Construction begins this week at the Woke Place of Unspecified Worship after a fight broke out in the latter part of Sunday’s observance of the Unseen Being. The conductor of the WPOUW, Alec Stone, announced plans to compartmentalize the general gathering room along ethnic and racial lines. This comes in the wake of increasing tension within the gender-neutral body of the WPOUW.

This week’s argument started with the pulpit. Many observers saw the light stain of the wood as an implied emphasis on the superiority of the white man. The commotion ensued just as Stone pounded the lectern in the throes of an impassioned plea for social justice in all places of worship, specified or otherwise.

We’re told it began with a murmur rippling through the pews, a general uneasiness as the Sunday observers turned their attention to the pulpit. “I don’t know how I never noticed it before,” said longtime observer Mx. Rick Moore. “As soon as ze struck the pulpit, it was like Moses striking that rock and it was all I could see. It was all any of us could see.”

The murmur of conversation soon grew to a full-throated roar as the observers turned on each other. How exactly things escalated so quickly is unsure, but onlookers say Mx. Cray Redman allegedly threw the first punch.

Redman could not be reached for comment, but zirs person of romantic affiliation said that “Cray was provoked” by the microaggression of a Mx. Jeremiah Brown who suggested the pulpit be painted black to identify with the “most obviously aggrieved” group.

“As a person indigenous to the North American continent, Cray had every right to thwack him,” said one observer.

This is not the first time an argument has led to the raising of walls at the WPOUW. In March, the general gathering room was divided between those who identify as men and those who identify as women after a lengthy disagreement on the implications of Ephesians 5:22 (among other passages). In the following weeks, this division led to confusion for those who don’t identify within a binary gender system.

Mx. Mabel Trevor, a new observer at the Woke Place of Unspecified Worship, was particularly disturbed by the ordeal this past Sunday as she could only hear shouting from her side of the wall. “I thought maybe there was a shooter with all that yelling,” ze said, fanning zirself. “I was very grateful for the wall at that moment, let me tell you.”

“We’re moving forward,” Stone said in an official statement following the incident. “We initially thought to use Maybelline’s Fit Me Foundation as a skin test, but the forty shades were too limiting. We have no choice but to require ancestry DNA tests from any person wishing to attend the WPOUW. Only then can we be sure how to treat our observers fairly.”

Observations of the Unseen Being will not be held for the next two weeks while individual cubicles are constructed in the general gathering room. Going forward, homilies for the edification of self will be streamed through newly installed speakers overhead. Please contact Alec Stone for information on the sale of a pulpit, hardly used.

Editor’s Correction: At the request of the WPOUW, all gender-specific pronouns have been changed to their gender-neutral counterparts to promote inclusivity. The policy of The Dirge is to comply with such demands when the threat of legal action (or persistent social media pressure) is present.