On Monday my good friend, Dale and I got together for our usual catch-up. We met at a Belgian Beer Cafe but ended up in the Irish pub next to it. From Belgium to Ireland just like that.

Upon entering the pub we were met with a gentleman sitting at the bar who chose to greet us by pointing out that my clerical collar was a mockery. What unfolded was a long, convoluted conversation to find out why he thought that. It was enough to give anyone a headache. Straight, simple answers were not the order of the evening.

As it turns out he was an ardent Roman Catholic and since I wasn’t a priest in the Church of Rome, submitting to the papacy, my resemblance to a priest in the RCC was seen by him as a mockery… especially since my shirt was light blue rather than black. It didn’t seem to make much difference that I don’t want to look like a Roman Catholic priest and so don’t wear black or that the collar is an invention of the Protestant part of the Christian family and wasn’t adopted by Roman Catholic Priests until after Vatican II in the 60’s. In his view since it had been adopted by the RCC anyone else was now imitating and making a mockery of the priesthood.

The conversation went on for a very long time and covered a lot of ground. Towards the end the subject matter shifted and the mood became somewhat dark – he was fueled by alcohol. Eventually we decided to leave. I offered to pray for/with him but he wasn’t going to do such a thing with a heretic.

What the conversation drove home for me was that I need to drop my incessant need to win arguments and to convince people of my perspective. It doesn’t matter if someone in such circumstances respects me or not, agrees with me or not, or even if they like me or not. Needing to be the ‘winner’ in such a discussion doesn’t help anyone and it certainly doesn’t enable me to truly ‘see’ and ‘hear’ a person. Sometimes I should just back out of such a conversation before it goes too far down the rabbit hole.

In trying to ‘win’ we make ourselves and our own efforts the center of attention. If our focus in any human interaction shifts our sight towards ourselves as the focal point then we have lost sight of what truly matters. In those instances it would be better to remain silent until we’re able to really give to the other human being in whatever way that might look in the circumstances.