Co-existence

Is it rude and unthoughtful to say "Merry Christmas" to someone you barely know? What if they don't celebrate Christmas and don't even want to hear the words?

At work, I share an office with a Jehovah Witness and of course she has to sit and listen to all this jibberish, I wonder if she minds? Does she just tune it out, or does each and every comment anguish her. I can relate to her to a certain degree, coming from a gay point of view I guess. When I hear a bunch of straight people talking about very straight things, I tend to clam up and hope that the conversation will quickly pass. At time, I'll just ignore it altogether and not even notice. Its even worse though when I'm in a situation where people don't know of my orientation and they just assume that I should know of these things of which they speak. When confronted with a question I am often at a loss. My co-worker often doesn't speak up and proudly say, "well, my religion doesn't believe in that, we actually believe this..." because she's a minority, she's out-numbered.

Knowing where she's coming from, I wouldn't actually mind being informed about how her religion actually works. I don't want to convert, but I'm not saying that I'm closed off about the topic. Is religion such a "hot" topic that can't be discussed that we have to go about this tip-toeing all day at work? Its a double whammy isn't it?

Today, I just finished my Religion course which I so fondly enjoy. I have learned that living in the pluralistic society that we're in, its okay to converse about religion openly. Bring about the juicy topics, what's the harm in it? Someone might actually learn about something?

I remember a few years ago, I had a jewish landlady occupying the top floor of my suite, on Christmas day I went to her door and gave her a gift. She was a little taken back, it didn't even occur to me what I had done. However, a few hours later, she came a knockin' and gave me a gift as well. I reckon it was a re-gift from one of her students (as she's a teacher), but it was quite kind of her to do so. Think of what she had done though. She left her religion under the carpet and for a quick moment assimilated into mine.

Or, I could be absolutley wrong! She may just forget about the whole religious connotations that Christmas brings along and has just assimilated into the cultural aspect of Christmas.

Geez, we can be so ethnocentric sometimes eh? I remember when I was in India I was talking to an Indian man and mentioned Christmas. He asked me when that was I was shocked that he didn't even know when Christmas was, I figured that at least he'd know that it was at the end of December. With that being said... does anyone know when Depavali is celebrated, or when Hannukah is, or when the Ramadan starts? Exactly.

So should we expect people to reverse these thoughts and attitudes? Well, I believe that in Canada we should all be able co-exist. With respect. I said Merry Christmas to this girl I used to work at Telus with the other day and she said, "yes... uh... you too." I know that she's a Sikh, but again I completely forgot. So was I being disrespectful?