good news! my biologist friend is NOT an atheist!
i headed into potland last night to meet up with an old high school pal. we were always just casual friends, c, m, and i, but they called us the 3 musketeers. or however you spell it. m and i were homeschooled, so after work we would head to the public high school to convince c to skip school and hang out. we never caused serious trouble (except c's interesting being-chased-by-4-cop-cars-while-going-twice-the-speed-limit-and-getting-her-license-suspended incident). we mananged to come thru our teens with few scars to show. unfortunately our serious conversations and character-building experiences were even fewer and further between.
in the 5 years since high school, m and i have talked only a few times. she has immersed herself in the local redneck "society", and rejected everything her conservative-christian sustainable-farmer parents stand for. when i see her we talk about people and gossip about their business. she knows everything about everyone we used to run with, and its fun to hear about them once a year, yet we quickly run out of things (well, people) to talk about.
in the same 5 years i have spoken with c even fewer times. she and i moved around, went to college, quit college, went to college again, didnt have nationwide cell plans, had a crush on the same guy, and had other reasons that cause friends to drift apart. but she has completed a biology degree with honors, and has embraced everything her intelligent, globally-minded parents stand for. when we get together we talk about god and religion and evolution and souls and passions and rationality and truth and hypocrisy and eternity and single-cell organisms and birth control and morality and nature. and boys, of course.
and she is not an atheist. this news SERIOUSLY made my year. unlike her professors, she has been brought TO God thru science. i consider this to be a small miracle. my heart is joyful!
we met for food and fun and deep conversation last night in oh-so-funky SE p-town. we talked 'til long after our burritos were cold and the restaurant had closed. we continued our talk on the walk home, down Hawthorne, past the people about whom i asked, "are they dressed up for something, or is this just everyday?". back to her house. we discussed the difference between biology's and religion's theories of the life-giving element as we reached the front porch and stepped across the ever-present axe. (i don't ask questions. especially questions that start with, "so if a bad guy came...") we walked thru the always-open front door (i don't ask questions.), flopped down on the couchs, and continued our conversation until the wee hours of the morning.
