hey, i have an idea!

hey, i have an idea! 

let's have an open house and invite friends and strangers to come and hang out. i'm sure that will really improve the mood around here.

yeah, that's probably just the thing to perk us up. do you think the nine-month old protest on the corner outside the church might put a damper on it?

nah, get an expensive banner printed up. people LOVE open houses at churches in conflict.

ok, then. i'll order balloons.

at least that's how i imagine the conversation going.

and it's certainly amusing to watch the faces of people passing on the corner as their eyes go from the banner to my sign and back.

cognitive dissonance.

i was only outside the williston federated church for about an hour and a half this morning, and it was mostly all the usual stuff, if maybe quieter.

but then as i was getting ready to wrap it up, the gentleman who had handed me the page of scripture last week came and asked me if i had read it.

he did not ask me what i thought of the scripture, which is good, because mostly what i thought of it was that i did not know what he was getting at, mostly because scripture can be used in a lot of ways to illustrate a lot of different points.

it was nice to talk with him and get a better idea of what he did mean.

i am just guessing that even in the days of my best and shiniest most ebullient faith, he and i would have had some theological and doctrinal differences, but it would not have been so different than that day when i visited among conservative mennonites.

the thing we would have had complete agreement in is probably the point that all are welcome and all are forgiven. it is a thing Jesus did not suggest to us, but commanded us to it.

i do not think i believe anymore in a god, but i am certain that i never stopped believing in the rightness of the message: all are welcome at this table. all who knock may enter. all who seek may find.

the man said he had talked with his pastor about it. he had some questions, maybe of his own, and maybe directed by the pastor.

the questions that struck me most were "how did they respect you?" and "how do they respect you now?"

when i told him of last night's email, he suggested i might find "a real church".

"good luck",  he said. "we will talk again."

and he went on his way.

the God i loved would have forgiven my my lapse of faith, and would have only required i come with my whole heart and let the details work themselves out.

i'll see you tomorrow on the streetcorner.