Did Jesus laugh? We know he wept, right? But was there laughter involved?

I found myself in a strange position last night. A neighbor with whom I’ve had a few neighborly conversations and who’s helped me out in areas where I am an idiot (read: car troubles, other mechanically-rooted problems) came across the street to talk to me just as I pulled up from a trip to the store. It was a hot, muggy day and the thunderheads that had sat to the west all afternoon were finally mobilizing and throwing some lightning around. The neighbor’s name is Park, and he’s Cheyenne. I’ve watched him skin out deer, put together a trampoline, discipline his kids, and all the other upclose stuff that you get to see when you live in a small community where not much of anything goes on. He quit smoking awhile back, and always asks me if I’ve quit yet. He’s also a pretty dedicated Christian. None of this was really present in my mind as we talked about our summers and commented on how fast time goes by, the usual bullshit, right? Then I mention how hot it is in my apartment and how I’m not really looking forward to turning on the oven to cook, which sparks an invitation from him to come and eat with his wife and three young sons (4,3, and 10 months). I have no out available, and I’m trying to keep with the general spirit of trying new things, even if there’s really no super good reason for it and even if trying new said thing may take me out of comfort zone.

So I go over to the house, sit down, eat meatloaf, ignore the wails of the oldest son, chat, chew thoroughly, talk with my mouth closed, and all in all behave agreeably/civilly. It is a nice dinner. There are a few awkward moments of silence, but nothing that would cripple the time entirely. Then I get up, excuse myself with something about “I have to make a phone call,” and as I’m out the door Park calls out an invitation to go to church with him on Sunday. I am being recruited, you see. Somehow in a previous conversation he had learned that I grew up Lutheran, and evidently I had not made clear that my status was ambivalent at best. I am something of a Chrieaster, a term I was introduced to only recently which means “someone who only goes to church on Christmas and Easter” and in fact I only go to these if I am within 30 miles of my mother.

So what do I say? I have no antipathy towards religion, the religious, or any affiliated entity. I have a big gaping hole of doubt and circumspection that I sometimes visit, usually at night when I can’t sleep and questions like “what does this all amount to?” are jarred loose from the little mental cubbyholes I’ve stowed them and proceed to march across my mind for hours at a time. Perhaps because of (or in spite of) this gaping hole, I also have no desire to go to church. So I look at my feet for a second, let out a “I don’t know if that would really work out, Park,” see his face collapse, till the gravel for a second, say “sorry,” and walk away.

This is really a very pedestrian incident, an unremarkable momentary dissonance between hoped for expectation and delivered result, but it seems like God followers have been picking up on some scent I’m giving off, because – OK so Park just walked into my classroom just as I typed out that “because” – and now he’s gone and I suspect he was going to follow up on the let’s go to church idea but I have a computer guy in here so maybe that wasn’t in the cards. This is weird. I was just going to explain how three people in the past two weeks have expressed an interest in the state of my soul, two strangers and a former high school teacher of mine who I saw at a coffee shop. The experience of being the selected target of someone else's humble but determined proselytizing is not aggravating, but it is is off-putting. Perhaps I have a look of guilt on my face. I do not know. Be well, people.