in an attempt to simultaneously avoid rush hour traffic and satisfy an intense fried mozzarella stick craving, i had dinner at the jack in the box across the street from school after class on wednesday night. i ordered two tacos for 99 cents and, against my better judgement, a 6 piece box of mozzarella sticks. i also got a small drink, which i filled with strawberry fanta, orange fanta and sprite. i don’t know, i guess i was feeling adventurous.
anyway, i waited for my order and then brought it to a table near the door of the restaurant. i ate one cheese stick and took a bite of my taco, and then i heard the door open behind me. these two people walked in, college aged kids, one guy and one girl. the guy looked at me like he knew me, so i looked back like i was trying to remember who he was. turns out i didn’t know him, and he didn’t know me, but he asked me if it was okay if he talked to me for a minute about the word of God. i said “i’m already a christian, does that count for anything?” and he got all excited and asked if he and his friend could sit down. then he proceeded to tell me all about the gospel, ask about my church life, and ask me if i knew i’d go to heaven if i died that night. regular evangelical kind of stuff. nothing extraordinary, although the guy didknow his bible verses.
lately i’ve become disenchanted with religion. i think it comes with getting older. the world starts to make less sense the longer you live in it, and you come to realize that many of the things you once wholeheartedly believed in may not be as absolute as you might have thought. you learn, you go to college, people die and you question everything. such is life.
i watched this guy talk to me, this look of genuine love and concern on his face, and he seemed to me like a child. i imagined him for a moment as a kid walking away from a magic show and telling his friends at school about all the amazing magic he saw, never with any idea that none of it was real.
“and then the magician sawed the box that the man was in in half and i saw his guts and everything, and then he put him back together and the man came back to life!”
he said God gave his son so that we might be saved, and that our sin became his, and that through him we will have eternal life.
“and then the soldiers nailed him to a cross and there was blood and his legs were broken and everything, and then they buried him and God brought him back to life!”
i began to feel sad, i was touched by how earnestly he shared his beliefs with me, and i was saddened by how deeply he believed in them. how is it possible for anyone to believe like that when the world is such an awful place? how can anyone who watches the 11 o’clock news still believe in God? only children can believe like that. it’s like believing in Santa, in super heroes, in magic. once you begin to learn things about life, it becomes impossible for you to believe that these things are real.
i began to cry. i didn’t want to tell him that i was crying because i pitied him and his unquestioning faith. i didn’t tell him i was crying because i knew one day something would happen to him that would shake his faith to the core, and possible shatter it. i didn’t say why i was crying. i just said that i really respected him and his friend for going out and sharing their faith with others, and that i was really glad they came to talk to me. “i respect you, i respect you” was all i kept saying. what i meant was “i envy your naiveté, i respect you for having the courage it takes to blindly follow something.”
they prayed for me. i looked at them while my eyes were supposed to be closed, both of them with hands folded and eyes squeezed shut, and i wondered if they thought they had reached me. i wondered how they read my tears. we said amen together and i thanked them again. they gave me a flier for some church thing and then they left.
the remaining five mozzarella sticks had gotten cold. the cheese was no longer melty.
