Out Take, Part Deux

A couple o' interesting thangs happened this past weekend... aside from me goin' green... one o' which was me bein' graced with an impromptu visit from the pastor o' the church next door.  Yeah, I live next door to a church, which makes me wonder if they shouldn't have their insurance coverage re-evaluated coz... well, just be-coz.  The possibility o' lightning strikes on their building have prolly increased exponentially since I moved in, but we digress.

So... said pastor pressed a couple o' flyers into my reluctant hands on Saturday afternoon and we exchanged pleasantries for a moment or six, at which time he noticed my USS Mason ball cap and inquired if I'd been to Viet Nam, seein' as how he and I are "of a certain age."  We exchanged military stories and I learned he had been an Army helicopter crew chief and door gunner during Viet Nam, serving one three-year tour and then mustering out.  Our similarities began and ended right there, as Thailand was the closest I got to Viet Nam during the war, and I was a "lifer."   

The pastor then switched topics and asked if I'd ever attended a Baptist church before.  "Well...no," sez I, adding that I'm not a very religious sort o' person.  I told him that I've lived in a number o' cultures that aren't Christian and that those cultures seemed devout, were generally good and happy places to be, and weren't much different from us (Americans) in ethical and moral respects.  I added that I thought it was just a LITTLE bit presumptuous for anyone to claim any religion knows The Truth, especially those of the Christian persuasion, when two-thirds of the world's population... at least... believe in sumthin' other than Christianity.  I hastened to add that I acknowledged there IS a Supreme Being and my personal issue is I don't know what Her name is, largely based on my experiences with other cultures.

That was the wrong thang to say.  What followed was about a ten minute dissertation on the fact that The Deity At Hand most certainly IS a Him and why his way... said pastor's way... was The Way, which reminded me a LOT of sumthin' like this (start at 2:18, everythang before is just static):

Emphasis on "The Church o' the Presumptuous Assumption," and heavily... at that.  Now I'm not against missionary work and I understand the place it holds in all o' the major religions.  So I listened ... or rather let the pastor run on until he was outta breath and outta biblical quotations... at which time I thanked him for his time and wished him well on a lovely Saturday afternoon, which it had been, up until this point in time.  

If there's ONE thang I wish The Deity At Hand would save us from it would be door-to-door proselytizers.  That's mainly coz I don't really NEED to be saved, thank ya very much.  We're doin' just fine, as we speak... thanks be to Athena or whatever Her name is.