The One...

Several years ago Drew took me to an Easter conference put on by the Brethren church.

We had only been together a year or so at that point. I don't even think we were married yet, although I could be wrong about that. At any rate, this conference was one of the few times I attended a church service that year. I knew very little about the Brethren as a congregation or as a Christian subculture other than that many of the women wore head coverings during church for religious reasons.

I truly, deeply and sincerely did not want to wear one of these head coverings, and was a little nervous that one of the Elders would attempt to coerce me into wearing someone else's extra covering. I don't know why any woman would carry more than one of these around, but I really didn't want to encourage such an unnecessary and hair-mussing practice.

Drew and I briefly chatted about it, and he said that the absence of a covering on my head would only impede me if I attempted to go up onstage and play an instrument, sing or preach. (Well, technically my lack of a y chromosome would have been a much bigger reason for the Brethren to disallow me from preaching. But I'm sure wanting to preach sans head covering wouldn't have helped!)

I was relieved, yet still wary when we arrived at the conference. One never knows where or when a head covering might leap out from a dark corner somewhere in a single bound and proceed to wrap itself around your head, glorifying God and proclaiming your unbridled modesty and submission to heavenly and earthly authority.

Imagine my relief (and slight dismay....how cool would a self-leaping piece of fabric be, assuming that one could successfully dodge its advances of course!?!) when none of these things took place.

Most women wore head coverings. Some of us did not. If there were head covering attacks, they were of the well hidden and non-life-threatening variety.

We sang a few songs. Hymns, mostly. There were a few songs in which the men and the women sang different parts in the song - the men would sing a line, and when they were halfway through the line the women would begin to sing a slightly different, complimentary line. I fought the urge to sing with the men instead. Then we listened to a sermon. After that we ate a dinner that was provided by the people who put on the conference. We went home.

On the way home I told Drew about my urge to sing with the men instead of singing the women's part. He told me that he had a similar urge the sing the with the women instead of singing with the men. We both preferred the words that were given to the other  gender, I think. Or maybe one of us wanted to sing fewer words while the other liked the complexity of language that was given to the opposite gender.

A year later, we attended another Brethren Easter conference. I still avoided any and all head coverings,  but this time I sang with the men. Drew sang with the women.

If I hadn't already been married to him at the time I probably would have thought, "yep, I could definitely spend the rest of my life with this boy."

;)

:)