A Can of Worms

Yes, I certainly did open a can of worms. My letters weren't particularly clever or articulate, perhaps even clumsily-written, too much heart - too little brain! But they certainly provoked a reaction, so perhaps they fulfilled their purpose.

Within a fortnight I had heard from all of them, whether by e-mail (Jon), phone call (Miriam), unexpected visit (the rabbi), expected visit (Gerry), chat (Morry) or by letter (Sadie). Stripping away the outer layers of anger and indignation, the tone was the same - further anger and indignation.

There was one exception - Morry. He just refused to believe that I was talking about him and laughed it off, saying that, even if it were about him, I'd got most of my facts wrong anyway! He was the one person that I really wanted to stir up, yet he took it the lightest, like water off a duck's back. I wanted him to rant and rage and to deny it all in fierce condemnation, because there's nothing that hurts more than the truth and we all strike out when hurt. It's not that I wanted to hurt him, it's just that, to borrow a medical parallel, you need to draw out the poison before you can deal with the wound.

The other five more than made up for him, so I'd obviously hit the mark with them. But could I deal with the consequences of my actions? In increasing degrees of severity, here were the reactions to my letters.

Sadie wrote a nice, though meandering, letter, the gist of which being that I was a naughty little boy and if I'd listened to my parents when I was younger, I wouldn't have filled my head with such silly notions and narrowmindedness. I was tempted to ask what was sillier, a God who loves us, but who will judge us in righteousness, or a fuzzy notion of God which arbritrarily processes us at death and assigns us to come back as a beggar, or a bird, or a speck of bacteria. But more of that later.

Jon's e-mail was fairly reasonable in tone, with small waves of anger characterised by sudden spelling mistakes (such it is with most e-mails, which usually tend to be written in a serial manner and sent before they are fully checked).

Gerry and I met as usual, the following week, which gave him long enough to prepare himself. He tore me to shreds and, frankly, convinced me that writing letters was a good thing as no way could I hold my own in a one-to-one argument.

Miriam chose her weapon wisely and my ears were assaulted one Tuesday evening by a full thirty minutes of rhetoric and vitriol. She'd even reversed the charges, to rub it in further!

But the really memorable reaction was that provided by the personal visit of Rabbi David Unger. The fact that he was actually willing to speak to me after 10 years of silence and through personal visit no less, sent alarm bells clanging in my head as I opened my front door that Wednesday. He'd left an hour later and I had to spend the rest of the day in bed, to convalesce.

I really, honestly, didn't want to hurt these people. But I had an important message for them and I felt that there would be no harm - in the long run - in asking them pertinent questions about their own lives and worldviews. That was it. And, let's face it, everyone should be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks you to defend that which you believe in. I certainly was, by letter, if not face-to-face.

It is, after all, the essence of my faith, which is evangelical by definition. But everyone should be sufficiently confident and secure in what they believe to be able to respond to criticism with calmness and common-sense. But easier said than done, I suppose, because, it can come as a bit of a shock to be unexpectedly challenged, especially by an upstart and a nobody like me!

But, we must move on. My letters were just the preliminary, the main course was to come. All six of them raised interesting questions in their responses and rather than write another six individual letters, I decided to collect my original letters together, compose a generic answer to the points raised (but being specific where possible) and give my defense for that which I believe in.

I'd collect it all together and publish the whole caboodle on the Web. And, hey voila, here we are! So please move on with an open mind and a ready and willing heart and enter, with me, my tapestry of gefilte fish (whatever that is) ...