wuss am I

(alternate title: "don't pat me on the back")
subtitle: downtown ministrizzle (finally!)

The first guy was rather forceful and didn't seem to be talking directly to me but rather pushing outward from something in himself. It's hard to explain.
He asked me, if I just sat on the couch and did nothing, would God take me to where I wanted to be in twenty years? It's a trick(y) queston. I tried to explain how it doesn't matter where I want to go but that fell on a deaf heart. He asked how I knew where God wanted me to be. I said it was a tough question to answer and he took that as a point for his side. (Uhhhh no.) It's different for each one of us, I believe. I hate to describe how God speaks to me because (a) it never sounds believable and (b) I feel like I'm cheapening something by doing so.
He told me that he wished there were more people like me in the world because then the world would be a better place. I don't see how that is logical and I don't see how he could have concluded something like that about me so soon (we'd been talking for less than 5) but I'll take it. I mean - unless he's making junk up, it's something innate and supernatural in him that recognized something in me and I think that's grandtastic.
He said his basketball coach used to preach to him & his teammates all the time. (Me, I think I partially disapprove of this.) He said he used to believe this stuff; he said he believes in a god (and mark you, just one God) and that there's something else. But ultimately, the only thing you can believe in is yourself. You're the only one that's going to get you places, you're the only one who can help yourself, you can overcome this & that. If you have to depend on another person then I say you're just lost. [In retrospect, I think I put my thinking face on too early in the conversation because I would have looked to him like I was closed instead of analytical. Lesson learned.] Whaaaa?? What a turn-around! He said I was the lost one. I don't even really get it.. Christianity with its counter-logic or lack of logic or SOME thing makes me confused sometimes. I battle between what I know and what I understand; what's logical and what makes sense and it can be tough (though I always know there's a reconciliation that will satisfy all).
He had one slip-up in the whole conversation, something like, "[I can't believe because of] what I've seen and what I've been through," but perhaps it was something even more telling but delicate. He basically said that God had let him down in some way. He'd been hurt and instead of getting angry with God, he's turned away completely, deciding that it was not real.
Why do so many people blame God for the way humans act? I find this to be such a cop-out. Why can't you take responsib for your own actions? The God that YOU think doesn't even exist is the one you blame for your problems? Why you aint be blaming Him for all the good things we see (trees of green, clouds of white; the bright, blessed day and the dark, sacred night)? Ahh, if this guy had left more gaps in his speech I would have fought him, asking how it is fair to say God MAKES us do nasty things to one another. Aii... why to people roll their eyes or stand completely unmoved when someone says, "Jesus died for all of us"? Is that so commonplace? Why people be such haters?

This other cool guy was uber cool. He gave back my friend's sheet because he said he didn't want to litter. A few minutes later, after conversation was taking off with other guys in his posse, he discovered what the sheet was about (one dude was repeatedly imploring my friend to tell him what her hand-out was about) and asked for one back. He suddenly exclaimed, "Oh you're for this stuff? Oh, I thought you were haters. OK gimme a sheet. [insert friend's mock-incredulous face] Well, I thought you guys were haters. [I didn't want one] because there's too many haters out there. "
Wowcool! I approve! I love these sobering, level-headed almost NEUTRAL responses from people who are being decent. These would be the ones who would tempt me most to say there are good people in the world but I still won't say it. I met a guy like that a L'Ecosse. At the end of our conversation, I asked him why he said YES when we asked to talk to him. His response was that he had recently done some kind of surveying in his school cafeterias for a course and found people to be (unfairly or discourteously) cold or closed and so he appreciated how hard it is to do what we do. On top of that, he claimed that it's something humans need to do for eachother, my interpretation being that, if we can, why shouldn't we? Good man.
This guy, at the end of our conversations, said that he liked the quote on my friend's sheet. She had referenced Psalm 139, the bit where God tells us His thoughts and ways are higher than ours. Who but a Bible believer says, "That's a good quote! I like that," poking a page before he folds and shoves it in his pocket? Who says that? What appeals to you, man? What.... what was it? And P.S. don't let peer pressure drag you down. Like what you like; be interested in what you're interested in.

I could talk about a percussionist how I witnessed a blood transfusion.
I could talk about my friend who I like!
I could.... go on.