Hamish Champ: Faith and the art of avoiding doorsteppers
Faith, I find, is a tricky concept to deal with.
One can have faith in something concrete - like the ability of one's local pub to serve up a great pint in convivial surroundings - or one can believe in a more fluid aspect, such as a deity or prophet, and thence view the world and all its works according to the tenets of his - and it usually is a 'he' - faith.
I shirk the latter sort, to be honest. Don't get me wrong, I respect those who believe in a god or Jesus or whoever. Indeed there are times when I'd love to believe in a god too and accept, dive headfirst into even, the notion that the world was the result of a Higher Being, that everything we do is guided by an unseen hand or pre-ordained and that when we shuffle off this mortal coil we go to a Better Place.
But I don't. I'd rather go down the pub and mull over the unreliability of such things than believe in something I just can't 'get'.
I'm also quite bad at telling people who try to convince me that there is a Lord - or that there is life after death provided I don't walk on the cracks in the pavement - that sorry, I'm just not interested.
At the weekend I was parking up outside my flat when I saw two little old ladies walk up to my door clutching a handful of magazines. Immediately I went to DefCon 1 for Jehovah's Witnesses.
Now I've nothing against people who believe this stuff, but it's the look on their faces when I say 'No thanks', that does me in. I certainly wouldn't be rude to them. I'd just rather steer clear, to be honest.
So I sat there in the car, a 49 year-old man, watching in the rear view mirror as they rang my bell and then waited patiently for someone to come to the door. No-one came, obviously, since the flat's resident was sitting in a car a couple of yards away.
A full 10 minutes they waited. I was starting to get worried someone might see me sitting there and before you knew it I'd be explaining to a bloke in uniform that no, I'm not casing local houses for a robbery, I'm merely avoiding a 'confrontation' with some well-meaning septuagenarians.
Eventually the ladies gave up and toddled off. I felt bad, as much at my cowardice as anything, but them's the breaks. I consoled myself with a few lunchtime beers with a mate who, it turns out, is a lapsed Catholic. I can't win.
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I was reminded of how much I like playing in a band last week. The band I'm in did a gig in the Prince of Wales in Merton, South London, and while we couldn't play quite as loud as we're used to - got to keep the neighbours onside, see? - we had a great time.
Pubs that put on bands are a breed apart from yer average local, I reckon. I know not everyone has either the inclination or the physical capability to showcase live music, but more power to the elbows of people like Paul Green, licensee at the PoW, for making the effort.
Nice one Paul!
