I am no less a propagandist than you. I understand the impulse to
spend hours at a sleepy train station for the chance to spread your
gospel to a handful of indifferent passers-by. I too have good news and
bad news to share. I too think myself wiser than, more enlightened than.
I too seek to bend the world to my will. Where we differ, I fear, is that
you don’t know this work does more for us than for others: perhaps
that is why you don’t laugh at my jokes, why you are dressed not as one
who knows the secrets of God—riotously joyful, I would imagine—
but as one who wants humanity to believe you know the secrets of God.
My friends, have you ever wondered what would happen if all were to
convert to our cause? I, atheist poet saving the climate, you, believers
saving souls: how bored we would soon grow! Not far from this station,
the Pacific’s waters gleam, beautifully, miraculously indifferent to our
exhortations. As we chat, wars rage on, the saved and unsaved alike die
as they always have, always will. Let us be careful with our powers,
my friends. This is a serious business we are in. So very serious.
