I sat down on the bus tonight next what looked like your average old man. He looked a little odd, but not to freakish. He had a tote bag on his lap, a tattoo that said “Dee” on his arm — and he was missing at least four bottom front teeth, creating a really bizarre looking gap. So he seemed a little odder than I first thought.

I sat down and opened my City Pages, eager to check tonight’s movie listings. But the old guy wanted to talk. I guessed immediately guessed he was a Christian. It wasn’t anything he said. It was just in his manner. He was nice. Overly nice. I felt like I couldn’t get out of the conversation, and I didn’t want to be rude.

It turns out he was saved at a Billy Graham Crusade in Denver over 20 years ago. The guys been involved in Christian counseling, ministry, and the charismatic church. He was trying to convince me that healing and speaking in tongues are still common occurrences today, at least at his church. I nodded and smiled, wondering if this was just another bus passenger conversation for him. I wondered why I had so little desire to talk to him. Why would I rather read a so-so newspaper then talk to someone.

Sometimes I can be pretty shallow. At first I hoped he’d get off at the next stop. But then I realized he was probably in for the long haul. He ended up getting off a few stops before me. Long enough for me to sit there by myself and wonder why I cared so little about this fellow brother in Christ.

Some things never change.

“But we’ve got to follow through on our ideals or we betray something at the heart of who we are. Outside these gates, and even within them, the culture of idealism is under siege beset by materialism and narcissism and all the other isms of indifference and their defense mechanism knowingness, the smirk, the joke.” – Bono’s address to the Harvard University Class of 2001