Missionaries

I attract missionaries. I don't know what it is about me. Maybe my eyes say that I am open to their proselytizing. Maybe I look like I am searching for a path. Or maybe they try to convert everyone.

I have been approached by Protestant Christian missionaries, Muslim missionaries, a Rastafarian missionary, a Quaker missionary, and even an atheist missionary. I find this really interesting. Protestant missionaries are, without any doubt, the ones I encounter the vast majority of the time. I have been approached at bus stops with "Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior?" more than once. The single Rasta missionary was on a lovely Ghanaian beach. I must say that he was much more interesting during our first conversation just after he finished performing some acrobatics along the ocean's edge. The second discussion he was preaching at me about various evils that didn't seem so evil to me and I kept getting distracted by his bloodshot eyes. I met my most memorable Muslim missionary as I was walking through a souk (an outdoor marketplace; I love markets). I was somehow drawn into a very long discussion about religion, particularly he wanted to convince me of the general wrongness with thinking it was possible for God to have a child. The only thing that finally saved me was the call to prayer. Given what I knew about the American Society of Friends, I would not have expected a Quaker to try to convert me, but life is interesting that way. The Quaker is tied with the atheist for the most unpleasant attempted conversion experience.

One: why are these people so convinced that they are right? Two: why do they want to intrude on something so personal? I suppose I am also convinced that I am correct. Could this post be considered missionary work?

Here's what I believe: I believe that as spiritual beings having a physical experience, it is rarely (if ever) possible for us to grasp the Divine. The metaphor that applies here is the story of the six blind men who went in search of an elephant so that they could learn what it was by direct observation. However, instead of any of them exploring the entire elephant, each concentrated on a single part (no doubt due to the elephant's limited cooperation for this exercise). As such, the one who had grabbed an ear emphatically declared the elephant to be like a fan; the one who had felt the trunk insisted it was similar to a water spout; another who had explored a leg was convinced the elephant was something like a pillar, etc. In most versions of this story, the different observers become highly agitated with each other, sometimes resulting in a physical fight. Occasionally an outsider is there to explain to them that each of them is right, although not quite entirely.

That story highlights the limitations of perception (and raises the question: why is it so important that others be convinced that we are right? This will have to be different, much later post, as I do not have any well-developed theories on that and am guilty of having become highly offended when someone did not recognize that I was right). It also explains why, if I have the time, I listen intently to the missionaries. I believe that, even if I am unlikely to accept the whole of their belief system, I am likely to find something that resonates with me and can be incorporated into my approach to life. Now some would warn me that this is a dangerous path (oopsie!), yet I consider my reasoning and intuition two of my most important gifts and use them as such.

I know some people believe that we should avoid talking about politics and religion. I disagree and worry that then there would be little else to talk about and we might fall into even more discussions about reality t.v. or whether our co-workers need girdles. Besides sometimes--many times--these discussions can be enriching. One Sunday I was waiting for a bus when someone else who was waiting asked if I had been to church. I was not in the mood to be preached at that morning, I really wasn't. But I answered anyway and we had an interesting discussion. He officially considered himself "a student," not belonging to any particular religion, but sought to understand as much as he could, having friends and going to the services of several faiths. Just last week I was in a meandering conversation that included an explanation that baby showers were not religious celebrations, why Easter is a higher religious holiday than Christmas (actually this one maybe I should have stayed away from...as someone who was raised Christian, but does not practice) the two different Eids, and the reasons behind and the limitations to having more than one wife under Islam.