This project is about human interaction — how we choose to treat other people.
With thanks to Janice Jow, who suggested writing down and sharing the stories from The Love Bead Safe Harbor Pin Project.
This is about the day I met the Church Ladies.
I was “churched” growing up, which is to say we were members of a congregation and attended services every Sunday. Eventually, my family moved, and we stopped going to church, mostly for reasons having to do with my Dad and how he was. I remained a Christian in my heart, if a confused one (it took a lot of time to process Dad, his demons, and his effect on our family and on me). I did attend a church for a while during high school as a friend was becoming a lay minister and leaving to attend a seminary, and he asked me to go to give moral support. Then I graduated and moved away, and while I attended the occasional service, I was no longer churched and belonged to no one sect or congregation.
Even though I was brought up in a fairly conservative Christian church, it never made sense to me that only one group of people had all the answers. I took classes in comparative theology, and have always respected other faiths and their adherents, and the right of any person to believe what he believes, whatever it is. Some people don’t believe in any god at all, and while I disagree with them, I recognize that they disagree with me as well, and we both have the right to think as we do. I no longer have much contact with churches or organized religion any more, though, except for a few friends who are members of (very) different religions.
Some of my family members were very conservative, very evangelical, very good at lecturing and not listening, and frankly quite unpleasant human beings. The word “evil” would not be out of place when describing them. And I’ve certainly met additional people who might not be evil, but certainly use their beliefs to judge, condemn and make themselves feel superior to others. These people belong to different religions, or none, but they share an unappetizing determination to Tell You The One True Way. It’s made me wary of anyone who is quick to discuss matters of faith.
So when I saw a group of ladies, dressed nicely, carrying a church banner at a rally… honestly, I was going to edge past them in the crowd. Which is judgemental of me. And an especially odd choice for a Christian woman to avoid a group publicly claiming their own faith. It was instinctive, pain avoidance, based on years of unpleasant experiences. It was so immediate I didn’t even make the choice consciously. It was more like the automatic reaction that sees a shadow, thinks “snake!” and recoils.
One of the women watched with curiosity as I explained Safe Harbor to a young man with spiky, bright green hair and many piercings. He jangled as he sorted through the pins, and it made me smile. I looked up and there she was, watching us, a woman a few years older than I am, dressed in a tasteful skirt and blouse, standing under a banner proclaiming her membership in, let’s say, “Good Shepherd of the Rock Church.” She tilted her head slightly, peering at us.
I was ready to be defensive on behalf of the young man sorting through the pins, on his behalf, certain she disapproved of him, maybe of me. Then she smiled, trying to see into the bag, clearly wondering what we were doing. It was the universal human expression that says, “Hm, that looks interesting and that person is having a good time. I wonder what’s going on?”
As he chose his pin and left, she made eye contact. Okay, I sighed to myself, let’s get this over with. I trudged over (on my crutches), forced a smile, and said, “Would you like a free Safe Harbor pin?” I held out the bag of pins.
She glanced into the bag, still smiling. “What is that?”
I explained Safe Harbor, expecting her to politely refuse. Instead, she turned to the other ladies in her group. “Come here! You have to hear this!”
The other ladies gathered around us. I explained Safe Harbor, showed them the pins, made the offer again to the group. They took pins, just reached in and grabbed a pin without the usual sifting through them. I explained that some of the pins they were taking symbolized support for LGBTQI rights, or civil rights, or… They glanced at the pins in their hands and just nodded. It was information, okay, good to know. Nobody asked to exchange or return her pin.
“Would you mind explaining how you made these,” one of them asked. “We’ve been looking for something like this,” said another. “There are people where our church is, they don’t belong to our church, but we talk from time to time, and they feel unwanted, rejected,” explained the first woman. “They feel unsafe,” added another. “We’ve been looking for a project we could do to show solidarity with our neighbors,” she added.
I explained how to make the pins, answered a few questions. “We have to let people know that if they feel unsafe, or rejected, they can come to us,” one of the ladies said. “They don’t have to join the church. They can just come in if they want to.”
“We want them to be safe,” said another.
Judge not, lest ye be judged, indeed. We said goodbye, and went our separate ways.