I was sitting in Starbucks this morning. I do that a lot. Not always at Starbucks, mind you, but I’m a BIG fan of coffee, so you could easily find me in one of several such places most mornings: Starbucks, Seattle’s Best (except Borders is going out of business!), Sacred Grounds (I don’t tell them that I also sip at a corporate chain), Artisan Bread, or my apartment living room.
So, I was sitting in Starbucks this morning. I was sipping coffee, reading in the book of Luke on youversion.com, browsing a magazine, thinking, and praying. And I was getting ready to start writing this blog post on something unrelated to my current topic.
Then this guy sits to my left. I say “hi” and ask him how he’s doing. He’s an older guy (later I find out that he’s seventy; I didn’t think he was that old). And he starts telling me about how he likes to get out of his house where it gets lonely. Apparently he’s been divorced for twenty-five years and doesn’t have much contact with his two children that each live nearby. That hurts.
But he’s a talker. That’s for sure.
Then he asks me what I study. That was after he had spent some time bashing religion. I respond politely that I’m studying theology. So he appears apologetic for a brief second but rapidly recovers his embittered stance on faith.
I wish I could say that we had a positive discussion/dialogue. Honestly, it wasn’t much of one.
I interject a few times during what he would probably coin a “sagacious soliliquy” but what I would rather term a “civil tirade” against the injustices caused by the church, the methods of control used by religious leaders throughout the centuries, and the silliness of the supernatural. I bite my tongue on more than seven occasions, and as the blood swirls through my clenched teeth, I continue to smile. I wish I could say that I had more pleasant thoughts.
I can’t say that I disagree with many of his extreme examples, though. Yes, religious leaders have been power-mongering and money-extorting since the beginning of time. After listening to his input for about an hour, mingled with my feeble attempts to give a balanced view to his concerns, I shook his hand and left.
Whew! Glad that was over (okay, not really… I actually enjoyed our rather one-sided conversation).
So then I was driving to church, reflecting on my encounter. The thought passed my mind, This guy deserves whatever he has coming to him. I felt as though he was blinding himself to reason (yes, I used the word “reason”… a bit ironic, huh?) and that he would end up reflecting on a wasted life. Sadly, I felt vindicated by my faith because at least my life has meaning (even if at the end of my life it turns out that God is merely a cosmic hoax).
That wasn’t a very Christ-like thought.
Then I felt pity.
Then I felt ironic.
Because he probably felt pity too.
But for me.
Weird.
Profound!