TRANSCRIPT: 11:41am, Monday, 4 September, 2006

Scenario: An impeccably dressed man and his son, both wearing three-piece suits, walk up on to my porch as my wife is leaving for work. I'm walking out with her, mostly to check on the plants but partly because I want to know who these folks are.

• HIM: "Good morning."


• WIFE: "Sorry, I'm on my way to work."


• HIM: "Oh, you are, are you?"

At this point, my wife walks past these folk, and gets into her car. They watch her, then turn back to me. The gentleman opens his book - now revealed as a bible - and asks:

• HIM: "Have you heard the word of go..."


• ME (interrupting): "No thanks, I'm pagan."


• HIM (looking confused): "What do you mean by that?"

At this point, I realize that if I start explaining my beliefs to him, I'll be pulled into a religious discussion that could take a while. Not really something I wanted to do that early in the day, let alone standing on my porch wearing scrubby shorts. I was tempted to ask him and his son to come in, past the St. Brigit's crosses, past the two black cats sleeping on the chair, past the broom hanging over the fireplace above the altar, to the bookshelf containing the books on Druidism, Wicca, Celtic mythology, and Eastern philosophy...
...but I resisted. I decided to simplify it for him, believing that if he was going to pass the word of his god unto me, he'd have some knowledge of a religion other than his.

• ME: "Not of the Judeo-Christian, Christian, Methodist, Mormon, Catholic, etc. belief system."


• HIM (starting to pull out a "Watchtower" tract): "So you don't believe in what the bible says?"


• ME (shrugging): "I believe it's a decent story."

It was here that he thanked me for my time, tapped his son on his shoulder, and walked on down the street. It's interesting to note that throughout this exchange his son looked at his shoes and appeared genuinely bored with the whole thing, as if he would've rather been doing ANYTHING other than this.
"C'mon, son, we're going to convert the masses!"
"Aw, geez, dad; I was gonna go mountain biking!"
"No time for that now. We have souls to save!"

Throughout this conversation, I tried to be as courteous as possible. I don't like people pushing their religion on me, and I certainly don't push mine on others. If I'm asked a question I'll provide an answer, but I'm not going to get into a knock-down, drag-out discussion about whose deity can beat up whose deity. It's pointless, and - in my humble opinion - a bit disrespectful. Who are you to say that my beliefs are flawed? Who am I to say yours are flawed?

I do think that I need to be prepared next time. Create a pamphlet, or something - "Paganism 101," perhaps - to hand out to these folks the next time. It's only fair, I believe. They're giving me information on their religion; I should return the favour.