I knew better, there is no refuting that. But it was New Year's Eve, my inhibitions were drowning in numerous libations, and at the time, she was beautiful; in more ways I could comprehend; intelligent and attractive, vibrantly witty, and possessing a brutally-honest sense of humor that held few things in reverence. I was smitten, and, I like to believe, so was she. As my hometown Christmas vacation neared its end, and the departure of my flight back to the West coast snuck up like an uninvited guest, it was accepted (oh, how brutal and flippant is the nature of intimacy today) that our paradisal encounter was soon to expire. And admittedly, I had no intention of carrying on a relationship rooted in one too many beers and desires of personal validation.

The internet is a magical thing though, allowing and enabling connection between people that a mere fifteen years ago would likely not occur. And so it was, as e-mails multiplied, phone calls doubled, and within weeks a purchase from Travelocity had me returning to the midwest town I had once called home, no longer held in the grip of winter's vise.

But it was the nature of our communication that should have led to more reservations on my part, that should have revealed to me just how doomed our relationship was from the start. This woman, let's call her Angel for comedy's sake, was an aspiring atheist; aspiring because her beliefs in this regard were rooted more in anger towards God rather than in a belief that the evidence pointed against his existence. Myself, on the other hand, followed the tenets of Christ; or at least, tried to. Unsurprisingly, there was no end to the topics of debate between two people attempting to establish an intimate relationship while holding such contradictory convictions.

Not only did Angel refuse to understand the nature of my faith, and why it imbued such a deep, reverberating, passion within me, she disrespected it through ridicule and personal attacks. Our debates were fiery, long-winded and at times, fierce. Yet naively, I held on; hoping that she would eventually see the error of her ways; and though I didn't realize it at the time, this was exactly her desire for me. For four months we carried on this way, sharing words of compassion and revealing deep-seeded secrets reserved only for the ones most important in our lives. But under the surface, lurking like the proverbial elephant in the room, was the knowledge that the more our paths connected, the

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