I guess the stars aligned for this one. This morning I dropped my car off to get it fixed and the shop I always go to is a lot closer to my mom's house than mine so I asked her if I could stay at her house while it got fixed. She was out in service doing returns at the time and offered to ride me to her house. It's like a 30 minute walk and it was pretty cold outside. I had my wool hat on and when I got in the car there was another sister who said I looked like Keith Stone. If you don't know who that is:
Minus the crappy beer. My hair/facial hair kind of resembles that. Anyway, back to the story.
So she drops me off at her house and heads back out into service. I'm there for about 30 minutes and the doorbell rings. I answer it and it is my old PO (COBE, w/e you want to call it). I invite him in. He said he was seeing if my mom was home. I have a feeling she told him I was going to be there so he decided to conveniently drop by. He asks me how it's going, how's work, how do I like where I'm living now. Then he gets right into it.
"Are you happier now?" I told him "Oh, definitely". Although I do suffer from some depression I definitely feel I'm much better off without that religion strangling me. Then he starts asking me if I've noticed how bad things have gotten and that it isn't too late for me to come back." I said "You know, I don't really think things are really all that bad. Throughout all of history there are always bad things happening."
Then he said "Well, not on this scale. I know people who have been alive a long time and they'll tell me how bad things have gotten. Just look at the wordly people nowadays. They don't care about other people. The love of the greater number has cooled off." I replied "I don't think that's true. I know plenty of people who are kind and decent and caring towards others. It's easy to paint all the worldly people with a broad brush but if you aren't looking for the good, you aren't going to find it. I see things with a different viewpoint now."
Then he said "When you first talked to me and Brother ****** I had some things I wanted to say, but I couldn't find the right words to express them. I've finally figured out what I wanted to say but I haven't gotten around to telling you (must have taken him a while as I haven't talked to him in almost two years) that there's gonna be a day, when you see things happening and you're gonna say 'man, I gave a talk about this once' or 'man, this is just like what the Bible would say would happen'. You may not see it now but mark my words, there will come a day, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow (I wanted to interrupt and say 'but soon, and for the rest of your life' but I held back), but one day you will see it, and it might be too late."
When we first talked, all I brought up was dates. That was my big point. Although I had others, I stuck to one point and focused on it. "You can talk about this date and that date, but in the end, YOU KNOW IT'S THE TRUTH! It doesn't matter if one figure is off here or one figure is off there, it's still the Truth (Talk about a contradiction, what you are being told is not true, but it's the truth). Remember the flood in Noah's day. Don't put your head in the sand because it'll be too late."
And he kind of went on along those lines for another 5 minutes or so. He brought up the current conflict in Gaza. I said, "But that area in the Middle East has been in constant conflict for thousands of years. Just because the weapons change and the reporting about it is instant, doesn't make the situation any different." He responded, "But you know that it's religiously based so the governments are going to step in and irradicate religion. Then when that happens, it's gonna be too late for you."
Then he went back into my issue of dates, "I don't want you to stick your head in the sand about this stuff just because you are caught up on some dates." I was like "You know, if you think my only issue is with dates, you are wrong. There's a whole plethora of things that I have come to a conclusion about. If I told you everything we might be here until tomorrow. My views on this are not going to change."
He seemed a little peeved at this. "Well how come you didn't talk about any of that other stuff? You only talked about dates! We can talk about all that other stuff." I said "I'd rather not do that right now." He said "Well if you want to tell me about it, you have my email. Just remember, Jehovah is the living God and nothing can change that. Don't stick your head in the sand until it is too late."
At this point we parted ways. Made for an entertaining morning, I suppose.
Oh, I forgot to mention, he kept calling me by the wrong name. He used to call me by my brother's name all the time by accident and I guess old habit's die hard. I gave up a long time ago on correcting him.
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...OUTLAW