Month: June 2011

I don’t think you understand what the word hope means. It is not belief, it is not conviction, and it certainly is not a guarantee. I do not believe, I am not convinced, and I certainly do not make any guarantees. To hope is to wish, it is to dream. I wish and I dream, and so I am hopeful.

I am not a believer, I am a dreamer.

I dream therefore I desire – I desire, therefore I am.

I was waiting near a bus shelter for a street car to appear, on my way to a Good Evidence meeting, headphones in my ear listening to some Rafi song. This woman approaches me and starts to say something. My first assumption is that she’s going to ask for directions or something. I often have people ask me for directions (huge mistake on their part, but what do they know).

“Hi, how are you?” she says.

This startles me somewhat, I’m not used to having random people ask me how I am. I just say hello waiting for her to continue to the real matter of her appearance. But she waits for me to answer her question. “I’m doing fine, how are you?” I offer in return. I remove my headphones assuming that this conversation will actually happen.

“I’m doing well. Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Do you like children?”

And at this point my mind is racing through different scenarios. Who is this person? Why is she asking me this question? Is she a cop? Is this an appropriate question to ask a lone man on the streets? Am I in trouble if I say yes? And am I an asshole if I say no?

“Yeah, I like children,” my final answer.

“If you had a chance to save a child’s life, would you do it?”

Aaaah, this is where this is going.

“Maybe,” I say.

This startles her. What seems like a morally straightforward question should lead itself to a positive answer. But not tonight.

“Maybe?” she repeats, half offended.

“Yeah, maybe. It depends.”

Now she starts her pitch, pulling out a folder from what seems like thin air. The World Vision logo on the cover. A few sentences in, I stop her.

“Listen, I’m going to save you some time,” I say, like I’m doing her a favour, “I’m getting on this next street car and you’re going to have better luck with someone else.”

In hindsight I should have asked her, “Do you like kittens? If you had a chance to save a kitten, would you do it?” and then pulled out a folder of my own.

I have been told on one occasion or another (and another) that I am impolite, rude or arrogant. I take some of these as compliments. On an overall scale I’d value arrogance over overly fetishized virtues such as humility. And so perhaps these labels are warranted and rightly so.

Yet I have to point out that these are based on what people have observed me saying or doing. As obvious as it may seem. But do they take into account all the times that I’ve not been an asshole? I don’t go to other people’s blogs and leave comments saying, “hey, your blog is full of trite shit,” even as much as I’d like to do it, I don’t. I don’t go up to preachers and say, “hey, your ministry is a crockashit,” though someday I certainly should.

One might say that my level of self control would even make me nice! This doesn’t even account for all the times I’ve lied just to avoid confrontation. “Those gloves look great!”

Though I must say this, it is rather awesome when someone does leave constructively critical or even non-constructive critical comments. So as nice as it is to receive praise, it’s pretty damn neat to be called out. Not just because I may be wrong, though that may well be so, but because someone’s gone out of their way to avoid the norm of being silent when they don’t have anything nice to say. If you don’t have anything nice to say, say it. Criticism seems more honest and visceral than praise.

Or maybe I just don’t know how to take a compliment.