Walking in Grace

There's a group of eleven women, only three of us English speakers, that are gathering in a monthly game this year.  On the third of every month, we're throwing $20 into the group pot.  We've drawn names and each of us gets a turn to take the pot home.  It totals almost $200.  Some of the women are related and some have never met.  But we are all connected somehow.  In a world where it is impossible to save, where the financial outputs far exceed any salary that is brought in, a large lump sum helps in so many ways.  I plan to post more of this game, with pictures of my deepening group of friends. 

With the start of the year, we started on Thursday.  Big snowflakes were falling and it was really cold out.  There had been all kinds of discussion over where we should meet to draw the names and get acquainted.  I told them we could meet at my house.  Most of the local ladies objected.  Though a restaurant in January is guaranteed to be cold, to meet in a house demands the obligatory spread.  The table cloth, often spread out on the floor, covered with nuts, dried fruits, multiple kinds of cookies, chocolates and cakes.  Several bottles of soda or pitcher of home-canned compote carefully placed in the center and some fruit, of it's very limited varieties perfectly placed for the satisfaction of the guests.  Beyond the spread, a meal would be expected.  A good hour into chatting, homemade nan and soup or the traditional osh would be presented to each guest.  Though everyone of us would strongly resist with comments of "why did you work so hard, you shouldn't have," if the meal isn't offered, the "gap" (the gossip) starts to fly as soon as the guests leave the party.  "She didn't feed us," "what she gave us was so simple, was warmed up leftovers."  I've left countless gatherings, in the pack of women all walking home together, and heard the criticisms fly.  The criticisms have come back to me; "so-n-so's mother-in-law has told people that your yard is dusty and disorderly, that you don't pick up your children's toys."  Those words sting, when it feels like such a battle and process to do it right; to do it like them.

After much debate, we met at my house.  And I intentionally laid a very scant table; cookies bought by the kilo and a wacky cake.  I've learned in living here that even the simple things can be made beautiful.  So I laid my contrasting cookies on the plates and sprinkled powdered sugar over top the chocolate cake.  As I made the preparations I could feel the knot in my stomach growing.  It took a bit to identify.

It is hard to walk in grace among a people who have never received it; who never give it; who, when I speak it, don't even know what the word means.  

I wanted them all to know I know how to lay the spread.  I have learned what their culture requires and I can (try to) do it.  But if that standard is set in the first meeting, then it must be maintained.  And the cost of such a spread would quickly drain the pot that had us meeting together in the first place.  So I chose to walk in grace.  I do so, that others may find freedom to do the same.

And really, isn't that what we've been called to do.  Far beyond how we receive a guest or what my yard looks like.  I've been called to live among those who don't know Him.  But live as His child, in all the grace and freedom He has given me.