Cold Call

I went to a concert the other day with Aaron, a friend of mine from class. Aaron happens to work as a barista at a coffee shop. It’s not one of the local neighborhood trendy coffee shops you can find in Denton but a corporate-run, franchise-owned fast food sort of coffee shop in the suburbs because apparently in the suburbs you can’t do anything hip. That’s not to rag on this particular chain of coffee shop (they make an amazing americano), more to rag on the suburbs.

I've really come to love spending time with Aaron. He’s very open-minded and great for conversation and has that kind of I don’t care attitude you find in poets or indie rock stars. He told me in the car on the way to the concert that he sees Christians come in to his coffee shop all the time to have their bible studies. He said he didn’t mind at all that they were there, even though he wasn’t a Christian. He said that one time even one of the leaders of a bible study tried to talk to him about Jesus:

“It was an older guy, he just walked up to the counter out of nowhere and asked if I’d heard the ‘good news.’”

I wondered if it was because Aaron has messy hair that hides part of his face and is covered in tattoos.

“I told him, ‘Well I know what I’ve heard,’” and he sort of laughed at that because we both know no one can grow up in Texas and not hear about Jesus. But like I said, Aaron is very open-minded and he listened to everything the bible study guy had to say, and then we talked for a few more minutes about the conversation, about the finer points. It bugged him that we focus so much on Jesus’ death. I thought that was really profound, but I didn't really know what to say.

We rode down the highway for a few minutes not talking, just listening to the music.

“Why do y’all do that?”

“Do what?” I asked.

“Just start talking to complete strangers about the ‘good news.’ It’s like you’re trying to sell us something.”