I eventually made it to and through the town of Catalpa and then into the outskirts of the city of Culpeper, where I decided to engage an encounter once more with my dear Friends the Jehovah’s Witnesses.* The elder on duty at the time didn’t quite know what to do with me after he answered the door (Isn’t it odd how kindness is so rarely the Go To response from churches, and this, regardless of their denomination?), and yet he did – after a prolonged and obviously confused pause – offer me a bottle of water for the road …

*Of all the Christian sects, I personally have the greatest regard for the 7^th Day Adventists & the Jehovah’s Witnesses – not for their dogmatic differences, of course (I personally find it to be abjectly immoral for any religion to praise or worship or follow any god who allows any one of his supposed creations to suffer postmortem in any fashion for any reason), but rather for the sincere kindness and gentleness their members have without exception exuded towards me during all my interactions with them over the years.

“I’ve been making a list of the things they don’t teach us at school & church. They don’t teach us how to humbly Love others – certainly not those from other nations or those of other faiths. And they don’t teach us how to remain humble during and after victories or successes. And they don’t teach us how to be rich and remain generous or how to be poor. And remain grateful And they don’t teach us how to walk calmly away from someone who is being violently aggressive or walk caringly towards someone who is merely being mean. And they don’t teach us how to know what’s going on in someone else’s mind – much less that the same is almost always none of our damn business. And they don’t teach us what to say to someone who is dying or what to do for someone when they are crying. And they don’t teach us how to treat every pilgrim at your doorstep with the abject honor he or she deserves – the very same honor that should be given to every king and every beggar alike. They don’t teach us anything worth knowing, really. I guess we’re all pretty fortunate that we don’t really need anyone to teach us these things at all.” ~ inspired by Neil Gaiman

Filed under: Peace Pilgrimage #02: Walking HOME (2019) by Scaughdt