Faith In the Forest

Oscar and Matilda and I have just started mixing up the cookies, when a knock sounds on our front door. I look out the window before I open the door. Two older men - maybe mid-forties-fifties in business suits. My first thought is, "What is it now? Are they with the FBI?" I think after last week I am expecting calamities at every turn or something. So I am relieved - for an instant - when I open the door and see they are carrying Bibles.

"I know you are busy and I don't want to take too much of your time. I just have one question for you. Do you think Jesus Christ was the most influential man that ever lived?"

Well, he did have a good lead in. Potential influential humans flash through my mind - Albert Einstein, Gandhi. But I have cookies to bake and no time for philosophical debates, which is what I inform the uninvited religious zealots.

But as I resume my cookie baking I find I am less focused on cookies, and more on who might be the most influential human.

What a broad, fascinating question. Obviously the answer to this question is biased hugely by one's place in culture, religion, and history. Jesus Christ is the most influential person to a devoted, practicing Christian. But a practitioner of Islam undoubtedly would place Muhammad way before Jesus Christ. And what of Albert Einstein. Where would our scientific development be without Albert? And then let's frame this question within the progress of humankind from the very beginning. Like who invented fire? He/she must have been pretty important. Though I guess the Christian devout might credit that back to Jesus Christ also. Suddenly I see where the door to door salesperson is coming from.

I wonder about these door to door religious converters. We get these guys from time to time, but usually they are young men on bicycles that I've assumed are fulfilling their Mormon missionary requirements, and we usually end up talking about the 1973 postal jeep sitting in our driveway. Why on earth are these older guys going door to door? Maybe I should have asked them. Maybe they're checking out the place for a future burglary? Am I totally paranoid now?

So I want to be clear here. Though I do not practice any religious affiliation myself, I do not and will not judge you for your beliefs - unless you come knocking on my door and judging me. Or fly an airplane into the World Trade Center or something.

And I really want to be clear here, because last week I alluded to the religious beliefs of my previous college roommate with a superior tone. The tone was not about her religion in particular, but the path of our friendship which ended in huge judgments due to the interpretation of her faith. Something about living in sin with my boyfriend (now husband) and going to hell. You can see how that might make me feel.

And I really, really want to be clear here, because I decided sometime along the way, that I would write like I feel and not try to scurry around things just because someone might think differently. Differences make things interesting.

So many of my very, good friends are very devout Christians. I did go to school at Texas Christian University after all. And I was raised a Christian and spent many hours in college pondering my feelings and thoughts surrounding religion and the place and purpose of religion. I've read Mere Christianity. And maybe someday I will get back around to my explorations. My Mom was just telling me how the older she gets, the more important religion is for her. But what I concluded when I graduated from college and left the Bible Belt was that religion is faith-based, and faith cannot be learned; it has to be felt, and felt deeply. So that leaves me smack in the forest as a nature worshiper.

So who is the most influential person in the forest? Would that be Al Gore?