Our Daily Bread
by Zach Smith
There's an old
woman that works part-time in my office. She's a
sweet grandmotherly person who hasn't had the
easiest life. After some time I started to go
more out of my way to be nice to her. Simple
things: showing interest, asking her how she was,
making sure she had a ride home.
I even gave her a ride home one day. She tried to
pay, but the five-dollar bill was slyly slipped
back into her purse.
We would talk.
She would tell me stories about the department
from before my time, the people who have come and
gone, the old directors, the day she worked
twenty-eight hours straight.
I’d tell her about myself, my home life, my
wife, and how I liked to bake in my free time.
I asked her what church she went to, as part of
my job dealt with the local churches. Apparently
she thought it was for other reasons, and asked
me to pray for her friends and relatives from
time to time.
I’m an atheist, so my prayers would probably
do more harm than good.
“You got it,” I would say.
Was it a lie? What exactly is the difference
between saying you will say a prayer and actually
saying one? If you believe that saying a prayer
would do more harm then good for the recipient,
isn't the act of not saying a prayer more of a
blessing? These are the deeper questions that I
don’t know the answers too.
One day she left a little pamphlet on my desk,
devotional called “Our Daily Bread.”
I took a deep breath and had a difficult choice
to make.
Should I tell her that I’m not particularly
interested in such books, or tell her that I read
it? Be honest or lie?
Lying would be more what she wanted to hear,
while the truth might cause her to stop talking
to me, which only bothered me somewhat, but it
would be one less person looking out for her at
work, and that bothered me more.
However lying could lead to worse things, she
might invite me to go to church with her, and I
wasn't sure what kind of song and dance I could
do to get out of that.
Worse yet I might not lie, and actually read the
devotional and have some kind of religious
experience and be forever altered.
Sometimes you just have to tell the truth.
“I’m sorry,” I said, handing the
copy of Our Daily Bread back to her. “I
appreciate your concern, but I’m not really
interested in religious stuff.”
“I know that,” she said. “You're
not exactly quiet about your opinion of religion.”
“So is this you trying to convert me?”
“No,” she said. “Flip through the
pages, it’s a cookbook.”
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