It's hard not to love this part of the year. The ducks come back to Lake Mendota. People start going out drinking every night, because it's too nice to be inside and no one knows what else to do outside. Baseball comes back as a joy to anyone who isn't a Brewers fan. Attractive women seem to appear publicly in droves all of a sudden, as though they had been in hibernation all winter.
But there is another presence in Madison that emerges every year as the weather gets more tolerable. This presence emerged on my front porch yesterday afternoon. A kind-looking man appeared on the other side of the torn screen door and sized me up.
\Hi,"" he said. ""I'm a local pastor. I'm here to spread the good word of the gospel. Are there people here I can talk to?""
It was extremely tempting to say, ""There would be if the house wasn't on fire,"" then light the wall on fire and run out screaming. But alas, I don't have the heart to lie so blatantly to a man of the cloth, no matter how intrusive he is. A more subtle approach was in order.
""With all due respect, sir, you'd probably have better luck at another house.""
""And why is that?"" he asked.
""Well, we've got a Jew, a Hindu and an atheist here,"" I responded. ""Not exactly your target audience.""
""Everyone is the Lord's target audience,"" he said.
He kind of had me in a bind here. You can't in good conscience tell a local pastor to shove it, but he really had it coming. It's like Jesus was a phone company and this pastor was a telemarketer calling during dinner asking me to change my spirituality provider. He could have been more up-front and just said, ""Hi, I'm calling from MCI, the Madison Christ Incorporation. Are you happy with your God?""
In any case, we shared a few moments of relatively benign, healthy discourse. I told him I was happy with Judaism, but he made me promise to read Isaiah 53. I refrained from telling him that I was named for a much cooler prophet than Isaiah.
I did go back and read Isaiah 53, but I resented it. If I'm a lost sheep, it's because any Jew in a place where it's acceptable for someone to knock on your door and try to convert you must find himself feeling a bit like Dorothy and Toto. The whole concept is weird. When was the last time a rabbi came to your door and suggested that you must be lost if you don't share his faith?
This man also had no regard for timing. No deity who was truly kind and loving would interrupt me while I was frantically trying to finish a comm arts term paper. So what is the right thing to do? Is it like gently letting down someone who has just asked you out? It has been suggested that next time I see a pastor approaching, I should try to convert him to Judaism. Instead, my gut tells me to suck it up and deal with these interactions as they come, be grateful that crusaders for Christianity have gotten much gentler over the centuries and be grateful that they don't come recruiting in the Blue Velvet Lounge.
