The first moment of utter perplexity arrived when I clambered aboard a car carrier with Filipino crew, Bulgarian officers. I was set up in the ship's office, selling phone cards to whoever stopped by. At some point, a Filipino seafarer came in, sat down next to me and, without preamble asked: "Madam, what religion are you?"
As I've said before, I very rarely talk about religion aboard ships, and when I do it's usually as part of a long, serious conversation. Slightly taken aback by his bluntness, I braced myself for the much hated task of describing the Episcopal Church to someone whose command of the English language was less than excellent. "Anglican...Church of England," I replied.
He looked highly displeased. "Oh," he grunted. "I am Roman Catholic." As though that explained everything.
"I see," I said. "Well, there are many similarities between the two...." While I abhor it when people try to equate the Anglican Communion and the Church of Rome, it is, imho, fair to say that Anglicans have more in common with Catholics than do, say, Baptists. Evidently, the Very Catholic seafarer was not of the same mind.
"No!" He replied, aghast. "You do not recognize the authority of the Pope!" I conceded that this was true. We sat in silence for a while. After a while, he seemed to have collected his thoughts enough to move on to the next absurdly bold question: "Who is your God?" That was just about the last thing I expected him to say, and my confusion must have been quite apparent, because he followed his first question with another, highly dubious one: "You don't believe in...Jesus Christ?"
I told him yes, I did. He looked up at me with great surprise. "And do you also believe in...God the Father?" Once again, I replied in the affirmative. At this point, he was beginning to look truly scandalized. "But you do not also believe in the Holy Spirit!?" It was almost a plea. It was as though his worldview couldn't expand enough to include the reality that there might be non-Catholic Christians in the world. As gently as I could (considering that I was walking a very fine line between bursting out laughing and being completely enraged at the Catholic Church's ability to brainwash its members), I told him that yes, Anglicans do indeed believe in all three persons of the Trinity. At this most disheartening news, he plunged back into contemplation.
Just when I was getting really scared that he was going to bust out with some ridiculously complex theological question about Trinitarian doctrine, he changed tactics. With mingled desperation and smugness, he asked: "But you don't pray the rosary? You don't pray to the Holy Mother?" I scrambled mentally to try to arrive at an answer that would represent the amazingly wide spectrum of Anglican thought on this issue without being too confusing. Sadly for the state of Anglican-Catholic dialogue, I was too slow. Taking my silence for an admission of defeat he said, triumphantly, "I thought so!"
Later, as he was escorting me back to the gangway deck in the elevator, he asked, very patronizingly: "And what do you want to be when you grow up?"
What was I to say? "A priest," I told him.
You should have seen the look on his face. "But....how can you? You are only sixteen, and besides - you are a woman!"
Well-spotted, Mr. Seafarer, well-spotted.
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Incredibly bizarre encounter number 2 arrived on my second car ship of the day. There I was in the crew's mess, making small talk with a group of Filipino engineers, and being grateful that the visit was proceeding quite normally. I was grateful too soon. During a lull in the conversation, an earnest looking man in his mid-thirties looked up at me and said (I kid you not): "Ma'am? Maybe you would like to marry me?"
I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was at least partially joking, but still! Could he have picked a more awkward question to ask? Needless to say, I turned him down with what I hoped was the right mixture of humor and seriousness. Apparently my tactic failed, because next thing I knew his comrade had proposed to me as well. Again, I refused the offer, now more bewildered than ever.
"So ma'am," the rejected would-be husband said, "You have boyfriend?" I responded enthusiastically in the affirmative, hoping that the new direction of conversation would lend itself better to normality. Alas, no. "How many?" he asked.
What!? "Uh...one?"
"But ma'am!" he replied, looking throughly disappointed. "I thought Americans were supposed to be so liberated!"
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The third and (for the sake of keeping this blog post from getting totally out of control) final moment of true conversational strangeness came from yet another Filipino man, who was strangely fascinated by American racial dynamics. I had told him that I came from Wisconsin and he, having located it on a map, had determined that it was far enough away from any major port cities to be totally rural. He was, therefore, quite fascinated by me. "So, where you live, there are no black people, right?" Without giving me time to respond he said, wistfully, "That must be nice..."
I honestly had no idea what to say to him, other than to correct the obvious mistake and tell him that there are actually many African-Americans living in my home state. I tried to redirect his comment and tell him that Wisconsin is indeed a nice place, because of, not in spite of its racial diversity, but I doubt I communicated the sentiment very well. It was a pretty frightening reminder of how far we still have to go...
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I think I'm going to stop calling myself a port chaplain and start referring to myself as a myth-buster instead. First hard-core Catholics, then ultra-radical polygamists, and finally racists. Whatever will be next?
My goodness I love your life!
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