A few weeks ago I met a man at work. He has a wicked lazy eye and is not very attractive. We make small talk and I mention something about wanting to be a stay at home mom. His eyes light up, his wife is a stay at home mom. As we continue talking I reveal that I am living with my boyfriend. He understands the situation, but also thinks we should get married. I am not offended, he delivers his opinion in a way that makes it seem nice, and not judgmental. I walk away happy.
Later on that day I was on the phone with a friend who will remain unnamed. I tell her about the conversation and how refreshing it was to talk to a man like that. I mention the bit about “living in sin” and she immediately sees that as an opening to jump on her soap box. “He’s right you know, you are living in sin, you should get married.” I immediately know where this conversation is going. You see a few years ago me and this person we very close, in a very small amount of time our friendship fizzled. I didn’t have the same shaped faith as her. Mine was much more irregular and constantly changing. She was a girl of blind faith; I wanted to know what the world was about. She tells me that it wouldn’t be so bad if I claimed to be a Christian. Last she heard I wasn’t. (Oh, and don’t bother rereading that, I really just wrote that she thought me living in sin would be more acceptable if I was a Christian. Weird.) I tell her that I believe that if you can’t tell what I believe by the way I treat people then it doesn’t really matter. “That right there lets me know you’re not a Christian. Some of the nicest people in the world are Buddhists. There are lots of nice people that aren’t Christians.” I should have said “and there are lots of shitty people that are ‘christians’”. But I held my tongue.
I am a nice person; I try to be kind to others. I don’t do this because Jesus tells me to or because I want to show them the light of God. I do this because I know right from wrong, and I know how to be decent. I do not try to harvest people in the name of God. I’m not searching for those lost souls to save.
Yesterday, I met that man again. He said he had talked to his wife about me. She told him he shouldn’t have leaned on me so hard. I told him I wasn’t offended by him telling me I should get married. It was his opinion, and I took it as just that, an opinion. I told him that soon after our conversation; I got into an argument of sorts with a friend of mine. He looked sad. I told him the situation and felt very confident and strangely at ease telling this very Christian man my beliefs. He didn’t try to change them; in fact he understood my views. This man whose name I can’t remember and his wife Mary, whom I’ve never met have really touched my life. He lives down by Hot Springs, AR and comes to Conway for business occasionally. I’m sure I will see him again, and I have no idea what we will talk about next time. But I do know that I will get crazy distracted by his lazy eye.
This man never came out and said he was a Christian, I could tell by the way he acted.
For Cam: fuck, damn, piss.
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