Aliens in the House

We had two 'aliens', Americans, in our home this week. A couple both young enough to be our children. People from another planet, or so it seemed some of the time. Aliens in that they live such very different lives from our own. Maybe to them we two Christian septuagenarians seemed pretty alien too!

The man(T) is a highly trained and experienced journalist now working as a political consultant in environmental affairs. He has worked on some very well-known American newspapers as a specialist correspondent. He and Helen met doing PR together over 20 years ago. At that time he was a comparatively new but quite committed Christian.  He and Helen found that they shared a delight in asking questions of all kinds on religion, politics, language and culture - just about anything really! He was interested in British sport and Mike initiated him into the secrets of British football. The three of us spent many happy hours doing what T calls, ‘hanging’!  A very special bond was formed which we have maintained over the years despite having only met once in the interim.

His wife (D), we had never met before.  She is now an American citizen though she was born in Beijing and spent her formative years in the People’s Republic of China. We don’t exactly know what a ‘policy wonk’ is but we think she is one! She has moved out of government circles but policy is her ‘first love’! She was warm and open and amusing and we took to her!

It wasn’t long before T raised the topic of religion and church attendance. He mused openly about his lost sense of ideals. He described how he had originally seen journalism as his vocation, believing that the uncovering of the truth was what people needed and really wanted. His questions on where we were with the church and God were searching. He is still sympathetic but feels the loss of his youthful idealism. He’s also disappointed that the religious rhetoric did not quite match the lived reality. Was there a touch of wistfulness there? It was clear that in his busy professional life, there is no room at the moment for the God he thought he knew.

Stories like this are familiar enough to us.  We could name many originally idealistic young Christian professionals in absorbing careers who have found that church or religion, are not really ‘speaking their language’.

But D’s story was less familiar and more exotic. She grew up in the People’s Republic of China, in an actively atheist environment, antithetical to religious expression. She is not hostile. Indeed she expressed some envy of ‘religious people who have an anchor’. She simply has little concept of God. It is more as if she is religiously tone deaf.  She does not have a landing strip for God, as it were. ‘I’m not interested in life after death,’ she told us. For her, we live, we die and that’s it.

For us, it was so interesting to hear these points of view expressed so simply, so clearly, naively almost. For us, the conversation was unsettling in a way but not in a bad way. There was something refreshing about hearing views expressed without any agenda. No guile from either of them. Our conversation forced us again to share our thoughts with them and then examine ourselves and the Jesus story on which we have both willingly and vigorously based our lives. The exchange of views did not fill us with existential angst. Rather it brought to us a sense of wonder about the brute fact that we are here at all, to ask again with thoughtful people, ‘What’s it all about? Where are we going, if anywhere? Glory or oblivion?

Our friends left quickly. We offered a ride to the station but they summoned a ‘Bolt’ car – another type of ‘uber’ – which we had never heard of. More alien behaviour! The driver came in four minutes. They jumped into the taxi and were gone in a whirl, laptop in hand and open.