We’re trying to “live into” the inevitable changes to our long-running “not that early” Bible study and discussion class that result from the teacher needing to be elsewhere during class time. Like driving to worship a couple of counties east of here.
So far we have been thinking “not that late” might be an alternative. We all became Zoom-savvy during the COVID shut-down. Most of us don’t have Sunday evening obligations, at least not ones we can’t work around. We’re working on making early Sunday evening Zoom the alternative meeting time & venue, as needed.
Some of us [ahem] haven’t allowed sufficiently for habit, inertia, and forgetfulness, however. Last night it took a phone call from another class member to alert me to the time – already a little over five minutes past due, which was really about twenty minutes late, considering that these calls usually start early with chatting and checking in and catching up on the local news of the day / week and so on. We had to shift that portion of the class to the end this time.
Lesson learned, I hope. From now on, it looks like I’ll need to set an alarm. At least until “living into” becomes more like “lived in.”
Fortunately for me, people have learned a lot of grace at church, and have had a lot of practice extending grace to one another. They’re good at that. Which feels almost as good as not needing it in the first place.
Image: “Irises in the Botanical Garden,” Kor!An (Андрей Корзун), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Matters of Interpretation 
