Chapter 5 - The Demographics Consultant
Lydia spent a big part of the next day compiling a list of questions for her meeting with Oscar. She didn’t expect him to be able to answer all of them, but answers to at least a few would give her a good sense of whether or not he would be helpful.
Elgin’s Family Restaurant was close enough to the office that she could walk there and leave her car in the company parking lot. Since it was so close, she wondered why she had never been there before. Upon arriving though, the reasons became clear. The exterior was almost devoid of decorations, and none of the items promoted on the sandwich board outside seemed terribly appealing. Inside it had no decor on the walls, no elaborate menu options, and nothing special out front to bring people in. Still, the air smelled like there was good food cooking, the prices were reasonable, and unlike most restaurants downtown, the waitresses were dressed more modestly than she was.
There weren’t too many people in the restaurant, so when Oscar arrived a few minutes later, it was easy for him to find Lydia. However, since she hadn’t changed that much since high school, he would have been able to find her even if the room had been completely full.
“Lydia?” he asked, as he approached her table.
Oscar had been a skinny, lanky kid in high school, but now it seemed his body had compensated with a little extra weight gain. His rusty blonde hair had always been a little unkempt and while it was now well-groomed, it was showing signs of thinning in the front. Seeing him again brought back all her memories of him from high school, though there weren’t many. He had generally been pretty quiet, but he never hesitated to defend the Christian point of view during classroom discussions. The popular crowd mocked guys like him mercilessly, but he never backed down.
“Hi Oscar,” she said, standing up to shake his hand. “Good to see you again after all this time.”
“Likewise,” Oscar said.
A young blond woman, who had been trailing a little behind, reached out her hand to Lydia as well. “I’m Evangeline Taylor, his fiancée.”
“Oh, congratulations!” Lydia exclaimed. “When’s the wedding?”
“It’s this coming fall,” Evangeline replied proudly, “but we’re still looking at a few different dates.”
“Wow, you must be so excited!” Lydia said, more because it was expected than because she actually meant it. “Will you be staying for supper too?”
“No, I have some pre-wedding errands to run, but I just thought I’d come in and see who Oscar was meeting.” Then, turning to her fiancé she said, “Give me a call as soon as you’re done, okay?”
“Yup, bye,” he said, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek.
When Evangeline left, Oscar and Lydia sat down at the table.
“You didn’t mention you were engaged,” Lydia said.
“I guess I could have,” Oscar said with a nod. “It’s probably good that you didn’t mention that when she was here,” he added with a grin.
Not sure if he was joking or genuinely afraid of his fiancée’s wrath, Lydia avoided the subject and asked, “So how long have you been engaged?”
“I proposed on Thanksgiving, and we’re still working on picking a date, but it will probably be sometime in the fall,” he said with less excitement than she expected. “But tell me about you. What’s brought you from high school to a high level job with a publishing company?”
Lydia left out an explanation that her status was actually quite low and that her new status was almost certainly temporary. She summarized where she had studied and travelled since graduating from high school.
“Wow, that all sounds really interesting,” he said with a smile that indicated genuine interest.
“It probably sounds better from the outside looking in,” she conceded.
Oscar laughed then added, “Boy, it really is good to see you.”
Despite the fact that she had invited him, Lydia was still suspicious that as a man and as a religious person, someone like Oscar could never be comfortable with just a conversation; he must be hoping for something more. At least he was engaged so she probably wouldn’t have to worry about that part, but she wanted to make it clear that she was not interested in being proselytized. “You mean it’s good to see me looking into Christianity?” she asked a little defensively, letting her scepticism bubble to the surface.
Oscar laughed again. “No, I just mean that it’s good to see you. I’m not saying you didn’t look like this back then, but you look so mature and professional now. Seeing how far you’ve come and how much you’ve accomplished is a bit of a reminder that I’ve come a little ways since then too, maybe not as much as you, but still. And I like talking about faith stuff,” Oscar continued. “I’m really interested in hearing more about this project you’re working on, but I make no presumptions about where you are at spiritually. I have no hidden agenda.”
As far as Lydia remembered Oscar had been a little socially awkward in high school and not very expressive, so this demonstration of flattery and charm was out of character. “Sorry, I guess I sounded a bit harsh there. I’ve just had some bad experiences with Christians.”
“I don’t doubt that,” Oscar replied quickly.
“Really?” Lydia asked, glad to hear some refreshing honesty.
“I’m not surprised for two reasons,” he explained. “First, I can look back on my own life and see times I may have been pushy or over-confident enough that I probably gave other people a bad impression. Second, I’ve had a ton of bad experiences with other Christians too.”
“You’d almost think those bad experiences would be enough incentive for people to walk away from the whole thing,” Lydia said, part statement, part question.
Oscar was about to respond when the waitress approached. Neither of them had fully decided what they wanted, but they both tried to pick something quickly. Lydia reminded him that this was a company expense and he could have whatever he wanted, but he still only ordered from the cheapest part of the menu. For the sake of simplicity, Lydia ordered the same thing.
“So tell me, what have you been up to since high school?” Lydia asked out of interest and so that the whole discussion wouldn’t have to be about her project.
“I did a year of Bible college right after high school,” he explained. “Then I worked for a year at a window factory, then an undergrad degree in statistics, then a few years working for an insurance company and now I’m working on a Master’s degree in Theology. So between my degree and my upcoming marriage, I hope to carve out some kind of future.”
“Is your fiancée a Christian too?” she asked.
“Oh, yes,” he said with a hint of sarcasm. “Her dad is also the pastor of the church we attend.”
“I guess some people don’t change much, do they?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I feel like if I asked you ten years ago how you’d like your life to end up, this would be pretty much exactly what you would have wanted then.”
Oscar nodded slowly and then said, “It’s funny how when you look back over your life it all looks fairly simple and predictable. It must look even simpler from the outside looking in. Along the way though, we all face new challenges and we do our best to make the best decision possible. We’re not trying to fulfill a stereotype or do what other people would expect us to do. So far, I’ve changed my mind about what I want to study, what line of work I want to be in, and where I want to live. I’m sure spirituality works the same way. It might still all look the same to you, but I’ve changed my mind about some of my beliefs and I’ve become even more convinced about others.”
“What have you changed your mind about?” Lydia asked, hoping he hadn’t changed too much or he might not be able to help her as much as she thought.
“I guess I don’t read the Bible as literally as I used to.”
“So you don’t believe the stuff in the Bible actually happened anymore?” In some ways Lydia was becoming more comfortable with him,
because he was sounding more rational than she was expecting, but she still wanted a normal Christian to be able to help her understand the demographic.
“It’s not that I don’t believe they actually happened, but I no longer think that the historical accuracy is the most important part of the story.”
“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” Lydia asked. “Either they happened or they didn’t.”
“It’s a little bit like this,” he said. “Imagine there’s a kid that you are in some way responsible for. You catch him telling a lie, and so you tell him the story of the boy who cried wolf. Afterwards, you want to see if he got the point, so you ask him what he thinks. If the first thing he does is ask whether or not the story actually happened, how convinced would you be that he got the point of the story?”
“I get what you’re saying,” she said. “So it doesn’t matter to you anymore whether they’re true stories or not?”
“Whether or not they happened exactly as printed, I still firmly believe they are very much true stories.”
Lydia scribbled a few things into her notepad. “Has anything else changed in your spiritual outlook?”
“Yeah, I guess I’m not as legalistic as I used to be either.”
“So, what does that mean? You don’t go to church as often anymore?”
“No, I still go pretty much every week and do all the regular churchy stuff. It’s still important to me that I don’t use swear words, for example, but whereas it used to be rule-based living, now it’s more relationship-based living.”
“It sounds to me like your relationship,” Lydia said hesitantly, “still has a lot of rules in it.”
“It’s a little bit like this,” Oscar began. “One year in University I lived in a big house with a bunch of my friends, all of whom were girls. Maybe they were afraid of living with messy guys in general or my reputation had preceded me, but when I moved in, they sat me down and told me precisely which chores I would be doing and how often I would be doing them. If I did my chores poorly, or late, or not at all, they would get mad. But I soon realized that if I did the chores out of a sense of duty or out of resentment or apathy, I wouldn’t do a good job. So, as their bitterness grew, my resent would grow and the downward cycle continued. At any point I could have said, ‘I don’t need this’ and moved out, but these were my friends. If that friendship meant anything, their opinion would matter to me. I needed to see that all the chores they were doing were for our mutual benefit. I needed to recognize that these are my responsibilities as an adult. Then, if I do the job well, the relationship improves and I have more incentive to continue to do the job well in the future.”
Lydia had enough experience with siblings, roommates and boyfriends that she completely understood what he meant. While she wasn’t entirely used to being taught with metaphors, it did help her to understand what he meant about the rules and relationship dichotomy.
“Would you say this is a uniquely Christian perspective?” she asked.
Oscar thought for a little while before saying, “It would be unfair for me to try to speak on behalf of other spiritual traditions. Essentially every religion sets out to solve a different problem, but the understanding is generally the same. Almost all religions believe that there is something wrong with humanity that, left to our own devices, we cannot resolve. So the role of the religious leaders is to arm their people with the tools and the knowledge to be a part of the life-giving cycle and fix the problem. But we are still human, and bound to revert back to the life-taking cycle. So then, in this view we can only achieve enlightenment, salvation or whatever you want to call it by being a part of the life-giving cycle for so long that we escape up and out.”
“So, by choosing a religion, you’re really just choosing which cycle you want to be a part of?”
“Pretty much,” Oscar agreed, “but, obviously, if you’re just stuck in a cycle, you’re not going anywhere. Christianity offers something different. We don’t believe that God plucks the best and brightest off some religious ladder. Instead, we are called out of that cycle. Whether we’re flying high or dragging ourselves along the bottom, Jesus says, ‘Come! Walk with me.’ He fixes the problem for us and when we walk with him, that relationship grows and Christian lifestyle habits are formed.”
Lydia couldn’t help but think that a guy like Oscar would be a great addition to her development team. She liked the way that he explained things and the way that he was honest about his own weaknesses. However, she didn’t want someone who was in denial about all of the problems.
“You make it all sound so holistic,” she said, “but that’s not my experience at all. I see religion as a bunch of leaders telling everyone what they are supposed to believe, whether it’s sincere or not.”
“Well, if I can speak on behalf of the institutions for a moment, the trouble is that we have no way of knowing what someone actually believes. So then religious institutions take these rituals and routines, either inherited or created, and make them benchmarks of faithfulness. That way they can see if they’re accomplishing anything or not. But the more attention a religion gives to its rituals and routines and to itself as an institution, the less it points people toward the reason for doing those things. When it does that, the religion renders itself irrelevant.”
Lydia was enjoying their talk, but she was still confused. “Oscar, I’m not sure I agree with or even understand everything you just said, but how can you be so anti-religious and still be so proudly part of a religion?”
“I’m not anti-religion; I just want to make clear that allegiance to a religious institution needs to be secondary to sincere belief.”
“But if religions are inevitably corruptible, like you say, what possible good can come from them?”
“Maybe I’ll shift gears and try explaining it another way,” he said, pausing to put his thoughts together. “It’s a little bit like this. Do you ever buy cotton swabs?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she responded, not sure at all where he was going with this. If such an obvious question needed to be asked, maybe Oscar didn’t buy them at all.
“What do you use them for?” he asked again.
“Umm, mostly for cleaning my ears,” she said carefully, now convinced that he neither bought nor used cotton swabs at all. She was resisting the urge to look in his ears right at that moment. “Don’t you?” she asked, almost afraid to hear his response.
“Sure I do,” he started, as Lydia breathed a sigh of relief, “but I’m not supposed to.”
“Who told you that?” she asked.
“My doctor,” he answered. “I got an ear infection a while ago and he said it might be from using cotton swabs. He said any time I stick something that small in my ear, I risk getting an infection, damaging my hearing, or generally causing irritation. He’s surprised they’re even available on the market.”
“Well somebody must think they’re safe, otherwise they wouldn’t be allowed to advertise themselves for that purpose.”
“That’s what I thought too,” Oscar said, “but then I looked closely at the packaging. It lists off various other uses, like taking off make-up and things like that, but then it says that they are for cleaning ear surfaces only, and not to be used internally.”
“So you can still use them?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said slowly, with purpose, “as long as you don’t let them get in too deep.” With that, Oscar gave her a look as if to say the story was finished.
“I’m sorry,” she laughed, “it’s been a while since people talked to me in metaphors. So the cotton swab is religion?”
“Right,” he nodded, “and the ear is your soul or whatever you want to call it. The point is I still use them, even though I think it’s a bad idea, because I’m not entirely sure I can properly maintain ear hygiene without them.”
Lydia nodded, thinking that she mostly understood his point. “It doesn’t matter to me, but for marketing reasons I need to know, would you say that the Bible suppo
rts your stance?”
“Sure,” he said confidently. “The way I see it, the Bible reads like one long repeating pattern: God’s people screw up, they feel guilty, and then apologize to God. Just when the relationship gets cozy, the whole thing repeats, over and over again. God eventually gets tired of this and sends Jesus onto the scene. He then goes around criticizing empty religious practise and vain self-righteousness. He didn’t come to replace one religion, Judaism, with another religion, Christianity. Instead he came calling people to a deeper relationship directly with God, without some religion getting in the way.”
Somehow, during the time they spent talking together, Oscar had gone from a high school religious fanatic to an irreverent idealist to a person that Lydia thought could definitely help her get closer to getting the book published.
“Oscar, I’ve still got a lot of work to do, but I’m wondering if you would be interested in being a part of this project long-term?” Lydia asked.
“Absolutely,” he said immediately.
“Really? You don’t want to hear the details first?”
“Heck, I’m a theology grad student, my calendar is nothing if not flexible and I can’t think of anything more applicable to what I’m supposed to be learning.”
“Wow,” she said, “this is great! Do you have time to get together again early next week? I’m interviewing a potential author for the book, and I’d like to bring along another perspective.” Whether or not Oscar was the person she was looking for, Lydia felt a sense of relief come over her, as though she were finally at least one small step closer to something and it seemed her weekend was now open.
“Monday is out, but yeah, Tuesday and Wednesday are fine,” he agreed.
“Okay, I’ll see if Tuesday works for him. Can you meet me downtown somewhere around 12:30? The guy is a farmer who lives a little ways out of town. My company will cover gas and meals on the way. Email me a place where I can pick you up and we can go from there.” She reached into her purse to give him a business card. “I know you have my email address, but in case you need to call, here’s my info.”
“Wow, you have cards with your name on them,” he said, turning the card over to look at the other side, “I’m jealous.” He put the card into his wallet before adding, “I’ll double check my calendar, but I’m pretty sure it’s fine. If not I’ll let you know.”
The waitress arrived with their food just as Lydia was ready to describe the publishing process at Westminster Printers. Lydia picked up a French fry as she was about to begin the explanation.
“Sorry, can you give me a second?” Oscar interrupted. He put his head down. He made less fanfare than Reverend Ballard had, but it was much weirder to see a guy in his twenties wearing normal clothes praying in public than it was to see a man in a priestly collar doing the same.
“Do you always pray in public like that?” asked Lydia when he lifted his head back up.
“Well, I learned to pray around a dinner table full of my mom’s delicious home-cooked meals. If I’m going to pray over that food,” he said, taking a hold of the burger he had ordered, “I should definitely be praying over food like this.”
She didn’t normally go for that kind of folksy wisdom, but her current project had inclined her to recording quotes like that.
“I see,” she said, scribbling down a summary of what he had just said. “Do you always talk in similes and metaphors?”
“Most of the time, yes. Although, I’m learning that it isn’t always the best way to communicate with my fiancée. If it’s a problem for you, I can try to speak more plainly, but this is how things make sense for me.”
“No,” she insisted, “it’s no problem. You do whatever works for you. I’ve just never met anyone who talks like this before.”
Lydia went on to describe how the publishing process had gone when she was on the development team for Feminine-ism. Even though she tried not to, she got into some of her frustrations with the company, and her boss in particular. As she described the company, Oscar flipped through the policy manual she had given him.
“It sounded like a dream job when you first started talking about it,” Oscar said after Lydia’s rant ended, “but it sounds a little more realistic now. It must be frustrating, but good for you for persevering through it.”
Lydia laughed, “You know, when my friends hear me complain about my job like this, they tell me I should just quit.”
Oscar nodded. “Some people just don’t understand. Just because there are some flaws in the institution, doesn’t mean that getting up and walking away is your only option.”
Lydia nodded, and then paused, wondering if he was comparing his situation to hers.
Oscar’s cell phone rang.
“Hi honey,” he said after seeing Evangeline’s name on his call display screen. “Yes, I was going to call. We’re essentially finished now … Yes, I’ll be ready when you get here. … Bye.”
“Yeah, we should get going,” Lydia said when he got off the phone, already having started to pack up her things.
“Yeah, sorry about that. I should have confirmed that with you.”
“No, no,” Lydia insisted. “You’re right, we’re finished.” She sincerely did mean what she was saying, but she also had a sense she didn’t want to be there when Evangeline came back.
“Okay, so I’ll get back to you about Tuesday, but it sounds like a fun trip.”
“Yeah, it’ll be good to have another perspective,” Lydia said. “So I guess I’ll see you then.”
“Yup. Thanks for supper.”
“No problem.”
When Oscar left, Lydia flagged down the waitress to resolve the bill. Oscar certainly hadn’t perfectly answered all of the questions she had asked, and she hadn’t even asked all of the questions on her list, but despite all that, she had enjoyed talking to him. Their one-hour meeting gave her a greater sense of accomplishment than she had from her eight hours of work at the office.
No Till Farmer Ploughs for Peace
(Woodsville Gazette, December 12, 2003)
An Air Force pilot running practice drills in the area received a disturbing message recently. It wasn’t radioed to him from the base; it was written in one of the fields he was flying over. In plain block letters it read, “Love your enemies.”
Disturbed by the seditious nature of the unfamiliar phrase, the young pilot reported it to his superior officer.
“I don’t know what surprised me more,” said Sergeant James Cooper, “that this young soldier had never read the Gospel of Matthew or that this farmer would misinterpret that passage so badly.”
The Sergeant did not think there was anything criminal about this act, but he insisted, “It was certainly unpatriotic.” Rather than report this to the local police, he simply paid the farmer a visit.
“I never thought so many people would see it,” said Benjamin Worsley, who’s been an organic farmer outside of Woodsville for almost forty years. He expected the message would be hidden when the winter snow came and by spring it would indiscernible.
“Our newspapers are full of military rhetoric and symbols of violence, so I decided to send a small message of peace instead.” That small message took up over forty acres. “I do not appreciate that my government continues to bang the drums, and I refuse to allow them to use God’s name to justify their war games.”
Worsley is no stranger to controversy, having participated in a wide variety of anti-war demonstrations throughout his life.
The conversation between the sergeant and the farmer was amicable enough, but neither was able to convince the other of his point of view.
“I’m all in favour of peace,” Sergeant Cooper explained. “That’s what we’re training our personnel to protect. But you love the wrong people in this world, and you get killed. I’d rather teach my boys that over here than have them learn it the hard way on the battlefield.”
Worsley has no plans to write any similar messages in the near future.
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