to do lsd or to encounter - this is the question

“I wish you would try LSD.” I was lost in the wake of the words falling like pins off the tongue of my friend. One by one they had dropped – unheard. Suddenly, as the cumulative falling turned to a cascade, an unheard pin drop became a violently loud sound demanding response. She retreated from her shyly voiced hope, “But I know you never would.” My mind flew to many places. I remembered who I had always been. I remembered my negative morals, “I will never smoke. I will never drink. I will never have sex outside of marriage.” I remembered where these came from: my dad. More specifically, they came from the placard he placed on our door, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” More specifically yet, they came from the oft repeated phrase, “We don’t do that, we are Christians.” I realized that my old identity was buried deep within the bounds of a sturdy wall between us and them. More than the words my friend so cautiously spilled on the floor between us, I was lost in the wake of that identity. I seriously stumbled over the question, would I do LSD? Why? Why not? As I worked to catch my balance on the issue, I met the meat of the interaction, knowing the point at hand was not whether I would do LSD but whether I would abandon old scripts in the name of encountering my friend.
Sometimes my gratitude for eternity encasing itself in a single tense moment is beyond measure. I had time to collect and reach out to her, “Hmm. I’m wondering why you are inviting me to this?” This intentional turn opened up dialogue and meeting as she faithfully recalled our greatest story. Late one night, after I read Buber the first time, we found ourselves in the most exquisite encounter. “It’s like that all the time when you’re on LSD – you feel this weird connection. It reminds me a lot of all that Buber stuff you talk about.” There is the dilemma: I don’t know why I won’t do LSD, and I do want encounter. Then, suddenly, I do know why I won’t do LSD: all the tumultuously transformational words that accompany encounter – mutuality, reciprocity, understanding, and care.