Conversations 6 (day 10)

Monsieur: So, you survived a plane crash. And now you want everyone to follow your god?

Jacob: Not my god. God.

Monsieur: Pardon, but there are so many and they all say the same things.

Jacob: There's only one god and Jesus was his son.

Monsieur shrugs.

Jacob: I knew from the moment I woke up in the hospital that he had a plan for me.

Monsieur: Which was to crash?

Jacob: You are a cynic. I was the only one of 187 passengers and crew to survive. When you experience something like that it changes you.

Monsieur: Of that I have no doubt. But it is your claim that your god had no plans for the other 186?

Jacob: What?

Monsieur: Or that god's plan for you necessitated the snuffing out of the lives of 186 other people in order for your plan to come to fruition? Or that the plan for them was to die so you would believe?

Jacob: No. I don't know why I was the one chosen to survive, but having survived I realized I could not waste my life.

Monsieur: I agree; so why do you?

Jacob: I'm not. I'm spreading God's word.

Monsieur: That there is a plan for every 187^th person to believe?

Jacob: What do you mean?

Monsieur: That is all you are saying. You keep talking about a plan, a purpose, yet you say you don't know why you survived. So you don't know the plan. And you aren't doing anything.

Jacob: I am doing something. I know there must be a plan and that's the message I'm sharing.

Monsieur: Pah. All religions claim there's a purpose, a reason, some more adamantly than others, but none of them will tell you what it is, so it does not matter. If you want a reason for your life you're the only one who can give it one. I agree that you have a powerful motive, more than most, for finding a reason—but you have not found it. You are just congratulating yourself.

Jacob: How dare you. You think I do this to brag?

Monsieur: I think you do it to ask forgiveness. Something you do not need to do.