More Frustrations

Last night I received the sad news from one of my fellow homeschooling moms that our little group would not be allowed to hold our weekly science class at the church who has been allowing us to do so. The Pastor there sited reasons of liability because he saw some of our kids run outside (with me and one of the other moms in tow, I might add) but it was a misunderstanding. For some unknown reason he'd decided to pop in on our class on Monday, when the incident occurred, and to introduce himself as the new Pastor when, in fact, he's been Paster at that church for three years (this information came from the woman who runs the front office). The whole interaction between him and our group was awkward and I'd feared something bad was going to come of it, even before the kids ran outside. I have a bit of clairvoyant ability- I tend to pick up on the emotions of other people very easily- and I sensed almost immediately that something was amiss with him, though I'm not sure what the actual problem was. I and at least one of the other moms feel that the church had some sort of previous issue and this incident simply provided them with the excuse they needed to feel okay with telling us to leave.

Our group does not have any religious or spiritual affiliations; we are a fairly eclectic bunch with various spiritual leanings. This particular church was chosen as our meeting place because they had a room available, and rooms in which to hold these types of classes are difficult to find. While homeschooling is becoming more popular and more widely accepted, there aren't many organizations in this area who have the facilities available to share with us. Fighting the urge to write a scathing email to the church, I fired off a diplomatic and reasonable letter this morning in an attempt to reason with them. I don't think that it will do any good, but it was a good exercise in expending negative energy in a creative way. This incident makes the second bad experience I've had with a church organization in two weeks and I'm fighting the urge to be resentful at "the church" as a whole. While I am not a Christian, I try to be open minded and respectful when it comes to the beliefs of others and understand that sometimes we need to separate the acts of institutions from those of individuals. What is causing me such vexation here is that, in this case, two individuals really pissed me off (almost immediately after the Pastor's exit from our class the secretary for the church came in to obtain our names and phone numbers-which also caused me some unease-and she made the snide comment upon leaving of "See ya, wouldn't want to be ya").

In any event, now we begin the process of looking for another place to hold our class. And I continue to process of trying to be calm in situations where my patience seemed stretched to its limits.

Goddess Bless!