Friday Night Signs

I avoid the intersection downtown on Friday nights

If I can help it. 

Despite the small town shop fronts and brick-paved side walks,

There are the people with the JESUS SAVES signs,

The TURN OR BURN signs, 

The BELIEVE AND THOU SHALT BE SAVED signs. 

There is the preacher, 

His deep, resonant voice booming up and down the street

With one consistent, loud message:

Believe as I do

Or spend eternity burning alive.

I have to wonder who he's there for

Or what good he thinks he's doing. 

I don't see people stopping to talk to him very often, 

Asking him questions,

Or, heaven forbid,

Being listened to.

And I seldom see people stopping to ponder his words, 

As if this man who shouted at them 

Has the power to change their lives 

Without ever getting to know them.

Instead, I see Friday afternoon shoppers scuttling past,

Heads down, eyes averted, 

Trying to ignore the shouting, the signs, 

By hurrying on to dinner or the Fourth Friday crafts show around the corner. 

The Friday night rush hour traffic hurries past as well, 

Windows rolled up against the sounds. 

The preacher might say these people are trying to avoid ultimate reality,

The holy presence of God Almighty. 

The preacher would be would be wrong. 

They are just avoiding his noise.

Now there are new additions to the street corner:

People with signs that say things like IT'S OKAY NOT TO BELIEVE.

One lady has little rainbows and flowers on her sign, 

And hair died in funky rainbow colors.

They don't shout. They just stand quietly and hold their signs,

Which I think makes a pretty good case for them. 

But it pretty much seems like an impasse to me.

I wonder how many minds either set of sign holders is changing.

And I wonder if they ever talk to each other. 

I wonder if they ever lowered their signs and talked to each other, 

What they'd find out about each other.

I wonder if they really listened to the people hurrying past

What they might find out about the people around them.

I suspect what they'd find is that people aren't easily tagged with signs

And belief and unbelief aren't always easy to classify categories. 

I think most of us might like to hold up a sign, 

If we were forced to stand there at all, 

That said, THE TRUTH LIES SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN.

I can't speak for anyone but myself,

Which is one reason I'm not on a street corner with a sign,

But neither point of view seems completely satisfactory.

It is okay not to believe. 

Anyone who tells you they believe every day, every minute, every second,

Is deluding themselves and lying to you.

The Bible itself is full of doubters. 

But these days, I find that unbelief is as problematic as belief. 

People like to call themselves humanists, 

Yet science seems to not actually believe in humans in the way we have always thought of them.

Science seems to reduce us to moist robots, 

Random collisions of atoms that evolved by chance into creatures 

Who are here today and gone tomorrow 

And suffer under the illusions that we have choices,

That we have wills,

That we have selves,

When all we really have are brain cells. 

I am fully grateful to Science and all it teaches us, 

But it seems to reduce life down to its component parts. 

It explains how and what

But not Why. 

It explains facts.

It might even explain truth.

It doesn't explain Truth.

The best science seems to be able to offer

Is a more comfortable life until we die. 

That's what I think when I see the rainbow hair lady and her sign. 

Of course, the signs on the other side of the street, 

BELIEVE AND BE SAVED,

Are equally reductionist. 

Say this prayer and you go to Heaven when you die. 

What happens here doesn't really matter. 

All that really matters is your personal salvation. 

Believe the right things and you're good with God.

That kind of faith, which seems to have God

Figured out, reduced to a formula, 

And trapped in a box,

Is equally unacceptable. 

That's what I think when I see the shouting preacher. 

Or hear him.

I can't find a place to stand on either side of the street, 

Which is why I hurry past on foot, 

Or roll up the windows and turn up the radio and drive through as soon as the light changes. 

What if doubt is necessary

To tear down our idols

Because when we think we know God...

We don't? 

What if science would like to explain everything away, 

But can't?

What if faith and reason 

Are like quantum mechanics and relativity: 

Hard to reconcile

But both there nonetheless. 

Some mutually contradictory metaphors come to mind.
First--what if we all lowered our signs?
What if we all lowered our signs and just listened to each other?
What if we all lowered our signs and admitted we don't have all the answers?
What if we all lowered our signs and stopped trying to be right?

Second--what if the place to be is in the middle of the street, 

Between the shouting and the simple signs

In the midst of the movement and bustle,

Where you aren't certain what's coming next. 

It's dangerous to stand in the middle of the street. 

But I can see further in both directions there.