Goats, Jesus and Beer

I recently stopped at a neighbor's house because she is a dog groomer and Butch desperately needed his toenails cut. The neighbor's name is Mary and her home is a lovely little place nestled in among scattered oak trees. She has a humongous board-and-batten sided garage that I have always envied. She also has an enviable board-and-batten sided barn behind the house that houses eighteen goats of different breeds, which you would never know from just looking up from the road. Chad and I have been yearning for a goat (that we will name Humperdink, regardless of the sex), so Mary and I had a lot to talk about.

Mary's goats were lovely things, and while we stood watching them mill around the barn and pick on Butch, I heard Ella wake up from her nap and yell from the car. Mary didn't know Ella was in the car, and when she heard her yelling for her "Mamamamamaaaaaa," she insisted that I bring her up to see the goats. As we watched Butch play with the goats, Ella kept yelling and laughing and clapping.

It was a pleasant surprise, to stop at Mary's and find such fun. We talked and played for half an hour or so. Mary remarked on what a happy baby Ella is, and then suddenly the tone changed from friendly, neighborly conversation to fire and brimstone, gloom and doom. Mary said, very seriously, "Don't ever have another baby. The world is too awful and ugly."

I thought to myself, "Shit, where did that come from?" I said to Mary, "I used to say that, that I didn't want kids because the world is too awful. But my Mom always said that was a cop-out, that I should have kids and raise them to make the world a better place."

Mary then said something about when Jesus makes his Second Coming only the righteous will be saved and blah, blah, blah. I got wildly uncomfortable because I never know how to respond to people who think of Jesus as someone who will someday physically return to our world and start calling people out. I wasn't raised with much religion, and so I have developed my own brand of religion that has changed and grown with me. I cannot see Jesus as anything other than a very special man who live in a specific time in history, a man who had a gift for public speaking and inspiring others. I cannot see the Bible as anything more then a collection of stories, fables, myths, written by people who could edit as they saw fit. I could never bring myself to go to church. My Dad and I used to joke that the forest was our church, that we would rather spend a Sunday morning walking among the trees than singing with our neighbors.

For me, the stuff that Mary was talking about was crazy, brainwashing talk. Once she started in on the Second Coming, I couldn't even articulate a response. How could I tell her that I didn't believe in anything that she was saying, that I couldn't give her an "Amen, sister!"? She was passionate about her religion, more passionate than I am, and I didn't want to insult her passion. Instead, I said something about it being Ella's lunchtime, and thanked her for her toenail-trimming services.

As I was pulling out, Mary hollered, "Stop back some weekend. We usually sit around the fire and drink beer on Saturday nights." I was surprised to hear her say she drinks beer. I would have thought that drinking beer would be a no-no in her religious code of ethics, which got me thinking. Maybe I will stop back there some Saturday night and have the conversation I avoided. Maybe Mary will be more open-minded about my own religion than I thought. After all, a woman who drinks beer and raises goats is the kind of woman I'd like to talk to.