Incongruity and Coexistence

The show had artifacts, books, statues, period photographs (mostly of historical figures) in gilt frames. There were buttons and portable writing desks, Victorian jewelry, and a book with a title perfect for the day: Original Revised Manual. There was also a lunch counter (pulled pork, ham and cheese, roast beef and cheese, brownies, soda) and guns. Next to the guns and the lunch table was another table where two nuns, in full-to-the-floor black nun habits and full-to-the-side nun wimples, were selling fruit breads, glazed fruit custard tarts, and coffee.
I wore my “Proud Owner of a Rescued Dog” t shirt, and several people started up conversations that began with, “I own a rescued dog,” and developed into stories about their dogs. In fact I re-met a woman who had talked with me two years ago about adopting a rescue (she found her heart dog through a different rescue group: he’s a 16 pound dog with pointed ears, a white bib and paw tips, and a wonderful disposition. They’re perfect for each other). She found her boyfriend online; they’re perfect for each other, also, she said – though she might not have described him as the perfect boyfriend before she met and talked with him, just as she never knew her perfect dog match before she saw him and knew they were meant to be together. She recognized me by the shirt.
I’ve seen the Coexist bumper sticker formed of a variety of religious symbols, and I’ve also see the Coexist bumper sticker with some of its letters formed from the crosshairs on a target finder and a skull and crossbones. But what I saw at the show was coexistence.
Life is wonderful, and beautiful, and wide, when we have enough space in it for nuns to sell their wares next to gun and artifact dealers selling their wares, and nobody is busy actively hating anyone else.