proud feet

Last night I got to talk about faith and spirituality for a while. Pam, who is from Australia and lives at the hostel right now, working in Edinburgh saving money up to get on the road again, and I went to the Castle Arms, which is a pub about 37 big steps from my front door where they have this thing called the Traveler's Menu and its reserved for us hostel dwellers, it has food on it that is cheap enough to be considered by backpackers and scroungers like us, but good enough to actually enjoy. I had nachos with heaps of stuff on them. Filling. £2.95. Miracle.
Pam has her chin pierced (most people here don't), she rolls her own cigarettes (most people here do), and her parents are practicing Roman Catholics. But she got sort of tired of (or perhaps was never much interested in it in the first place) a Christianity that didn't mean much at the level of the soul. She doesn't seem bitter at all, but I got the impression that, as fas as she could tell, Christianity was mostly boring and useless, though perhaps a bit mysterious as well. Can't say that I blame her, a lot of times Christianity (Protestant or Catholic or whatever) tends to come across that way doesn't it? I'm not sure who's to blame?
But anyway..as we were talking she got me telling her what it is I think Christianity is, or is supposed to be all about. She listened real graciously and I don't quite remember what I said but I enjoyed saying it and I think it was halfway coherent. Throughout the conversation I talked about God as if God exists without a doubt; just because that's pretty well how I approach life.. but I know there are doubts, lots of them, I think that's alright and that it's good. It's alright that Pam asked, "What if, in the end, you find out you were wrong all along?" It's good that she asked, "What is God anyway?"
I haven't had all kinds of interactions like that, but I think under the surface (and there's often several layers of surface) these are the sorts of fears people are confessing and these are the sorts of questions they are asking, in one way or another, when we encounter them regardless of the kind of interaction.
God grant us eyes that peel and ears that delve; then courage or patience or whatever it may be that we need in order to respond well.


We also all decorated our Christmas tree last night here at the hostel. It stands 14 proud feet tall and I got to put the tinsel up around the very very top.