When we were younger, the clock ruled our lives. It told us when to get up and ready for work. It told us when to go to lunch. It told us when it was time to go home. And it even told us when it was time for bed. Maybe it wasn’t slavery in the strictest sense, but it was indentured servitude at best.
For the last 13 years of our lives, Susan and I have lived by our own priorities rather than those of the clock. Some nights we stay up late watching a movie or reading a book. We often awaken by 9:30, but we do so without an alarm. Sometimes we awaken later.
Often, we tarry in bed reading emails, news feeds, and the like. One or the other gets up to feed hungry cats, and to bring coffee and a pastry or confection to bed – a Danish, a Mexican pastry, or perhaps a biscotti. We often spend an hour or two or three in bed doing nothing. It is bliss.
This morning, after Susan had fed the cats and brought coffee and biscotti to our bedside tables, we heard a knocking at the front door. We looked at each other. “Cats don’t knock,” Susan said. We sat in bed a few more minutes. Then there was another knocking. Merde!
I got up, slipped into my pants, and pulled a tee-shirt out of the closet. I went to the living room barefoot with an extreme case of bed head. I arrived in the living room just in time to see two middle-aged white females leaving the deck to go down the driveway. “Jehovah’s Witnesses,” I thought.
Later, I thought to look up which religious sects are the most active at proselytizing. My own lived experience says Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. The former usually present themselves as young men in white shirts and dress pants carrying the Book of Mormon. The latter are typically middle-aged women in long dresses carrying magazines – The Watchtower.
I wondered whether other religious groups did door-to-door proselytizing. After my morning meds, coffee and biscotti, I sat down at the computer to inquire about proselytizing. After reading a few sites, I came to the conclusion that most American proselytizers are members of Christian sects. They’re the descendants of the people who murdered Native Americans to get them to accept Jesus. Sigh.
I came upon a web site that explored the intersection of proselytism and ethics. One of the ideas that caught my imagination was that of stolen sheep. The idea is that seeking to convert people from whatever faith (if any) they hold to the faith that you expound amounts to stealing the flock of another faith to add to your own.
Regardless of what you believe the merit of your endeavor, you have violated the Eighth Commandment – Thou Shall Not Steal. Holiness and Self-righteousness are not the same thing.