The strangest place you’ve ever had a God Conversation

Dave came to me recently and said, “George, next month, when its my turn to do formation for our Bishop’s Committee, I want to have a conversation about the strangest place you’ve ever had a God Conversation.”

Dave is a long time member of the congregation that I serve.

He got me thinking about my own encounters with others—both friends and strangers.

My favorite unlikely encounter took place one Christmas Eve.

It was Christmas Eve. The Associate Priest at my congregation and I had just finished our early Eucharist and had a good two hours to kill. Hungry, I decided to take him and a few others out for dinner at a favorite restaurant in a neighboring town.

As we approached the restaurant, we were surprised to find that the business was actually closed on Christmas Eve. We didn’t have a lot of time; we’d have to find another restaurant in the neighborhood to eat. We had a problem however: either the restaurants we tried were packed to gills with a waiting list or they were closed.

Where to go?

Finally we noticed that that the Gay Bar in our town was open with pub fare. We could go there and catch a bit to eat.

So there we were a table of three—two priests in collars walking into a Gay Bar.

I must admit I wondered how people would treat us. What happened next surprised me.

The bar was pretty empty actually. We were noticed right away and almost immediately, people began to come up to us and talk with us: did the church that we belong to accept LGBT people. We explained that we did.

Can you pray with me this man asked us. He was quite young and explained to us with tears in his eyes that his mother had not spoken to him since he had come out last spring. He was alone this Christmas. So right there in the middle of the neighborhood gay bar, we began to pray with him.

Soon, there was another person telling us that her friend sent her over because he had prayed with him. Could we pray with her? Slowly people made their way to our table to pray with us, to ask questions about our church, the Bible; others just wanted to talk. I was amazed at how many broken hearted people I met at the bar that night. So many people just wanted to be heard; others wanted to know that they were loved.

Maybe I should spend every Christmas Eve in a bar; praying with people. Jesus was always going into wild places like enemy territory. I imagine that people found it rather odd to see him converse with people outside the law. Jesus was and is a strange encounter for those that meet him.

What’s your strangest God conversation? The most unlikely place?

I think we need to have a few more strange and unlikely conversations about God.

We might be surprised at what we learn.

George