Embarrassed ...

... by a fellow white person! This is something that happens to me from time to time. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say I was embarassed for this person.

A friend and I attended a worship service on Friday that was part of the Interfaith Peace Witness weekend. It was held at Lincoln Temple UCC, which (I learned) is the oldest African-American Congregational church in DC. It was interesting, because the congregation gathered was almost exclusively white, but the piano player/ songleader, host pastor, and guest preacher were all African-American. So, the singing was less than impressive. But that was not the embarrassing part.

When the host pastor came to the pulpit to greet the congregation, he greeted us by saying "God is good," to which a few people scattered throughout (me being one of them) responded "All the time!" And then, he said "All the time..." to which a slightly larger number of people responded "God is good!" At the passing of the peace, the white person seated in front of me, who was wearing a clerical collar, asked "Do you go to this church?" I responded "No," and decided to leave it at that, but I probably looked puzzled, because this person then said, "because you seemed to know that litany the pastor was saying at the beginning." I was too shocked to take the time to educate that person about the prevalence of this greeting in Black churches.

Not that I have any reason to expect everyone to know that... it was just very odd that this person assumed it was a local tradition.