Labelled

As an alumni, I continue to be invited to potluck dinners with my major from school. I value remaining welcome and connected to them. It's neat to see the group evolve, although it feels a little awkward to be on the outside of it. Sometimes it also feels awkward to re-enter aspects of that phase of my life.

One of these gatherings occurred last night. It was a lovely time of reconnecting, and as hoped, I found a welcoming outlet for the books I've recently purged from my shelves!

At one point in the evening, our professor was telling us about how much she loves seeing her students grow and change throughout the years of her tutelage. As alumni, of course, we were the examples. "I was really, really quiet," Amanda volunteered. I didn't say anything, so our professor said of me, "Michelle was sceptical, but God is working on that in her." I continued my halfhearted smile.

Sceptical, huh. One word that begs so much explanation. What on earth is she referring to?

Is she saying I was sceptical about God? Although I am no longer a person of faith, I do not believe that this falling away was evident in me back then. If anything, I feel like I am an example against the idea that those who fall away were never really Christians to begin with (the perseverance of the saints). I was genuine. (Unless this is a matter of election... I was sincere but not chosen, and somehow she recognized that, although she would never put it that way?) And the events that led to my giving up were not so much a matter of scepticism as of pain and darkness. Even in those steps I was living genuinely out of my circumstances.

Is she instead saying that she found me sceptical towards our topic of study? I don't see that either. I came back to school because I was so excited about the mystics after reading John of the Cross. When I try to picture "sceptical," I come across synonyms like dour and uninvolved, but in my early memories of school I was anything but that. I remember how excited and involved I was in starting our community, and how I invited everyone out for coffee after class. I didn't start out sceptical. But eventually I started to feel angst in her classes. In addition, I was in a dry and dark place and "spirituality" wasn't very fruitful for me. But this is the field that recognizes and understands such arid times!

Maybe... maybe she feels like I was sceptical of her view of spiritual theology. Maybe it all boils down to her. We did stand on the opposite sides of some issues and we weren't always comfortable with each other. She prides herself on her intuition, but I have found it to be faulty when applied to me (like when she asked if my expression of painc was an attempt to control something). Maybe her statement reveals little more than her current feelings about me, and that some bitterness remains between us.

Based on the context of her speech, it seems that she should be identifying a characteristic that she saw in me early on and an area that changed significantly by the time I finished my college education. Her phrasing, however, suggests a current observation ("God is working on that"). I didn't start out sceptical, and if anything, I became more sceptical as my time at school went on. Another friend of mine from that time does not remember scepticism as a primary characteristic of mine at all when he first met me (and I didn't bother asking about now).

To be honest, I felt a little slandered by her description of me. There were new people in this group whom I hadn't met before, and who were forming their opinion of me based on the fact that I gave them books, and then the fact that she called me sceptical. It was as if this was how she was introducing me to them. They don't know what contributed to this statement; they are left to imagine. I guess it's a good thing I won't see them much in the future... or maybe that just makes it all immaterial.