Huh

Just as I had hit the 'publish' button for the previous post, there was a knock at the door. Stupidly, I answered it. Note to self: nothing good comes of doing such a thing if it is one in the afternoon. I was faced with a man and woman from who-knows-what church, trying to tell me about the Heavenly Mother, Jesus, the Bible...

In the end, I gave up any pretense of politeness and simply closed the door on them. There are only so many times you can say 'I'm not interested' before this segues into stronger language, so I decided not let it get to that point.

Perhaps it was just unfortunate for those two that I'd spent the best part of the morning thinking about death, the soul, about love and life and all kinds of other metaphysical concerns before they arrived on my doorstep. Mind you, I don't think that at any point in my life I would be prepared to believe that answers come pre-packaged in the form of... whatever they were preaching.

I respect that people's beliefs differ from mine. Everyone is entitled to believe what they want to, and if these beliefs offer comfort to them, that's great too.

What I don't respect is peddling these beliefs as though they are electricity, loft insulation or anything else that is generally for sale by people at your doorstep at one in the afternoon. Surely that just cheapens the whole thing. Isn't there meant to be some kind of spirituality associated with religion? Doesn't trying to sell it as though it's a commodity fly in the face of personal introspection and soul searching?