Sunday 12 April 2009

Who Watches The Watchtower?

It's official.
After almost two years of living in my flat I've finally passed my last rental rite of passage.
I got back from the supermarket the other day to find something had been shoved underneath my door.


Thanks Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York!
Your house isn't really a home until someone has tried to tell you about Jesus or shake you down for a charitable donation when you're halfway through making dinner or just about to get into the bath.

The fun bit is when you try very politely and respectfully to assure them that yes you have heard about Jesus, yes even the bit where he died for our sins and came back from the dead, having attended a Catholic primary school and secondary school you actually have had the time to read the entire book and didn't even just skip to the end, even then they don't really believe that you know about Jesus.
I mean really know about Jesus!
Because if you did you wouldn't be home to answer the door, you'd be out knocking on other people's doors!

Some folk who go the evangelical route do it because they really do believe that they're trying to save you and guide you towards the only opportunity for an afterlife.
Or at least the comfy afterlife that doesn't involve pitchforks, brimstone and torments that some people here on Earth might pay quite good money for*.
Others unfortunately use it as an opportunity to branch out in their Judging and Lecturing People home businesses. They tend to be the ones who sound like they're threatening you even when they're smiling.
But whichever variant of evangelist you find at your door they always seem slightly skeptical that you're really both on the same page.
As if you might be talking about a different Jesus.

But whoever my mysterious leaver of pamphlets might have been I'd like to thank them for taking the time to stop by and especially for doing it whilst I was out.
So I could admire the styling ensemble of the fellow on the cover before cheerfully making myself dinner and then having a nice relaxing bath and a glass of wine.
They got to reach out to somebody and I didn't have to feel like I'd kicked a puppy when I had gently let them down. May we always be so lucky.



*It takes all kinds.

2 comments:

Erin Palette said...

That looks like a very young Matthew Fox.

Ricochet said...

In the public eye Fox fervently vows that his college years were nothing but a blur of partying and wild times but sometimes, when alone, he lets himself think wistfully of those long peaceful nights reading the Bible by lamplight.:-D