A priest tries to walk into a bar

I met a man this past Sunday

while I was pouring beer.

He said he used to be a priest

and he asked me if

I believed him.

I asked him

if there was a reason

I shouldn’t believe

him.

He told me

there was always a reason

not to believe,

but there wasn’t always a

reason to believe.

I said

that’s fair

and I asked him

what sort of reason

I should have to believe him.

He said to me,

without irony,

he wasn’t any good at believing. 

He told me

being good at believing

was important

in being a priest.

I laughed

and he told me

he wasn’t kidding.

I asked him if 

being good was important

and he told me

he didn’t think

being good was all that important in much.

I asked him

what he meant:

shouldn’t a man of god

be someone good?

He told me

lots of people talk to god

and lots of people aren’t good.

I asked him

why being good at believing

was more important

than being good.

He told me

if he believed, maybe

anything could be possible,

just being good wasn’t enough.

I asked him 

what happened when

a bad person,

good at believing, 

didn’t want

to be good;

what if they wanted to be bad;

what if they wanted everything

being good at believing gave them,

and wanted to be the worst person they could be;

would that make them

a former priest,

I asked.

He wasn’t very happy with me.

He asked me

who I thought I was,

who I was trying to be.

He asked me

what kind of priest I thought I would make.

I laughed in his face

and told him

I couldn’t serve him and

he would need to leave my bar.

He told me

he could tell

I believed

and
I told him

he could believe whatever 

he wanted

somewhere else.

I turned around

and laughed;

I’d never never hard that one,

the one about a priest not getting into a bar.