Arrghhhh! I guess I shouldn't let it bother me, but it really burns my ass when I am assumed to be a christian. I'm not, I don't want to be, and even if I were in a foxhole I wouldn't be a goddamned christian. I don't go around advertising that I'm not, I live in the south, after all, in the heart of the bible belt, but dammit all, people will just assume things. And they shouldn't.
I saw a sweet older lady in the office recently. She had a plethora of medical problems, and some emotional issues too, and I like old ladies, and I like my job, and I tried to do a good job attending to her needs. So what do I get???!!?? She calls me a fucking christian! She didn't say fucking, of course, but she told me, very sweetly, "I am a christian lady, and I can tell I've found another christian lady for my doctor. It just shows in your kindness what a christian you are!" (no, I haven't transmogrified into a physician, I'm still a nurse practitioner, but sometimes it is just too much trouble to explain it over and over. And hell, if she thinks I'm a bloody christian, well, how am I going to get her to understand the rest?)
I mean, WTF?? You can't be a kind, decent person if you aren't a christian? Why the hell not?? Christians don't OWN all the good, decent attributes that people can have.
It's like being gay, in a way. People know you only in your professional capacity, for instance, and they assume you are 'normal' and feel perfectly okay to say heinous things about gay people. Or like white people who assume that because you're white too, you are also a racist. It just makes me mad. Maybe it's my karma biting me in the ass, because I have certainly been guilty too of looking at a person and thinking I know all about them, when I didn't know diddly. May whatever powers do exist in the universe forgive me. I am trying to forgive myself.
And I forgive that old lady too. She really didn't mean a bit of harm. I'm sure it never occurred to her that she was being offensive. Nevertheless, it IS offensive.
So my point? I don't really have one. Except this one: stop assuming!
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