Strengthening your faith

"Will this world SURVIVE?"

it says, on the front of the little flyer the lady's hand is holding out to me.
I am walking home from class with a big bag of groceries and I see a lady walking towards me on the sidewalk. Just a normal, friendly looking lady with a bit of an eccentric coat on. When she is within 2 metres range of me she magically conjures a flyer out of nothing and stands still next to me. I yank my iPod out of my ears and listen to her.

I do that. My mom calls me when she sees 'religious' people walking up to our front door. "Selmaaaa, you take them." I enjoy talking to them. Or letting them talk to me. I don't know why. I'm interested. Not in becoming a Mormon/Jehovas witness/Hare Krishna/whatever, but in why they are.
Just before this encounter with the lady in the street we had talked about the 'strengtening of your faith' in class. Public displays of faith are not primarily to prove something to others or to convince someone else of your beliefs. Their primary function is to strengthen you own faith. New (voluntary!) women converts to Islam need some time to come to terms with their own religiosity. Wearing hijab (a headscarf)in public for the first time needs conviction. It means showing the world that you are a muslim. You are muslim. You remind yourself of that.

The same can be said of those that go from door to door or dance and sing in the streets. We usually think they are doing it to gain converts. And at one point you might think: "Don't they get tired of it? Probably no one ever says, Yeah sure I'll become a Mormon tomorrow".
But that's not the primary point. The simple activity of going out and telling others what you believe makes you aware of your own religiosity. It strengthens your faith. You think about what you believe, about God and the world and about how you think you could make it a better place. Or at least about how it has made the world a better place for you. Why not listen to them, let them speak? As long as the message is about love and peace, why not?

She smiles at me, the lady with the eccentric coat. I take the flyer from her and say "Thank you".

"Don't worry', she says,'The front sounds a bit ominous, but it has a good ending"

And for her it does.