We had a pair of unusual visitors this morning. Older men, dressed in three-piece summer-weight suits, one gray, one brown. I can usually classify unexpected visitors within a second of opening the door, but these fellows didn’t match any group I’d seen before. One of them remained silent the entire time, standing a little ways away; the other started talking about the plight of the poor, and how some people have to live on less than two dollars a day (in North America? riiiiight). It wasn’t until he started reading verses from a previously-hidden Bible that I realized they were from a church rather than a charity. He spent a lot of time trying to see past me into our house too, maybe out of simple nosiness, maybe looking for signs of blatant prosperity to fuel his arguments (he’s not going to find much here, we live a pretty simple life). Or maybe to estimate how much he could shame or cajole us into giving them.

Cynical? Me? Never! But these fellows were very obviously either angling for a handout or looking for new recruits for their church (and thus a continual source for a weekly “love offering”). Maybe both. It didn’t take long for them to realize that I wasn’t going to invite them in, and when I politely declined to take their religious tracts as well, they gave up and left.

Their visit left me feeling a little soiled all day. Religious groups that go door to door to “spread the Good Word” (i.e. find new recruits) always remind me of cancers, the way both of them have to constantly keep growing or die. And they’re about as welcome. I understand the reasons why they do it, and a few of those are even honorable, if misguided. What’s that? God says that He’s going to send me to an eternity of pain and torture if I don’t join your group and worship Him the way you do? Sorry, it really does sound like a great offer, but I’m still not interested.