On tolerance

I haven’t posted for a couple of days now, not since Scott Slade brought me biscuits on Friday, and you all gave me hell about it. (BTW, the photo is supposed to be here, eventually. But it ain’t yet.) I’m having an attitude again, so maybe it’s time to drain the poison again. At least, it’s sorta feeling like poison again.

Nasty weather aside, we had a great time in Pigeon Forge this weekend. We got into town late on Friday, so we didn’t see any of our group that night. Saturday morning after breakfast, we loaded up a couple of cars and headed down the strip to race go-karts¹. Saturday afternoon, hubby and I hit the outlet malls where I bought my first pair of size 34 pants in over a decade. Then we drove through Gatlinburg and back to the hotel in time for dinner with our crew. And because Sevier County is mostly dry, Saturday night we picked up beer at a local convenience store and drank in our room while we watched Craig Jackson sell a 50-year-old bus for $4.1 million. Sunday morning, back in the Disco, across the mountain, through Cherokee, stopping at the Dillard House for lunch, and heading back to the house by mid-afternoon.

That’s the secular version of events. The sacred version is somewhat different.

I knew full-well going into this that Atlanta is a beacon of blue in a very red land². I also knew full-well that Pigeon Forge is a very conservative place, I knew the folks there take their religion very seriously, and that there was at least one religious conference going on this weekend³. And I knew that I was only a visitor there. If they like viewing the world through stained-glass glasses, then who am I to argue?

I should have known that all these facts add up to a town full of people whose smiles drip with the most venomous fluid imaginable, such that when you pass one and she says “Good morning,” you’re fully aware that she considers you not only fuel for the hell-fire but also a very real threat to the spiritual welfare of her brood. But because she's a good southerner, she's in danger of suffering the same fate as your own wicked self if she doesn't acknowledge your presence.

Example: Saturday morning, I’m standing in the lobby waiting for hubby to come down, when I overhear the desk clerk giving directions to four young bible-carrying adults. (It caught my ear, because we got the same directions at check-in the night before, and it took us forever to find the elevator.) So they did the same thing we did: walk back through lobby, out the front door, and look around like lost puppies. And then they came back in and stood in front of the door, letting the cold air in. And then they proceeded to discuss whether they had the right directions. So assuming they were looking for the elevator, I did what all good southerners do: I offered to help.

“Excuse me, what are y’all looking for?”
The fat chick⁴ visibly recoiled, visibly sneered, said, “a finance class,” and turned back to her friends.

Maybe that set the tone for the rest of the weekend, but my tolerance level for religious freaks⁴ just dropped when that happened.

Over the course of the weekend, I saw more “Christian”-themed businesses and wayward scripture verses than I’ve encountered since bible school. I saw two different bible outlets and three other “Christian” bookstores – in a town of just over 5000 people. I watched some man block a friend of his from getting on an elevator because "This elevator is for Christians only!"⁵ And without trying to eavesdrop⁶ I heard – in separate conversations – I heard comments like “well, but he has lust in his heart,” and references to “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego”.⁷ And one lady, in describing her rapture at whatever seminar she’d just sat through:

Wasn’t that just wonderful? You know, Jerry’s hard of hearing, but I just prayed, “Lord, let⁸ his ears be opened so that he can hear this.” I just thought it was wonderful. I’ve never read much in The Song of Solomon⁹, but I can see I’m going to have to change that.

Actually, when I heard her, I thought, “Wow. Knowing how much gays hate evangelicals and evangelicals hate gays, I wonder how much good karma I could build up if I refrain from making fun of her behind her back?”¹⁰

So Sunday we stopped at The Dillard House for lunch, just in time to dine with all the church folks. And yesterday, I came back to the office hoping to leave all that behind for a little while. And I sat at my desk and listened to an allegedly private phone conversation¹¹ in which a co-worker extolled the virtues of whoever leads her bible study and how much he speaks Greek, so obviously he’s an expert.

At any rate, I tried to just let all of this go, hoping the poison would just sorta drain on its own. And a few minutes ago, when my lunch total came to $6.66 -- and I was actually surprised that the cashier didn’t comment on this obvious sign of the apocalypse – I realized I probably needed to lance the boil. So here it is. Try not to step in the puddle.

1Witness the beginning of my mid-life crisis, all ye who enter here.
2While the political implications of these colors certainly hold true here, I’m using them to describe the religious landscape.
3There were actually several, but I only knew of one of them ahead of time.
4Yeah, well, I was nice once.
5.It's humor! Get it?
6. Really, because I didn’t want to hear any more of it.
7.For the record, lest you think I don’t know what I’m talking about since I’ve obviously never had the opportunity to feel the grace of Our Lord Jesus ChristTM, I double-checked the spelling of these names. Looks like I spent enough time in churches that I remembered how to spell them.
8.Notice the way this is phrased like a command. Lady, didn’t your mama teach you to say please?
9.Of course it’s wonderful. Archeologists lost the first couple of verses that said, "Dear Penthouse, you'll never believe this, but..."
10.Obviously we’ll never know.
11.I didn't set out to set a new world's record for footnotes, but sometimes ya just gotta. I say "alleged private" because throughout the entire conversation, she talked at her normal speaking volume. Except once. When describing a certain restaurant's burritos, she dropped her voice to a stage whisper to say they gave her diarrhea.