Something rather sweet happened to me yesterday which I think deserves to be noted here. Taking advantage of the dry, sunny weather, I chose to take a nice long trundle up to Stratford. The River Lea and the Olympic Park looked incredible yesterday. Before coming home, though, I chose to check out some of Stratford itself, including it’s high street.

Like most of London, Stratford is thriving, and the high street was bustling late yesterday afternoon: it was full of music and noise. Somewhat predictably, I encountered some street preachers there, which of course I immediately wanted to get to shut the fuck up. I went over to them, and started to try to tell them to be quiet. Unusually, however, I soon realised from their accents that they were Americans.

One guy in the group started to talk to me, trying to justify his bullshit-spewing. Of course our conversation got nowhere: these people think they are purveyors of some hidden knowledge that everyone is ignorant of, and can’t seem to grasp the reality that their beliefs are essentially baseless or that they might be wrong. They kept insisting that, deep down, I knew God existed, but I just refused to admit it to myself. I naturally found this exceptionally arrogant and unhinged, and it made me want to argue with them even more.

Our confrontation went on for about half an hour, predictably getting nowhere. During that time, though, I gradually calmed down, and we began to have a rational conversation. One man, called Adam, told me he once had a friend called Richard, who also had CP, and that I reminded him of his friend. As things began to cool down, I saw that they were nice people, albeit worryingly deluded and highly misguided. The most touching moment, however, came when one of them offered to buy me a burger from a nearby fast food shop: it had been a long afternoon, and by then I was rather hungry. I hesitated at first, not knowing how I would feed it to myself and not wanting to get burger everywhere; but then Adam said he would feed it to me, as he had once fed his friend Richard.

That touched me enormously. I accepted their offer, and spent the next half hour or so talking to them and being fed a rather delicious cheeseburger. There was a lot we didn’t agree on, and I was still confounded by their refusal to listen to reason; but, apart from that, I think I made a few new friends yesterday. Before we parted, I offered to buy the first round in the pub, but the group said they needed to go to a prayer meeting. As I headed to Stratford station, I reflected on what had just happened: their religion still struck me as infuriatingly arrogant, but they were nonetheless good, kind human beings. I found their sheer ignorance frustrating, but there were still glimmers of hope there. I wondered if I would ever see Adam and his American friends again – I told him about my blog of course – but perhaps if I go up to Stratford next Saturday I will find them there. Who knows, maybe they will feed me another cheeseburger.