THE RELIGIOUS PEST

The other day, I had the misfortune of opening my door to a Jehovah's Witness. He was a polite and smartly dressed, middle-aged man. His opening banter was predictable, much as I expected from a fixated zealot who, as is so typical, is attracted to extremism in one form or another. But then, just as I was preparing to repel him from the doorstep, he caught me off-guard with something he said.
  'I used to be an atheist,' he said. 'I found the idea of God, in fact the notion of any divine Creator, risible and absurd. It contradicted common sense and the shallow creeds propagated by organised religion seemed contemptible to me. Peddlers of faith in holy buildings were, I considered, at best naive, often ignorant hypocrites.'
  Despite myself, I found myself paying attention to his words. In fact, I agreed with everything he'd just said. Although I knew I would regret showing any interest in the patter of a representative of such a notoriously thick-skinned, blinkered religious faction.
  'I was raised in a rational, intellectual environment,' he continued, 'where science and scientific enquiry was valued most highly. My parents were broad-minded , yet slightly cynical people. They were fair-minded enough not to be completely dismissive of religions or, specifically, Christianity, while they did nothing to hide from me their opinion that most 'faiths' were merely mythic-based placebos for the weak and vulnerable...'
  I thought: they sound like my kind of people. Then came his hook. I'd been expecting it but he still caught me by surprise as he said, 'Right up until last year, I was a confirmed atheist as I said. But I had an amazing, supernatural experience in my new home that radically altered my viewpoint. I had just moved in to a two-bedroom, two-storey house with my wife. We were unpacking boxes and arranging furniture all over the place. My wife was replacing all the curtains with new ones we'd bought and she asked me to store a box with the old ones upstairs in the attic, which I did. When I climbed back down the stepladder and stood on the landing below the hatch in the ceiling, I was completely transformed and felt inspired with an overwhelming passion for Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Since that day, I've never looked back or lost my faith. If anything it has become stronger with every passing day. It's such an intense feeling, really it's the reason I am here talking to you today.'
  'I see,' I said. 'So you went up into your attic an atheist and came down a fervent Christian?'
  He nodded enthusiastically. His eyes suggested to me, for the first time, his underlying insanity as he asked, 'What do you think about that?'
  'It's hard to say...' I paused, then added, 'But that's what I call a loft conversion!'
  He stood looking dumbfounded as I closed the door on him. Back inside the house, I was thinking to myself about his oddly compelling story. I wondered what might happen if he ever went into a changing-room.
                                                                               *
POSTSCRIPT: Any atheists interested in forming a group and joining me in making unsolicited visits to Jehovah's Witnesses in their own homes are welcome to contact me via Narolc's World.