This evening, I went to the local Starbucks after work and met the Rev. Jill.

Rev. Jill is the minister of the lcoal Presbyterian church, and has invited me to speak there on a Sunday next month as part of their ecumenical outreach progeram. No, they're not trying to convert me (I think), but they have had a group of 25 people meeting regularly for some time now as an adult education class interested in world religions. After my talk, they will go to the Zen Center the following Sunday to attend one of our services.

We talked about our spiritual backgrounds and interests, and I was very impressed by the apparent lack of the usual Christian self-rightousness present (or absent as it were) in the Rev. Jill. I had feared that she wanted to meet me before my presentation to make sure that I wasn't going to upset her congregation with a too-radical view of spirituality, but in the course of our conversation, I don't think either one of us ever said anything with which the other didn't pretty much agree. It alos turned out that we had mutual friends in the Unitarian/Universalist community.

I drank a full vente vanilla latte, and could feel myself start to speak faster and jump to quicker conclusions as the caffeine kicked in. And although I was rude enough to have interrupted the good reverend a couple of times as she spoke, I was still attentive enough to hear that her group is pretty knowledgable and well read on Eastern religions, and that a talk about my own personal experience with Zen and on the effects and experience of Zen practice would be preferrable to a dry, intellectual lecture on Buddhism 101.

For those interested, the talk will be on Sunday, February 18 at 9.30 am:

Covenant Presbyterian Church
2461 Peachtree Rd.
Atlanta