No, No, and No. I don't think that's unclear.

Tonight after work, I made my weekly pilgrimage to Chez Target for, well, everything. (Yeah. This was one of those weeks where we ran out of everything all on the same day. Sigh.) So anyway, I saw a little old lady who'd borrowed a Target shopping cart and was handing out religious leaflets with the headline "Does God Love You?" She tried to hand one to me and I said, "No, thank you."

When I came out, she tried to give me the same pamphlet twice within about five minutes. The third time, I'm afraid I wasn't as polite as I maybe should have been. I said, "This is the third time you've tried to give me this and the third time I've said no." She said, "Well, I forgot." Um, okay. Silly me for thinking once should have been enough.

I don't know if that was the proper response---certainly it didn't work either of the three times I tried it. I don't like being preached at, or being on the receiving end of someone's conversion attempt---and make no mistake, she wasn't trying to, say, convince me that Zeus or Buddha or Shiva loved me. ;-) (I wouldn't have liked it if she had, but at least it would have had the virtue of newness---we don't get a lot of proselytizing Hellenists, Buddhists, or Hindus in our area of San Diego :-P) And I don't think I should have taken her pamphlet and then tossed it away (which seemed to be the majority choice, to judge by the trash in the parking lot.)

I don't come from a tradition that does a lot of witnessing, or whatever the term for it is nowadays. I wasn't raised Wiccan, but my mom and dad never went in for that type of religious practice. But I also couldn't have said to the old woman what I wanted to say, which was---to paraphrase another blogger---I believe in my gods the way you believe in your god.

Or put simply...I just want to shop and go home to my family. I don't want to be rude, but no means...no.

Le sigh.