On the road from Damascus

The conversation on the road to Damascus was all in Arabic so no possible conversion there, unfortunately on my trip out of Damascus, on the way to the rather uninspiring largest of the Crusader castles, I was subjected to an attempted conversion in English. I had managed to squeeze in to the back seat of a minivan, rather uncomfortable with my backpack on my lap to avoid paying for two seats.

Not long in to the journey I found that I had the pleasure of sitting next to an English teacher in the local high school, who attempted over the entire length of the journey, almost 90 minutes, to bring me in to the fold. He was an educated man so it started out as a rather open discussion but the Converters always seem to get stuck on the question of where did you come from ? My attempt to short circuit this line of questioning by answering, "My parents made me" is never satisfactory and only leads to
a series of questions about who begtted each generations' forebearers. Then we got tied up in a discussion about the origin of life and everything being about chance. Under relentless questioning and preaching, unable to articulate what I thought and being stared at by someone who clearly thinks my responses are ridiculous I started to doubt my own beliefs. Somehow though I struggled on, clutching at whatever rational straws I could grasp and finally I think he conceded defeat and he told me, "When judgement day comes I will see you and I will say I told you about God and still you denied him"

So I am left still waiting for the light to knock me off my horse.