Jesus and other impositions

A few days ago, I posted about a person’s response to my response to a faulty political email. The gist of the post, in her eyes, was that my response went to her family and some of them were 15 and 16 and didn’t understand all this wrangling.

Let me address one thing up front. To think that a teenager today is not savvy enough to comprehend the politics of today is simply ludicrous. My son, Kyle, will be 13 in a week and a half, and he will debate politics intelligently with anyone. He watched the debates. He commented on what was presented. He has clear and definable political views.

Beyond that, one of the family members responded to my response. She did not address my politics, but stated that she didn’t know me and didn’t want me emailing her. Since my response had a Biblical reference in it, she said she didn’t appreciate me imposing my religion on her. She said I had no way of knowing if she were a Christian or not. She was respectful in her email.

I thought about it. I agree that religion does not need to be crammed down ones throat. However, as I thought about it, it occurred to me that there are impositions in everyone’s life.

When someone on the street says to me, “how about that Wildcat game,” they are imposing their sports on me. What if I am a (shudder) Cardinals fan?

Every day, in some way, or someplace, someone is imposing their view on me. Every day I get emails offering me Viagra. Here someone is implying that I have difficulties in that area and they are imposing their medical opinion on me. How do I handle this? Just like most other people, I laugh and hit the ‘delete’ key.

Every day, someone is imposing their morality on me when they look disdainfully at something one of my kids is doing, in my presence. How do I handle this? Like most folks, I let it run off of my back. Now, if you voice your opinion, you might not get the ‘run off my back’ response.

At least a couple times a week, I get a spam mail about pornography. Oh my gosh, where is my uzi? No, just like most of us, I hit that faithful delete key. But, here is someone imposing their fetish on me. How many times have you been at a gathering where someone started telling an off color joke? What do you do? Walk away. It is just that simple.

What about racial humor? How dare you impose your bigotry on me? We generally walk away. If we comment at all, it is simply a request not to tell it.

However, just let a believer mention the name of Jesus in a conversation or email, and the non-believer starts making the claims of imposing our religion. Puh-lease! If you don’t believe, his name is just another name. I might as well have said Bob. Speaking of Bob, have you heard …. Oh wait, I don’t want to impose my Bob on you ..

I am telling you this. Jesus is part of my life. I talk about my wife. I talk about my truck. I talk about my kids. I talk about my grandkids. I talk about my job. I talk about my hobbies. All of those are imposing on you. I am going to talk about Jesus. I do have a blog for Bible studies. On it, I don’t talk about my wife, my truck, my kids, my grandkids, or my job. You can see it at won-by-one.blogspot.com.

If you don’t like what I say, don’t read.

My dad told me that my rights ended where his began. Same here, my right to write, your right to read, they work together. But, that is just me, imposing my opinion on ya.

Dare I say it?

Have a blessed day.