Coffee with Gail

 

Idle Thoughts 

 

Years into adult hood I realized that I would have cherished dinner table conversations—well on anything really—but especially on current events, ideas, beliefs.  The one time my husband and I tried to take a sort of exploratory/historical/academic  approach of the text of the New Testament in a suburban Methodist church in Houston, we were told that the Sunday School class wanted a charismatic approach…their word.  This was back in the 1970’s.  Fair enough.  But the effect of that experience has been long lasting.  Grew up in the Southern Baptist church, Father’s family was Catholic, Husband comes from a long line of Methodist preachers, hence the Methodist church home mentioned above.  The minister there was the first minister I’d met to that point who seemed like a human being on a path that was ever evolving and that his search grew out of the many facets of the Self as fully human.  I can still see him sitting on a chair in the fellowship hall, unconsciously tearing an empty Styrofoam  to bits as he searched for the rights words to precisely express himself.  Pontification was not in his DNA.

 So I continue to hunger for learned discourse  among men and women of faith-- and of no faith --who simply seek to grapple with the mystery of humanity.  These men and women have another characteristic that I so admire.  They do not ask and certainly do not demand that I join them in their belief.  But they do share their thoughts freely, without strings, without thinly veiled criticism without calling me an Infidel.  And then wonder of wonders someone in this group, after articulating his/her thoughts, turns to me and asks, “And now tell me about your own beliefs, thoughts—your own evolution.”  And he/she listens…What a remarkable fantasy!