some people want to fill the world with silly love songs...

about twice a week i see an attractive middle-aged black woman on the corner of atwood and forbes handing out evangelical leaflets and singing about how much she loves jesus.

this morning the bus was particularly crowded for a slightly-post-rush-hour ride in to oakland, and a tiny older woman was standing in the aisle near where i was sitting. she was offered a seat by two different people, but she declined and said she wasn't going far. she told each of the women who had offered her a seat that she'd give them a gift in exchange for their kindness and she handed them a leaflet about being a christian (i surmised this from the ensuing conversation, i didn't actually see the leaflet). one of the women, on being handed the leaflet said, "thank you, but i'm already a christian." the tiny older woman said that maybe she could give the leaflet to someone else, but the christian woman said that everyone she knew was a christian. it was a very pleasant interaction all around, with a lot of "god bless you"-esque statements.

i'm not sure why these types of things don't sit well with me. there's certainly nothing wrong with feeling strongly about something and wanting to share that with others. there's no malice involved. but a secret agenda, perhaps? an underlying judgment? an uninformed supposition?

i grew up in a very catholic family. my father was in the seminary for ten years. my mother was an activist in the pro-life movement in the 70s. my parents were very involved in our church growing up. my brother and sister and i all went to catholic school. my grandmother played the organ at mass until her hands became too arthritic to be able to play comfortably.

truth be told, i like catholics. i think that of all the various christian sects, the catholics are better than most about a lot of things. granted, the vatican is a bit, shall we say, behind the times on a lot of matters, but it could be worse.

my dad teaches preparation classes for the sacrament of confirmation. in this most recent round, my sister and two of my cousins were his students. my sister is like me -- hardheaded, questioning, has a desire to be faithful but a reluctance to accept. my cousins, on the other hand, are the catholic version of bible-belting fundamentalists. according to my dad there were several tense moments in his class where my cousins were at loggerheads with the other kids in the class who have a more, erm, realistic view of what it means to be catholic. my dad ended up having to be the diplomat and the referee. everyone was well-intentioned, but meaning well and acting well aren't always the same.

maybe what i object to is the aspect of spirituality that becomes a crusade -- the self-righteousness of the converters/converted. at this point in my life i can't say that intellectually i believe in heaven or god or whathaveyou, but it seems necessary to be able to come to some sense of peace with how we coast/fight/survive through this life. in order to avoid sheer madness, we need some understanding, we need to impose a "meaning". hell, i'm not convinced that things need to mean something. it's not so bad for things just to be.

besides, who am i to try to suppose that what makes sense for me could possibly have relevance for someone else?

right?

i mean, sure, people have different levels of need for comfort, community, guidance. it must be that some of those religious leaflet folks make a difference... still, in principle, the act of one human attempting to save the soul of another human is kinda like the blind leading the blind...