I am so in shock it has prompted me to want to record it, to need to record it.
All right. I have a friend whom I met through my last job in retail. She is one of the sweetest persons I have ever met, she’s an absolutely wonderful person in my opinion. BUT she is deeply religious. Now, don’t get me wrong I have nothing against people being deeply religious because the way I see it is as a personal choice. And not to mention my parents are deeply religious and of course I love them and respect their faith. I do however have a slight problem with people who push their religion onto others. Let me reiterate: I believe that religion is a matter of choice. It is my choice not to follow my parents religion. It is my choice to believe that I can act like a rightful human being without the influence of religion. It is my choice period. Nothing can change that. Even accompanying my parents some Sundays to church! Quite honestly I go because I like the displays of camaraderie that I see there!
So, when I left my job, my friend assured me that she would visit because she knows the area. I said, “Sure come by any time, you are more than welcome!” Let me add here, that she had questioned me at work about my beliefs and what religion I was brought up in. I told her the truth and told her my parents were really religious, but I myself did not identify with any religion at the moment. I also told her that I considered myself a spiritual person, but not a religious person. So with that in mind, I thought she would not try to get me to convert or anything of that sort.
Nonetheless, she knocked on my door today. I was just getting out of the shower and rushed to get dressed in order to get the door. Of course, I thought she was just visiting and taking a look at my fairly new apartment. I invited her in. We sat. We talked, mostly about work related things and about our other friend who recently got married (and is the same religion). Then when I was least expecting it, she pulls out this booklet and starts to ask if I ever wondered things such as: Why is there suffering? Does God really exist? etc. In my head I am thinking, “Of course I have wondered those things! How could I not?” But I answered with a humble “Yes”, which I think only invited her more to want to discuss the bible verses. I wondered what would have happened if I would have answered “No” very ignorantly. Would she have been as uncomfortable as me? Would she be surprised? Or, would she just ignore it and keep going. I can’t even begin to describe the amount of shock I am still in!
Of course me being the nice young lady that I am, I wasn’t going to tell her I didn’t want her to preach to me because I would probably come off as rude. So I just sucked it up, gave short answers and hoped that she wouldn’t want to make it a habit of coming by and teaching me. So she left the booklet and offered to come by later if I needed to discuss anything I read in it. I told her that I would let her know.
This constitutes one of the weirdest experiences I have had in some time. It goes to show how very unassuming I am of people. I still think she is a wonderful person, I’m just not so sure it’s a good thing that she knows where I live!
This experience is so shocking to me, it has brought me back from my writing hiatus. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that she stopped by and did that!
