Looking in retrospect, it was a good idea that I had written some book reviews this afternoon after lunch to post while I was away this evening at a dinner party with some frequent dinner companions, two of whom regularly give sermonettes at our local congregation, a subject matter that came up several times, given that both of them are speaking soon. It would have greatly hindered both my writing and my sleeping if I had not prepared ahead of time, given that it was about 10:30PM or so by the time I arrived home after dinner and plenty of conversation. While I am not the sort of person who needs much excuse to go out to eat with others, whether I bring my appetite, a dinner salad or other dish, or, as was the case today, a bottle of Martinelli’s sparkling apple cider. As is often the case, I did not know who else was coming, as I am generally invited without any discussion being present about who else is coming, and one of the guests, the daughter of the other family, was a surprise arrival, as it was mistakenly thought by our hosts that she had returned to college already when she had not, at least not yet.

Aside from the fact that it was a Sabbath dinner, which is always far more enjoyable with company than by oneself, this particular meal was notable in that it served as a group project session that reminded me of my time in high school and college. As a student, I had a love-hate relationship with group projects. On the one hand, it was almost the only time anyone ever wanted me in their group, given the fact that my social status as a young person ranked somewhere between leper and pariah in how I felt about it at least. Yet when it came time to choosing groups on intellectual ability and general knowledge, I was always highly sought after, not least because I either knew the answers or could easily find them, and given that the whole team got their grade based on the most productive member of the group, that meant I was a very desirable partner on those narrow grounds, even among those people who had little personal friendliness towards me. So, what did I hate about this? Namely, what I hated was being valued only for my brains, and how my brains could help the GPA of unfriendly classmates who could not be bothered to pull their own weight when it came to research and study and writing. To a certain extent, I still feel as if a great deal of the company I manage to find appreciate me because of wit and intellect, because I am a knowledgeable dinner companion who keeps conversations going, even, such as was the case tonight, where the conversation can get to rather grim subjects.

So, what was the group project like? Aside from the food, and discussions about food, the evening followed a fairly consistent trend when it comes to group projects. In the beginning, the use of timers and the fact that everyone was more or less on topic allowed for progress to be made on the two pages of questions given by our pastor for the next Bible study [1]. Some questions had short answers, some questions had longer ones, a few of us were particularly talkative and others were not very talkative at all, but everyone participated in at least some way and had some thoughtful contributions to make. It was certainly better than the way I remember many of my earlier group projects back in days gone by. Yet as we were approaching the end of the first page, by which time we had enjoyed dessert, the conversation quickly got off the rails and though I managed to look up the last couple of answers for myself for a sense of completion, at least on an interim goal of finishing one page of questions, overall it was clear that by the time it was 9:00 or so, we were done looking at Romans 2 verse by verse with commentary and had quickly gone to other subjects.

Those other subjects were quite interesting. We discussed the sorts of Bible memory verses that boys of a certain age would use because of colorful language that is often decorously mistranslated in many versions, such as the euphemistic reference to Baal going on a journey in 1 Kings 18:27. There were discussions about trains, about the topography of Illinois, about the beauties of Glacier National Park, a place I have never seen because I have yet to make it to Montana, about swamps and threats to various trees, about the quality of food in Europe, and so on. At the end of the night, our host brought up the topic of an article in a recent magazine that was preaching to the choir when it came to a particular social issue, and I explained how I had written an article on the same subject in a different vein [2] giving encouragement to those who struggle, in the hope that no one would feel themselves too far gone for forgiveness, which is interestingly enough a subject that I asked to write about in general for my next article for our church’s teen magazine, for which I am a relatively frequent contributor. For whatever reason in my life, the same general themes and concerns come up over and over again, in different contexts and different company, but on the same narrow ground. Is this a sign that I’m doing something wrong, or that I’m doing something right?

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/11/08/my-pastor-gave-me-homework/

[2] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/lest-you-also-be-tempted/