, felt so genuinely refreshed by church, and I'm convinced it is that combination of Word and sacrament that is so powerful.
Anyway, at this little gathering on Friday night I was chatting with our pastor and another member of the congregation. Our pastor has a kind of booming, jovial voice and this other gentleman is the epitomy of the very English professor with a wonderfully dry sense of humor. We were discussing World War II in England, since both of their parents had lived and worked through the war. Our pastor mentioned that his mother spent the war X-raying bombs to make sure that they had no defects. I mentioned that women in the States also worked during the war, but when the men came home, they were expected to quietly return to their lives as mothers and homemakers, which many of them did not exactly wish to do.
Our pastor boomed out, "Yes, that's the mistake you women made! Why anyone would want to get trapped into the workforce, I don't know! Here women could stay at home in peace and quiet and raise their children, and yet they insisted on going out into the workforce!"
I sensibly proposed that perhaps not all women wanted to stay at home and have babies. Our pastor paused, clearly searching for the proper responce, when the other gentlemen neatly stepped in to save the moment, saying very benevolently, "There's that famous old quote from Chesterton: 'An army of a thousand women will not be dictated to. So they all went out and got jobs as secretaries.'"
Moment of silence, and then great guffaws from the men! What could I do but join in? It was SO funny!
4 comments:
Ooo....poor Kevin! Foot in mouth...
Sometimes I almost agree with him, however, the older I get. The work force can be more challenging and frustrating than being at home. However, I fear women's brains turned to moosh in the 50's.
loved the blog entry!
Mamalisa
Thats GREAT! I love reading your stories! You write so well! S:)
I liked the video= I'll have to figure out how to do that. On Auntie Meg's blog there is a video of Grammy reading!
I'm glad you laughed. It was funny. So true, too. We cut off our noses to spite our faces... We, me, I'm such a confused lump. The line between boredom, pressured stress and full & purposeful satisfaction in life's work is so very thin.
You are a great story teller!
Love ya, MOM
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