andrew and i have had many wide ranging conversations about diverse topics. earlier today on the banal topic of if itchiness was unmitigated unpleasantness or instead might have some redeeming aspect, he used the following metaphor: "it is like evil in a newly made world."
we laughed. we both agreed that as a metaphor for itchiness it was a bit of overkill, but the phrase has echoed in my mind since then as utterly brilliant. evil in a newly made world is surely a particularly egregious variety of evil.
after i ate dinner andrew went out to exercise. the woman sitting with the sick man from the next bed over came over and started making conversation with me – in korean. she gave the standard 3rd degree about family, etc, and said my brother was very handsome. but then she asked me about my church and religion.
im ok making small talk in korean but debating religion is far beyond my ability. she was persistent, so i became more assertive that i was buddhist (which provides fewer angles for attack than claiming atheism), but this was one case where she could not let up. she dissolved into an almost tearful pleading with me in which really i could only make out the korean words for prayer and jesus and god.
i felt uncomfortable. i tried to broaden my smile and said only, in my poor korean, i have my strength. i pressed by hands together in the gesture shared by buddhists and christians.
these neighbors are hardcore pentecostals of some kind – they spend most of their time in bible study and prayer vigils – and who am i to begrudge them their solace? but this is not the first time one member or another of that family group have decided to direct their evangelical zeal outward. i had thought i was immune, being the foreigner in the room, but clearly i was mistaken.
it strikes me as an expression of deep, almost solipsistic selfishness that could impel this kind of behavior in a cancer ward. perhaps it is to this class of evangelism-devoid-of-human-empathy to which i might decide to apply andrews metaphor: like evil in a newly made world.
