But he doesn't look a thing like Jesus

I have a crush, but I didn't realize it until this morning when I was driving home from school. There's a man in my life that I think about all the time, and in whose company I feel insecure, silly, and like he would never even think to look my way (which in my world means I like him), but I would never ever date him.

Remember a few posts ago, where I wrote about working my first night shift at the AIDS hospice, and there was another volunteer there who prayed with the dying man? He's a big 'ole Christian, in divinity school, wants to go to Seminary, is crushingly unhip and unfashionable, and I don't even find him attractive, but what I do find attractive is his inner peace.

His smile warms me and makes me feel calm, and just being in his presence (I've worked with him several times now) soothes me in some unexplainable way. I trust him. I don't even know him, but I feel like I could tell him anything in the world, and he would never judge me, even on the inside. He seems so content. Maybe I'm confusing jealousy with attraction.

It's such a nice contrast to see someone so genuinely humbled and made whole by their faith, as opposed to what you normally see in the way of evangelicals, who seem only to be made more insecure, angry and hate-filled by their faith. I think maybe this is proof that God isn't real; how could he work so differently in different people? Were he real, and were these people's faiths legitimate (all of which would die to say that it is), why would it manifest itself so differently? Does it depend on how you come to it?

Maybe this man I'm sort of infatuated with has led a long, miserable, awful life and only coming to faith made it bearable for him. Maybe his radiating of peace and tranquility is all an act, and he hates his sexuality, and that's what guided him towards the seminary, so that he could use that as a buffer to not have to live it.

I don't know. All I know is that I've started working every Tuesday night because that's the night that he works, and I always get excited about seeing him.