turn or burn

we went to petsmart this evening. while allowing sofie to explore, i crossed paths with an old lady not unlike the one pictured above. except she had silver-dyed-red hair & really bad acne. without even an introduction she said to me 'go to church tomorrow'. i said 'excuse me?', thinking i must have misunderstood or at least overlooked some subtlety of tone or mannerism that would explain her presumptuous command. again she said, very bluntly, 'go to church tomorrow', to which i responded 'we are'. then, as she was moving along, she said 'i hope you know the Lord'. this is what i like to call a drive-by. i feel it is an appropriate term, borrowed of course from drive-by shootings and the like. drive-by evangelising carries with it many similarities. first, the element of surprise is important if you want to get a clear shot at your intended prey, if they see you coming they are likely to take refuge behind something that will protect them from your projectile [like i did when i ducked behind a display a few moments later to avoid another attack]. second, once you have them where you want them, you must strike hard and fast, otherwise you might miss, or they might be able to wage a counter-attack. finally, make a quick escape [or never come to a complete stop] to ensure that you get away clean and live to tussle another day. hers was a textbook mission, following all 3 cardinal rules. perhaps 'fiddy' or some other hard-core gangsta conducted a seminar that she was able to attend. i may never know what becomes of the old lady. i do know, however, that as riled as i was by what she said and how, i can't imagine that she is often very well received. at this jucture i am tempted to go into a tirade about why 'going witnessing' is so contrary to what spreading the good news was [i believe] meant to be. for the same reasons that what dr. phil so abrasively does on his show are very liberally [in my opinion] placed in the same category as true therapy. when you evangelize/therapize AT another person, what you are doing is completely devoid of any context [shared relationship] to give you the credibility for your actions to take any root. both examples make me sad. i imagine that this old lady has about as much positive, real-life effect as mr. mcgraw, and she's not making near as much money at it.

p.s. amanda had a slightly different reaction when i told her what happened. fearing that the old lady has 'powers', we will definitely be seen in a pew tomorrow.

ok, i made that up. really i just wanted to use the word 'powers '...