When you talk about love, why can't you live it?

Breakfast is an important meal to me. This is the meal where I wake up, enjoy nice food and have a couple of cups of tea while talking to people I like. Or just listen to music and read a good book. In the mornings - especially during weekends - I love to take the time to enjoy the morning. Taste the food for real, slowly sip to my cup of tea. Enjoy my company and just spend as long as I like.

Sometimes - especially when you are not home - you get to meet people at breakfast. And 9 out of 10 times, these people are nice and they tend to respect your habits and needs. They behave nice and try not to step on your toes. And you do the same. At breakfast, there seems to be some topics that are generally best left alone - at least in my neck of the woods. Amongst those topics are religion.

Not so this morning.

I had breakfast at a hotel, where some kind of religious conference where taking place. I wore a necklaces with the Hammer of Thor, something I happen to like because it looks nice IMO.

When I poor myself a cup of hot water for my tea, a lady approaches. She is in her late 40's, perhaps early 50's. Reaching me to my chest, and being a bit (two bits is more like it) wider than myself. Her dark hair is changing color into gray. She is wearing glasses with a thin metal frame, the glass comes complete with grease from fingers. Her skin has the look of pergament paper, she is in obvious need of an fresh air vacation. Her dress is old fashioned, gray and dull. She looks straight at me, eyes glowing.

"Is that a...No! It is not! You are not wearing a cross! My poor man, you are loosing out on the love of Jesus by wearing that! Have you not received Jesus' love yet?"

Oh man, what a start of the day. Caught off-guard by a missionary woman hunting for a target. Stupid as I was, could not help my self:

"Oh, this? It is simply a nice looking jewelry of the Fiery of Thor. It is supposed to give purpose and strength to the bearer..."

She did not listen of course, and instead she quarrelled about how she had recieved Jesus' love in her heart, how the holy spirit would tell her if she failed. I said that I was happy for her, which I am, but to no avail. She had completely shut down her listening capacities, and kept going about how I needed to receive the same love as she did.

To tell her that the love she is talking about is something we all carry, no matter what religion we choose to follow was a no-go. She just would have nothing of that. The only true love was the love of Jesus. And without that, I would never be going to heaven. I would be damned for life.

At some point she got a new idea asking if I wore the jewelry because I was walking among those who was not belonging to the right belief? Her eyes where tingling at this point, clearly showing her hope that I was a missionary like herself, on a secret mission to revert wrong believers to her own right one. When I told her that doing so would be lying, she was a bit stunned. I tried to explain that if one followed the believe of Jesus, as she clearly did, would it not be wrong to distance your own belief, pretending to be a follower of some other religion, just to save these people from their own destiny? Would this not be hypocritical? Would it not be to break the Commandment "Thou shalt not lie"? And what happened to the love of Jesus, if you truly feel this love, why can't you love everyone as your equal? Why is it so that following one religion automatically means you have to reject any and all other perception of truth and belief?

As she discovered that this one was not so easy to win over as she had expected, she found herself another target.

For me unfortunately, the rest of my relaxing breakfast had been ruined. So ruined in fact that I had to write this rant. I have one simple question - when you talk about love, why can't you live it?