Day 7
You know how I said that I didn’t have a lot to report? Well, I spoke too soon. But I guess technically day six was pretty uneventful since it was after midnight that I had another interesting happening. I was worried about the battery charge on my laptop. You remember that I can’t turn it off or let it die otherwise it crashes and won’t turn back on until I perform some mystical voodoo chant over it and do a rain dance out on the hills of Big Sky Country around a dwindling fire while holding it above my head. That’s about what it feels like I have to do in order to get it operational again. So I posted my day six and went in to the rest stop area where there was an outlet that I could use.
I was writing some rants that were blazing through my head. People were walking in and out for over an hour it seemed when one of those people came over and started talking to me. He had payot, or sidecurls dangling down on either side of his face. He told me that he was coming from Seattle, but that he was from New York and we began talking about our travels.
He was telling me all about how to get cheap flights to anywhere and all of his traveling secrets. He kept referring to “Mama” throughout the conversation and it became apparent to me that he thought that it was sometimes difficult to get in touch with her. It took me a little while to figure out that he was talking about mother nature! I laughed out loud when that realization descended upon my mind and it all began to make sense.
I told him that I was coming out of Utah and that I drove through Zion’s. I asked him if he had been there. Long story short he’s apparently been everywhere as traveling is what he does, but he smirked when I ask him the question and he said, “where do you think I am now?”
Confused, I replied, “Butte, Montana?”
“No, I’m in Zion! My soul is always in Zion,” He said as he patted his chest with a goofy grin on his face.
He started talking about his children and his wife who were strict observers of the Jewish tradition, but he, and this took me off guard slightly, admitted to being a “perfect atheist.”
When he said those words his tone changed and a grave look came over his face. And honestly a chill shot through my body as I was not expecting him to say that in the least the way he was talking earlier. Picking up on his mannerisms and his demeanor as he began explaining to me in very searched out ways how, if there is a God, he is nothing but a crook and that there is no reason whatsoever to believe in or honor the type of God that rules this world. “He had no right to create me,” he kept saying, “And any joys or happiness that are in store, I don’t want it. The pain is not worth it. I would rather not exist.”
Have you ever talked with someone who would rather not exist? First of all it is quite heartbreaking. I didn’t say much for over two hours while he just talked.
He told me a story about a time when he thought that he would die. And the moral of the story was that he was proud that he didn’t break down at the end of it and beg God for help. In fact he continued to curse God through out the whole process.
Trying to gauge his mental state, I eventually and careful interjected and pointed out that he wasn’t an atheist, much less a perfect one as he had put it. I got him to admit that cursing God meant that he believed in God. You know, out of all of the philosophical avenues that he so thoroughly explained to me against God he apparently never gave much thought to the actual definition of what an atheist is.
He continued and I continued to listen. Why did I sit there and take it? Because I knew that he couldn’t say anything to me that I already hadn’t wrestled with in my own soul, and if he could I wanted to hear it for my own sake. And in honesty I felt as though that he wasn’t trying to tear down my faith as much as he was releasing pent up emotions. I was his therapist in a sense.
That said the whole conversation as one sided as it was, was rather sad, and there was a moment when I thought perhaps that this man was an apparition with a vendetta against God sent by the devil to tear me down. But a firm handshake put that theory to rest.
After awhile of silence, he brought up the fact that Utah is full of Mormons. Explaining to him that I was one and also a Christian I noted that he accepted it but found it odd that Mormon’s were also Christians.
The whole time I was praying to know what I should say to him, but all I could think was that I just needed to listen. At the end of it I finally began to leave. I wished him well and that I didn’t know how to answer all of his questions. I just left him with a simple testimony. I walked out to my car and I realized that I had some pass along cards that I always take with me on trips. I waited for him to come back outside, took a deep breath and handed him a Finding Faith in Christ card.
I emphasized that it was only if he was interested. He took it and looked at me intently and said “I am. I am. I am,” nodding his head.
I had planned on staying the night at this rest stop, and even though my heart was going out to this man I wasn’t exactly the most comfortable sleeping in the very next parking spot down from his. So I told him that I was hitting the road, shook his hand again and wished him well.
I set out on the road and before I made it to the freeway I broke down and cried. I have no conflict as to what I believe. My testimony is strong. But here we are as complex individuals given our brains to try and make sense of all of the terrible things that we can experience in life and often times events take place that we just can’t process rationally.
Looking back, I remember a time when I was astounded at what it is that I could feel. Pain can be nearly unfathomable. And what do people do short of killing themselves. Sometimes we curse God from the darkest abyss of our being or from the parking lot of Mormon church of which I found myself last night. It wasn’t the first time I’d spent the night in the back seat of my car in a church lot.
But this night I prayed for that man. Than I fell asleep. I woke up the next morning and took the Sacrament. I continued my journey and was strangely still really tired so I pulled off of the road and went back to sleep. Needless to say that I didn’t make it far today. But I did make it to a boulder over-looking the setting sun of Montana, of which is where I am writing this. And sadly this might be the last time I have a laptop to write with as my laptop charging cord mysteriously was severed so it will certainly die this night. In fact I have only thirteen percent left to finish this post and publish it before it is gone, maybe for good.
So, I don’t have time to review this, or say much else. But with the last words that I write for now on an imminently dying computer, I’d say that the sunset was beautiful and I wish everyone could sit on boulder in the middle of nowhere with the sentiments of faith, love, life and death surging through their hearts as they are surging through mine at this very moment, and see what it was that I saw this night. It was heavenly.
Goodnight.