2001-06-11

One time, of the few rare times in my very early childhood I was taken to church, I saw god. I don’t know if it was actually god, but I that is what I told my family. I remember looking at stained glass, marveling at the light. I do not recall seeing god, but according to people I told, I was pretty adamant about having seen god.

My uncle, who’d run away from home at 13 to go to Woodstock, challenged me to describe what god looked like. My reply was that “He looked like a King, silly.” That totally cracked everyone up in the way adults laugh at children when children say things that surpass what adults believe children to be capable of thinking.

My non-baptized relationship with religion has always been kind of fuzzy. I feel kind of ambiguous towards religion and would completely not care if it weren’t for overly symbolic events that continually happen to me. My parents raised my sisters and I with general values of respect and kindness that nearly all religions have in common, although our values were simply derived from their Christian backgrounds. My older sister and I once handed out palms in matching dresses, size 4T for me a 6 for her, and that was the most extensive religious involvement we’ve ever had. She is baptized.

Before I was born, my mother was very sick and hospitalized with pneumonia. I was conceived during the bed rest after she was finally released from the hospital. One of my aunts felt I must be an angel to have come into the world right after my mother was at risk of leaving the world. This is the first story I know of regarding my life and religion.

Then I saw god. After that, when we stopped going to church and there was little religion in my life beyond the nativity scene we set up on top of the television each Christmas. When I was about 13 or so, I would go with Marie and family to Saturday night service at a Catholic church. I thought that everyone must be thinking that I was a sinner when I could not go up for Communion. After certain circumstances in my life, I stopped going to church and no longer believed in god. Simply, I did not think the cruelty of the world would exist if god did.

I didn’t contemplate god any more, I didn’t think either way. I called myself a heathen, atheistic, agnostic, devil’s spawn, and just about anything to say I was on the side of the non-devoted. But I was interested in religion; I wanted to know more and thought about taking religion classes but realized I would have a disadvantage. Most people taking religion classes already knew about the subject matter they were studying, I knew very little. I was too vain about my GPA to take this risk.

When Jesse and I went to church one Christmas Eve, we wanted to leave after the choir had finished, before the service began. We didn’t like the atmosphere with families getting together like it was a summer barbeque not a religious gathering. We left the church under the eyes of the priests who wished well although we were clearly travellin in the opposite direction of traffic. The calm winter night changed as we walked down the small sloping street back to his house. A sub-zero wind-chill factor gust froze us in our steps, making us pause during our flee from mass that was nto what we'd expected.

After my physics friend returned from Spain, she brought me a tiny glow-in-the-dark Virgin Mary. My little statue sat on my bedside table, glowing softly each night as I nodded to sleep. I took her with me to Ireland as the one non-necessary item in my bags. When I was sitting in a park reading my first week in Ireland, I took my little Virgin Mary out of my bag and was holding her in my hand. It was only when I took her out of my bag that my bag was quietly stolen from right next to me. Everything was quickly recovered, and the travelers’ checks I'd lost were replaced in under 15 hours. But, for those few panicked minutes between loosing my bag and having it returned, I only had my wallet, cell phone and Virgin Mary.

Shortly after, my father sent me his St. Christopher’s medal from his days back in late 60’s San Francisco. I wore this around my neck every day and felt comforted. I just thought that so many million people couldn’t be completely wrong. Wearing a medal that my father wore for symbolic reasons while he lived on his own in SF seemed comforting. I felt protected, or liked the idea that something was protecting me.

The evening my family’s house burned down, I wanted to go to the church up the street from the Martin's. I wanted to see the Virgin Mary on the side of the church; I had this insistent need I can’t explain since that night lacked any type of clear thinking. I knew I wanted to go. I did not go, however, but I stood outside and looked towards the spire. It calmed me, mildly, but it calmed me.

This past Easter, I went to church again because Angel was interested in going and I only go with other people. I need someone to help guide me through the stand, kneel, shake hands parts of the service. I changed the small Celtic symbol for strength I’d been wearing for most of the 2 years since I returned from Ireland to my St. Christopher’s medal which managed to survive the fire. I haven’t taken it off since.

The day after, still wearing my medal again, we finally found an apartment. Within weeks, I finally got my job. In general, my life seemed to be heading in the right direction. Although I don’t think the medal made these things occur, there is an unexplainable coincidence.

And now we have a 18 inch statue of the Virgin Mary sent to Angel by his mother for the “alter” we have in the wall of our hallway below the doorbell box, which many have said looks like a confessional. I am not sure how I feel about her, always obvious in my home. I said it was okay to put her out there, but now she is looking down when I pass naked coming out of the shower, when I walk to the kitchen for a cigarette, when bursts of anger are raging through me. She sits and looks, and it always there. Maybe because she is the only decoration we have in the house now.

She is always there, always solemn. I do not know what I think about her. But if an asteroid hits the house next door, I’m certain I’ll be happy she’s there.