I do a religious workbook with a group of close friends. We meet every couple of weeks and discuss.
In the center of each workbook page is the stuff I like: The Who and the What and the Where and the When. It gives you the Hebrew for certain words and all the derivations and slightly different meanings a translated word might have. It gives you footnotes so if you can look up every little bit up in the Bible for yourself.
I like that. Lots of times? I do look it up. Not that I don’t trust the book, but… Well, I just like to spot check. In my suspicious mind it’s just one of those steps you take in a religious group so as not to end up drinking the Kool-Aid.
In the side column of our workbook, there are little questions about your personal affairs. Lots of questions that could be straight out of Bible School nursery rhymes. I don’t like those. I read them sometimes, but I mostly refuse to check the “YES!” box under “Do you believe that: Jesus Loves You, and This You Know, for the Bible Tells You so?”
Usually I get away with that sort of thing because I get to hide behind the Who and the What and the Where questions when its my time to talk in our group.
Last week, my friend kind of nailed me to the wall with the observation that I never check those boxes. And just FYI for those of you not acquainted with someone who believes they are arguing to save your soul? There is no response you can have besides offering them Kool-Aid that will make it OK that you don’t really believe that God Loves You. Believe me. I tried. Turns out? If you think you are not worthy for saving? That is you being narcissistic that you think your Bad is worse than God’s Good.
In my mind, I guess I have this idea that the person who checks “Yes!” is the blonde, blue eyed, halo wearing Christian who is already doing the right thing. They are checking “Yes!” on their way out the door to volunteer in the soup kitchen for orphans.
I just felt like a hypocrite, because if I check that “Yes!” box? God is still going to find me next weekend, drinking a beer in my popped elastic underwear and surfing various websites that show cottage cheese dimples on Britney Spears’ butt.
And the Big! Fear! I eventually got down to – the reason I couldn’t ever check that box? Is not because I don’t believe in God. I believe in God and I believe that if He says, ’say you love Me and you will get into Heaven’ then you will be going if you do the beliving. I believe all that shit. What I am scared about is that I will say I believe, and God (being God) will not welsh on his side of the agreement. And then? When I’m drinking beer in my underwear? God will look down and see my secret, horrible soul, and he will be disappointed. He will say to himself, “well, I gotta let her in because I agreed to do it. But that sucks.”
So this is me, thinking I’m such a raw deal that my imagery of the Deity of my choice is a someone who doesn’t really want me. Someone who would do it because they were obligated. Maybe even dragging their divine Birkenstocks a little, because… Well, you know. Sucks to accept me.
And I am so pissed that the foundation of my understanding of myself is that I am A BAD KID. That is what I think when I think of myself. And the rest is just smoke and diversion so no one will notice, “Hey! You’re not all that! In fact, on closer inspection? YOU ARE A BAD KID!”
So I guess it is good that I did not check the box. I think that most of my life is really trying to look like the blonde, blue eyed, halo wearing kid, and I think that for me, trying to be that is running away from my BAD! KID! self.
The really spooky thing is that when I have those moments of clarity? Where I can really see the inside of myself? The world changes a little. I know that you are probably now watching nervously for the Crazy Train to arrive at the station so I can get on, give you kisses goodbye, and leave for NuttyTown about now. And I guess that is OK.
I saw on Oprah last week that she was interviewing the author Cormac McCarthy. He met her in this Think Tank** in New Mexico. This guy was super cool in the sense that he (at least to me) seemed only interested in following his dream to write. He would not give an interview for $2000 when he was dirt poor. And while that seems kind of crazy, I was amazed at his single minded interest in only valuing the work and not chasing the peripheral pain-in-the-ass accoutrement that goes with the work.
During the interview, McCarthy talked about how he had once been so poor he had run out of toothpaste. When he went down to the mailbox he found a trial tube of toothpaste waiting for him. When the Opster raised her eyebrows, McCarthy shrugged and said something to the effect of, “things like that happen to me”.***
There are moments in my life, when I really start listening to myself, and it is like the whole world becomes magic. Weird stuff starts happening like you run out of toothpaste and you just know some strange shit is going to happen and toothpaste is going to make its way to you.
But it only happens for me when I let go of the fear and just accept that I am BAD KID, and being BAD KID is better than trying to be NOT BAD KID. Even if it is ugly, trying to really be just who I am makes the world magic. In the uber-corny sense as well as in the way that if you need $10, a ten dollar bill falls out of the sky into your lap. Or if someone else needs ten dollars, you find that you have it for them.
And I always fuck it up. Because it is scary to live a charmed life. It makes no sense. It is not logical. It is not the Who or the What or the Where or the When. To believe toothpaste will appear is essentially madness. ****
And so I let it go. Because knowing a hard life is less scary than trusting a crazy charmed life.
I get scared and instead I just want to tell you the peripheral pain-in-the-ass accoutrement that seems to take over my whole waking mind if I am not careful. Like that, as soooo many of you said (and yet I really, really didn’t want to believe) there is now always poop! or the fear! of! poop! in the tub. Because I guess of all the things I’d like to hide in my life, it is very, very hard for me to be ashamed of poop. At least at this juncture.
So I dunno where I was going with this exactly, but I had to get it out there. Does anyone know what I’m talking about? Beuller? Or am I just making an ass out of myself again? I re-read and I cringe. Magic? Ten dollar bills? I sound like the illicit love child of a tampax commercial and a religious PSA. Gah.
**Can you imagine? Just a little social club for people to think their own thoughts and bullshit around, drink coffee and come up with cool shit? So much awesome! My brain is overloaded with the awesome.
*** My mother is like this. One day I was home from boarding school and my plane was delayed for weather. She said, “I wish I had the day off to spend with you” and I watched the phone ring over the course of 20 minutes. She had all seven clients cancel back-to-back. I guess some people would say it was because of the snow, but she said that to me, and the phone rang at the end of her sentence and didn’t stop ringing until her entire schedule was cleared. And like McCarthy, she wasn’t surprised at all.
**** Does this happen for everyone? You get in that groove where things just work out and all the day-to-day craziness takes a second seat? And then really weird stuff happens and its good, but whoa! Not based in logic?
16 Responses to “Transparency”
Wow… Anne. I feel like I am in that groove. While technically, really crappy stuff has come down the pike recently, I cannot ignore what DIDN’T happen. I cannot ignore that this year we happen to have health insurance with an “out-of-pocket” expenditure of $3,ooo for an individual, and the girlie has exceeded that by about 110,000.oo give or take, and this time Big Insurance gets to suck it up.
Then again, the youngest who had NOT pooped in the tub at the time of your Poop Post? Yeah… she pooped.
And as far as the churchy stuff goes…. I like the idea of church and God being the Hospital and the Uber-surgeon. Here to fix what’s ailing ya, and healthy (perfect) people need not apply.
Good luck in making sense of THAT comment!
Lovely post.
Seriously.
Thank you for sharing.
However you see the magic and wherever you believe it comes from, that you recognize it in the first place is a beautiful thing; with all the day-to-day bathtub poop (and other poop!), I think a lot of people wouldn’t recognize magic if it walked up and smacked them upside the head. Great post … top to bottom.
Made. My. Day.
Thanks so much!
Do you want to toss some of that luck over to me? Because I could use finding some money right now, with the rent late and the fridge empty and all that good stuff…
I can totally understand the whole BAD KID thing – you get the idea that you are this stereotype and that’s IT and it’s hard to think of yourself outside of the box you stuck yourself in. We’re so much harder on ourselves.
Anne,
Based on my life experience, I consider a coincidence to be nothing more than a miracle where God prefers to remain anonymous.
And, not being perfect does not make you BAD KID, just human.
Thanks for a lovely, inspiring post
yeah. I can totally identify with this. *hugs*
Ahhhh!!! I’m a “Kool-Aid mom” according to wikipedia.
Yes, the ten dollar bill just floats right in there when you’re not paying attention, and it always does. How does that happen?
PS You don’t sound a bit loony and I totally get it. Really. Promise. I’d even wear a cross-my-heart bra for ya!
…and yet again with the tubpoop tonight. I think my mojo is wearing thin.
Anne, you are awesome. This is one of my favorite posts that you have ever written. I *do* believe in this magic of which you speak. It’s so very hard to let go of the fear and the BAD KID!, and just “be,” but sometimes, it’s the very thing we need to do to feel at home. *hug*
I’m way too depressed to believe in the magic right now, and the only reason I didn’t answer this on the weekend was because of my sketchy connection, but I totally hear you on the box-checking, A very Christian friend of mine once told me the same kind of story, and the only difference is that now she passes out the papers with the boxes on them, and has a T-shirt with the checked box on the front, and I’m more like, I don’t really feel like talking about any of my boxes with other people, thanks, mostly especially if their enthusiasm and certainty exceeds mine, because that always makes me feel rather intimidated and sometimes more depressed. Privacy equals shame to some of them, and it goes downhill from there. But hey! None of this means that I’m not glad your mojo’s working, and I really am.
Wow! We were out of town at a wedding, so I’ve been offline and suffering DTs for a few days.
Check boxes for God: Okay, so you’re the All Powerful, and you’re wanting to connect with your peeps, and the only thing you can think of is a 1st-grade “Check Yes or No” list? Doubtful. These things are written by well-meaning but short-sighted people. I mean, seriously, they put the ENTIRE EMPHASIS on end results.
All I know is that one too many of these mfing checklists entered my life in college (with a young evangelist bearing the enthusiasm and scrutiny of a government census agent) and made me question (after throwing them both out of my door room) why I ever believed any of this.
Then I read “Dakota” by Kathleen Norris while doing research on her poetry and life. It’s a brilliant and captivating collection of essays- some religious, some on family, some on community- that rejects checklist thinking and offers more toothpaste mysticism.
Your friend, The Hall Monitor, needs to take an introspection break and figure out why your blank checkboxes bother her.
Religious people meet and know God in different ways- so what if you don’t want to see your Divine as an SAT grader.
And, between you and me, some of those confident yes-checkers maybe shouldn’t be so confident.
Stick to the toothpaste moments- they’re far more beautiful than any checkbox.
I’m the bad kid too. If I try to forget, my mother reminds.
Lovely post, Anne!
Ohhhh! A new term “Toothpaste Mysticism” I LIKE it… it FITS!
My most favourite story of all time about getting what you need, came from an elderly man at church, who told us to be careful what we ask for. He wanted to finish a painting and knew that to get the perfect finish he needed a feather, he walked and walked around his garden looking for a feather and was disheartened not to find one, he prayed and explained that he really needed a feather to complete his painting and asked that he be able to find one. AS he said Amen, a pigeon flew in front of him, hit a tree and dropped dead with a broken neck right there at his feet. He thought that was a bit extreme of God but did finish his painting with splendid feather effects and all. The End.