The Van Ride

The burly lady who met me at the gate helped me carry my bags to a white van emblazoned with the Remuda Ranch logo.  She told me that I could sleep or talk on the phone during our hour and a half ride to Wickenburg , whatever would make me most comfortable.  When I didn’t fall asleep or make a pick up my cell phone, she started to talk.  She talked about her grandchildren, the history of the landscape, and God’s role in the universe.  I wondered again what I had gotten myself into.  I am not a religious person and frankly, religious people freak me out.  When I find out that someone is religious it’s like finding out that he/she believes in aliens; I begin to doubt their mental stability.  Of course, there is a brand of religious that is more or less innocuous, the brand that while believing in God, still embraces evolution and sex before marriage.  Then there is the other brand, the scary brand, the brand that home schools its children and thinks Darwin is a phony.  If the burly woman’s belief system was at all representative of the belief system at the Ranch, then the religion I would be up against would not be light-hearted at all; it would be the religion of cults and secret societies.  It would be the kind of religion that takes you by storm and leaves you thinking that you can communicate with God and that the second-coming is upon us. 

Oh shit, I wondered, could this whole thing be a cult?  Are they going to attempt conversion?  Dear God.  I’m going to come out not only fat, but a Bible thumper to boot.