'God is gorgeous'

As usual in Cornmarket Street on Saturday morning, the buskers were joined by people with religion to promote. I’d already dodged the man who bows his head and says, ‘Good news,’ as he slithers up and tries to get you to take a slip of paper. (I don’t think he remembers the conversation we had a couple of years ago but I do.) Then I’d walked past pamphleteers of the Christian ‘God is Love’ stall and sidestepped the man in the middle of the melée with the Arabic ‘God is Love’ placard. I can read 'Allah' but since the only other Arabic words I can read are ‘halal’ and ‘Coca Cola’ I was glad the placard was also in English or I might have imagined his concern was for Syrian refugees rather than my soul. All this pushing spoils my bright sunny morning. My soul, such as it might be, is my problem and I get fed up with the constant attempts on it.

Next was this imam who is there most weeks and just smiles at people and waits for them to approach him. That’s more my sort of human. Sometimes he exchanges quiet words with the people in the Humanist gazebo but they must have been somewhere else today. I quite liked the novelty of ‘God is gorgeous’. And the sun shining through the umbrella.