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Jun 05, 2010 19:42

The Second United Congregational Christian Church is close to the center of town, but it's small. Kaylee's seen it, running errands. She presents herself for Bible study at 9:30 in the morning in the plainest dress she owns. The class is young adult, combined -- she's not used to that, but if she thinks about it, she's not really used to attending church in general, and she hasn't attended Sunday school since well before leaving Three Hills -- and she's not the only person there by herself.

She sits next to a nice-looking young blonde woman, and make it (a little stumblingly) through the group introduction.

The lesson that day is Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. The teacher leads them through the passage; Kaylee's neighbor reads aloud. There's a brief history lesson on Corinth, on Earth-That-Was, and a quick summation of the things known about the early Church.

"Logan City," says the teacher, "isn't unlike Corinth. We know that Praxed is a place that people tend to come to. How many of you are first-generation residents?"

Kaylee raises her hand; so does three-quarters of the class.

"Every time I see a story about the population explosion, or something that's happened in the markets that gets blamed on a recent immigrant -- I think of the church in Corinth. Let's take a look at chapter twelve, verses twelve through thirty-one."

It's the part about the church being one body, and the body consisting of all the various members, all necessary and vital. Kaylee, bending over her faded New Testament (it was her grandmother's, presented to her at age two), with the rice-paper letters (and the words of Christ written in red), blinks at it. She's never read it before, that she can recall, and the passage is unsettling in the way that all words that resonate deeply and personally are unsettling -- more so because she doesn't know why.

The text is her grandmother's, and she doesn't want to write in it, but after class, very surreptitiously, she makes a note in her datapad -- and puts it away quickly; the young woman she sat next to approaches her and asks if she's new and if she'd like to sit with her for the service.

Kaylee blinks (and ignores the sudden lump in her throat), and says (slightly waveringly) that she'd love to, and thank you.

"When I was a kid -- long way away from here -- we didn't have the boys and girls in the same study," she tells the young woman as they walk the colonnade over to the church.

The young woman -- Rai -- laughs. "Oh, me neither. And it can be overwhelming, and a little hard when the discussion's livelier, or about women's roles in the church." She slips her arm in Kaylee's, effortless and thoughtless. "There's a women's study only, though. If that makes you feel any better."

Kaylee finds herself smiling as they go through the door. "Yeah."
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