Faith 4 Justice is a group of ecumenical church leaders in Asheville led by Tami Forte Logan who have been meeting for a couple of years. Tami sent out a reminder for the meeting and it was the next day. I had planned on attending another meeting in the afternoon but decided to try doing both because I’m very interested in Faith 4 Justice. Of course after this meeting, I realized attending both wasn’t a good idea. Many years ago, I would have attended both and then paid the price.

It met at Haywood Methodist Church right up the street from my house so I could walk. My neighborhood is now one of “the places to be” in Asheville so many cars zoomed by and it was noisy. If housing costs in 2005 were what they are now, we never could have afforded this home. It’s small but I do like it.

Walking to the meeting, I didn’t put in my bright pink earplugs -a mistake – for in the five minutes it took me to walk there, I became overstimulated. I purposely arrived late since I knew net-working was the first order of business and the stimulation would be too much for me. When I arrived, conversations were still buzzing and my brain was tired. Not a good way to begin!

Due to my mental flexibility and overstimulation issues, all meetings are hard. In fact, I’ve finally decided to resign from many committees and Presbyterians have a lot off meetings! I often don’t say much because conversation moves so quickly and by the time I think of a comment, the subject has changed. My brain also freezes and I forget what I’m going to say.

Faith 4 Justice is studying and reading this book together. This was announced at the last meeting I attended but since I didn’t write it down, I forgot. After the business portion of the meeting, Tami told us to split into groups of two and answer a few questions, one at a time. What that meant was one person from each group speaking and there were about 7 groups. I knew it was a difficult environment for me, so I slipped out and “rested my brain” returning after the discussions.

I’m aware that it is important to split up in small groups for workshops and meetings but doing this is usually impossible for me and I don’t get anything out of it. This day was especially hard since I had been tired when I arrived. Sometimes I can push through it but I didn’t want to do that this time.

I plan on reading the book but have not yet begun. In fact, I have much solo writing and reading that I need to do so not having to push through so many meetings will help. I really do better when I’m alone as long as I get to work and stay off Facebook!