Maybe I should have seen it coming when John the Baptist and I decided to move in together.

I mean, he’s Baptist. He knows the Bible better than me. He tells me the story of Job from heart.
When I tell him I disagree with some of God’s decisions, he’s outraged and tells me God’s ways are far beyond our understanding.

I tell him I never know what it means when he says Jesus is perfect. He tells me I just have to accept it.

And I knew all this would be coming when we moved in together. I knew when it came to religion, our conversations would be like a carrot trying to communicate with a giraffe. I knew we’d disagree about what it means — if it means anything anymore — to be saved in an ultimate way.

What I didn’t know was the level of fun we’d have. I didn’t realize that arguing with a person who disagrees with some of your most deeply held convictions could involve such levity.

You wouldn’t think that having a friend who feels you might be going to Hell — when for you, Hell is an experience and not a place — could leave you both smiling at the end of the conversation.

But it does.

As John keeps trying to point me back to the God of the Bible and the afterlife, and I keep trying to point him to the God of the sky and today, we often shake our heads at the density of the other.

And we laugh.

And then he talks about the sun and I talk about Creation.

And we help each other, too.

When I realized my mistake in last week’s column concerning the date of Ash Wednesday, he was doubled over laughing, though when he saw I wasn’t smiling, pointed out the fact that it was just a date.

When we were both feeling tense after being disturbed at night by unexpected visitors, we sat in silence and, with St. Francis, asked God for peace.

During a conversation about churches and laws, he split open my mind with a question that left me silent: Aren’t you a church?

A few days later, he split open my mind again after I told him I just didn’t understand another piece of his theology.

“Well you don’t understand the universe, either, but you accept that, don’t you?” he asked.

If you read the news, you wouldn’t think somebody who calls himself a fundamentalist and somebody who doesn’t call himself a fundamentalist would have anything to talk about when it comes to religion.

Turns out we do. Surprisingly, heaven, hell and religious convictions don’t really get in the way of friendship.

Joe Orso can be reached at jorso@lacrossetribune.com.

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