“I thought you said you broke up with the Mormons.”

He laughed at me.

“What? You stood right here in this kitchen and told me you’d broken up with them.”

“I did! I told them I didn’t want to be evangelized to anymore. But there’s apparently a very fine line between them just wanting to “hang out” and Bible study.”

“Well. I’m sure we’ve all had that problem in a relationship at one time or another.”

The first thing you notice is the suits, even when the jackets are off. No young business man worth his PS4 stays in a button down after he’s come home from work, especially with the tie still knotted and neat. And yet, here they were, two strangers sitting at one of the kitchen tables beside my housemate at more than half past dark looking like happy hour incarnations of Agent Smith. Their postures were struggling to be relaxed, their jackets over the backs of their chairs with food on the table in front of them, and I knew within the time it takes to take a breath what they were and why they were here. I once interviewed a nun at St. Cecilia’s about why clergy and religious wear costumes. She said something profound about eliciting sacred spaces and holiness and God’s presence. That’s not how I felt when I saw these guys. No. I felt like being naughty.

I knew they knew, because there was no way they couldn’t have known. They were sitting in the heart of the Disciples Divinity House, where – with few exceptions – Disciples divinity students live. And Disciples, like other mainline Christian denominations, train women as ministers along with men. You know, all God’s children. Beside these facts was the most important one: they were not on their turf. They knew this. I knew they knew this. And in light of this knowledge, I knew my presence would be both discomfiting and intimidating. So, I did the logical thing. I got a plate and joined them for dinner.

They had been talking about the Holy Spirit before I came in, based on the snatch I caught as I came through the door. My presence effectively damped this flame, because after I sat down, they asked about me, never getting back to the Bible. They may have decided that weapon too double-edged for a conversation with me. And because they couldn’t really avoid it, they decided to be proactive and get it over with.

“So. Do you preach?”

“Yes! I have a church about forty miles away. I’m the interim minister there.”

“Wow.” Smiles. “You must be very intelligent! How old are you?”

The conversation drifted, and I finished my dinner and began to clean up. They gathered around in a polite way, offering to clean their own plates. They had an appointment at the hospital and would have to leave soon. Before they left, they thanked us for being so nice and my housemate for always being welcome to their presence.

“You’d be surprised at how often people are mean to us when we come to their doors. They won’t even listen for a second, just slam the door in our faces.”

“Really?” He’d been talking about Church of Christ members, representing the denomination of my childhood. “That’s strange to me. I think it used to be different. My grandmother used to invite Mormons in and feed them.”

“And then try to convert them?” My housemate smiled.

“Of course! But she was always open to them. But, you see, you’re treading on their mission fields.”

“We know,” one of them replied. One had come from Utah, the other from California. They had never been anywhere else before they were sent to this mission field – Nashville, TN. They’d never been in a place where so many people were actively religious, and I got the feeling they were a little thrown by it. Where else would you meet so many professional ministers, ranging from the crash-and-burn conservative to take-no-prisoners liberal and everywhere in between?

They left out the back door. Immediately I turned to my housemate.

“I thought you said you broke up with the Mormons.”

He laughed at me.

“What? You stood right here in this kitchen and told me you’d broken up with them.”

“I did! I told them I didn’t want to be evangelized to anymore. But there’s apparently a very fine line between them just wanting to “hang out” and Bible study.”

“Well. I’m sure we’ve all had that problem in a relationship at one time or another.” I paused. “How old were they?”

“Oh, young. Eighteen or nineteen. That’s why I called them kids.” This from a twenty-three-year-old.

I shook my head. During the conversation, one of them had let slip that they couldn’t watch sports during their time in Nashville, which was two years. “At all?” I said. “What can you do?” “What do you mean?” “Do you sleep?” “For the energy. Otherwise we preach.” “Wow. Wow. That’s dedication.” “Yeah.”

“Why do you ask?”

“They just struck me as young. That’s the first time in a long time that someone has looked at my chest.”

“Really? Sorry.”

“That’s ok. It’s just – getting caught is a teenager’s mistake.”

We talked some more, and then I asked him if they would be back.

“Probably. You can see that they’re dedicated. They had to raise the money for the two years before they came, and they weren’t allowed to ask their families for help. They’ll come again for another “hang out.””

There was an air of dry humor throughout, an attitude I had let run as an undercurrent as long as they had been there, but at some point, the attitude mixed with respect. I found myself wanting to know more about them – not so much their beliefs, but them. I had used to be like them, in a way. I had wanted to be a missionary when I was their age. To be honest, I had wanted to die for my beliefs on a foreign field – how glorious would that be? My religion hadn’t been a facet of my life. It had been my life, the only nonnegotiable point. And so the only point, really. No doubts were allowed to break through, all bets were off. Where had that dedication gone? It had not collapsed wholly in a mushroom cloud of nihilism. No, it had chipped away, become more seamless with the rest of me until it had faded to faint scars, at last. It had taken the way of an old romance settling in for a long winter of age and loss.

I found myself asking despite myself: what if I had that kind of dedication again? And then, before having to think about it, answering: then it wouldn’t be me anymore. Then: can you have that kind of devotion, that evangelical devotion, mixed with mainline, social justice practice? Can you have one without killing the rest?

I make fun. I poke genially at their boundaries and throw them slightly off balance and smile. I am polite. I am kind. I am interested. And I am not afraid of them. I love them. Because – and this has taken me a good part of three years to realize – because there, but for the grace of God, go I.