“Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.”
~George Orwell
I’ve always wondered about the street corner preacher or the guy carrying the flag saying Democrats are ruining the world. Like the traveling sales men, now less effective. The old bards and traveling salesmen peddling their miracle elixirs and such were able to spin people into their web…
…the guy on the corner just looks insane.
You throw a Bible at me, I duck and run the other way.
You put an American flag in my face and tell me your way is the way “Our Founding Fathers” intended it, I walk away HOPING my way is opposite of yours in as many ways as can be possible.
They are as effective as the guy who attacks my windshield at a redlight, washing it with water that smells like a dead thing, and gets indignant when I don’t give him a dollar.
I remember while I studied at the University of Georgia, the law students would come out and listen to the debates of their professors that would periodically happen on the steps of the library. Somehow, two men would usually start debating things… then a crowd would gather around them until you would think there was a boxing match going on.
I watched these, fascinated. From my small-town Alabama roots, I had never seen such things – powerhouses of intellect debating relevant topics to their field. I would learn things just by watching and being there and absorbing what they said from both sides! How much did the law students learn who actually knew what was going on!?
But nobody yelled or threw punches. It was very Socratic.
Years later, I was walking around the pristine streets of Southlake, Texas. We meet a man carrying a plywood cross saying something like “Are you ready to meet God?” or “Do you know you’re saved?” In talking to him for a moment – which actually sounded a little like a recording – he said some things that would be fascinating to debate. As a former studier of religion, I enjoy a little debate now and then…
…but somehow, people who sound like recordings of the things they’ve heard or read – not actually coming up with any new content of their own – only cause fights. Verbal of otherwise.
Let him be, regardless of him letting us be. Or the impressionable teenagers walking around that night. What if they had never heard anything from the Bible before? Does that man carrying the plywood cross make that seem like something they would ever want to be a part of?
Stay tuned,
-Noah D.
