Religious Tolerance

[Thumpalumpacus]

An anecdote:

A few years ago, I was in my soon-to-be shop getting things ready; building furniture; organizing, etc. A woman whom I had never seen before walked in through the open door, and we began to chat. Abruptly, after about five minutes, she asked if she could pray for my shop, and I said, "why not?" I figured she'd say a few words, and we could get on with our chat. She grabbed my hand so tightly, my fingers crunched. I thought, "well, this should be fun," and she got on with a bunch of chanting and what I could only assume was speaking in "tongues". After about seven minutes, she finally let go of my throbbing hand, and said, "amen". Then, she said a nice goodbye, and left.

The next time she came back, she brought a friend, and the two of them repeated the behavior; then another couple of friends came along. It was like they were trying to turn my shop into a church. They were just taking over.

After a couple of months of this happening, like, six or seven times, I finally spoke up. I said very nicely, "I'm sorry; I'm a non-believer and I have a lot of work to do." The original lady lost her shit, decided I needed a sermon the caliber of which has only otherwise been witnessed on "the Mount". I let her go on for ten minutes or so, all of her friends staring at her, rapt, and then I jumped in and said, "really, folks. I have a lot of work to do. Would you like to do a craft?" They left with the original lady in a huff of, "well. We'll just go somewhere else, where we are tolerated."

About two weeks ago, a group of young Christians came to the nature preserve (they had Bible-camp shirts on). After I went over the rules at the gate with them, took their money, and printed their permit, a young lady in the back seat of the truck leaned forward and asked me if I was going to be at the fee booth at five-thirty.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because we'd like to pray for you."

I have a debilitating bone disorder in my hip which imparts a noticeable limp, and I assume it was that limp which aroused their sentiment, but wanted no part of the praying.

"Well," I answered, "I'm going to be busy preparing my bank deposit, and then cleaning the park and getting ready to close."

"That's okay, we'll come up here and have a little circle for you."

"I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm not a believer. You're of course welcome to pray for whom you wish, but I won't be taking part. I wouldn't insult your faith by pretending to be what I'm not. And I have business to attend to at that time."

She had a pretty downcast look on her face as they pulled away from the booth, and I couldn't help but think that the prayer was really for themselves, rather than me.