My Trip To The Food Bank

Today I went to a food bank with my sister-in-law, Danni. It's at this church called Real Life Ministries, which is a mega-church with over 8,000 members. 8,000 at this church. Apparently, they have branches in something like seven other metropolitan locations in the USA, a hospital in Africa, a coffee plantation in Nigeria, and a partridge in a pear tree. They have a whole host of social services available including the food bank, financial assistance, a thrift store, and sometimes they can even help you find a job.

Today they wanted to save my soul.

See, to get services at Real Life, you have to fill out an application and then you receive "pastoral counseling" - a couple of well-meaning volunteers sit down and interview you about where you are in your spiritual life and, more-or-less, act as pimps for the church. However, I began to wonder who was counseling who.

Starting out, they just wanted to assess where I was personally. Do you have a place to live? Are you safe? You aren't suicidal or anything? I told them what's been going on over the last six months or so, with having to move out of Seattle and into Coeur d'Alene. Overall, I appreciated that they made an expression of personal interest in me.

A-a-a-a-and then it started.

They asked me how I felt about my relationship with God, which wasn't anything I didn't expect. I mean, really. I knew I was gonna get a sermon sometime. Might as well get it over with. I very tactfully told them that I didn't believe in God. Without missing a beat, the fellow doing most of the talking asked me how Jesus figures in my life.

Um, excuse me? Did you or did you not JUST NOW hear me say I'm an atheist?

I kept smiling politely as he launched into a story about his experience coming to Christ. (God, I hate evangelical born-again-bots.) He started talking more and more about what's wrong with him. Now I'm a little insulted. LOL! I mean, wasn't the counseling supposed to be about me?

Honestly, I've had this problem all my life. Ever since I was small, it's like I have "Father Confessor" stamped across my forehead. Complete strangers will walk up to me, sit down next to me, ... whatever ... and start telling me the most intimate details about their lives. I'm everybody's Wailing Wall.

After listening to him ramble for about five minutes about how some people (him) flail around looking here or there for answers to the problems in their lives, I reached over and touched his shoulder.

"John," I said, "the thing about Jesus' teaching is this: he said that the Kingdom of Heaven is within, inside us. God speaks to each and every man and woman, if they allow themselves to quiet down enough to actually listen to the Divine voice. Salvation isn't anything anyone can give you or teach you, it's something you discover for yourself by becoming still in your heart and then allowing Him to guide you."

He stared at me and I swear his friend's mouth about nearly hit the floor.

They wrapped up the interview pretty quickly. As they were moving off, the second volunteer looked at me and says, as an aside, "I don't think you're really an atheist."

Heh. Whatever, dude.