uninvited guests

I think instead of getting caught up, I'm putting myself farther and farther behind, but c'est la vie. I say that because I'm thinking that I still want to put up some pictures from Scotland, and I'd like to say something about going back to my job (which is weird!) and being done with my thesis (which is weirder!), but at the moment I feel the need to explore a rather unusual incident (for me) that occurred today. Keep in mind that I was still in my pajamas and that my pajama pants are patterned in purple martinis.

My roommate and I were chatting over headlines (mocking them) and emails and things, and the doorbell rang, but very quietly, so I asked if it had rung and then, after a moment or two, decided I should probably see if anyone was actually at the door because it might be a package or something. It was not. I open the door and a woman peaks around the corner and says, "Oh, I thought you weren't home," as if we're old friends, and she says something about the "problems" with gas and food lately, rice in particular, adding that we hear a lot of back and forth, and what are we to make of this, and finally she asks "what do you think the solution is?"

Here we pause for a moment.

"I have no idea," I say.

Another pause. Somehow my response has caught her off guard.

She then pulls a book from her side, unzips it, and tells me she is turning to Jeremiah, which she seems to do, and reads a verse or two, I'm not sure really, I had already stopped listening, I would rather read than be read to, and she concludes that the answer to the "problems" has been here all along, that the "problems" originated in people's independence from "God." People can't end war, she said, because people caused war and are trying to end it without God's help, she said. I smiled. "I'd like to give you a pamphlet," she says, opening her bag. "No, thank you," I say, adding a sincere "have a nice day," because I genuinely hope she does, and that she does so away from my front door. How did she get inside the building, I wonder.

I have several responses to this. I'll try to be brief. I have other things to do, after all. In no particular order: 1. wars are often grounded in religion; 2. I live in Brooklyn and don't drive; 3. I am well enough off that rising food prices affect me very, very little; 4. the ambiguity of language is such that her description of the political climate was even more nonsensical than the debate surrounding the issues itself; and 5. what was the goal of this visit?

Where do I begin? Considering time constraints, I'm just for the moment going to say that, as I sit here in my mass-produced, name brand loungewear, drinking my coffee with organic evaporated cane juice, typing on my brand new laptop which is connected to cheap and secure wireless internet, preparing to get ready for my job at a high-end restaurant in midtown Manhattan, which I will get to via safe and reliable public transportation, and after which I will have more cash in my pocket than a substantial percentage of the earth's population are paid in a month, and having recently completed a master's degree in humanities at a private university, I find it completely absurd that this woman comes to my door on a Monday afternoon to tell me that the answer to these problems with gas and rice - which have very little bearing on my day-to-day life because I live in an affluent area of the world - is and has been readily apparent if only I would read it on what I can only imagine to be completely disposable, nonrecycled, single sheet of trifolded paper with hokey illustrations and quotes suited for the interpretation the compiler wishes to invoke. No, thanks.

How about, instead, perhaps, we face up to the contradiction of a religion that simultaneously advocates tolerance of others and war against those dissimilar from ourselves, one that claims to be welcoming and is at the same time exclusionary (I have yet to find a religion that does not do these things). How about we realize that none of these concepts are inextricably linked, that belief in any one religious system does not end war or hunger, and that not subscribing to an organized religion does not necessarily create war or hunger, nor does it prevent the eradication of war or hunger. The solution to "the gas problem," Madam, cannot be found in your book for the simple reason that gasoline has only been manufactured for a little longer than a century and the passage you are reading was written over two millennia ago. The book of Jeremiah most certainly does not anticipate the modern dependence on a limited supply of combustible material that fuels SUVs, the trucks and other means of shipping mass produced luxury goods from one part of the world to another, and wars far enough away from us that we don't have to think about them every second of every day because they are not on our doorstep - you are. So, no, thank you, I do not want your pamphlet, and I will not agree with you, whatever it was that you were saying, because I will be reading and thinking for myself today, as usual, thank you very much.