June 2007

I participated in a service at my church this evening. The name of the service series is “CRAVE” and it is meant to encourage meditation and prayer about the notion of craving faith, hope and love as a human in God’s world. The minister is trying something new, and something good, I believe. Through some songs, bible readings, and monologues, the service explored the ways in which human relationships can sometimes let us down, but, ultimately, that God can be trusted.

This thinking is very much in line with my increasingly intense desire to explore the meaning, and peril, of narrative in day-to-day life. My own piece in the service was a song I had written years ago about my relationship with my father always feeling unrequited and distant. It’s not unique to me, and historically it has resonated with audiences pretty widely.

But, as an artist at this point in time, I’m losing interest in the narrative except in the most exacting way. That is, I am less interested in twisting a narrative to make a point than in simply telling things as they are, and letting the point be a more organic thing. I think, to a certain extent, I achieved part of that with my song. But, if I had written it more recently, I would have been a bit less preachy and stuck to the simplicity of people’s actions or to a character’s true experience as do my two idols: Tom Waits and Randy Newman. I’m getting better at seeing when I write crap. As a result, and writing songs is harder than it used to be.

Which gets to the part of the service that truly derailed me. It was a film intended to be inspirational from a “new church” kind of preacher named Rob Bell. Apparently, Mr. Bell distributes these video sermons on the Web at nooma.com. Mr. Bell was walking us through a story of taking a walk with his baby son in the rain, and drawing an analogy to when we walk through hard times with God.

This all sounds very nice, but, I had some real issues with both the form of this sermon AND with the nature of the message, and the messenger. I felt kind of bad that I was put off by it because folks were all inspired and crying and stuff, and I was just sitting there wishing my husband was next to me so I could nudge him and suppress laughter at how horrified I know he would have been as well.

First for the form issue. The guy looked like some wan artist from Greenpoint, Brooklyn — the kind of guy that squatted in the early 90s in a DUMBO loft with his painter girlfriend that waited tables while he wrote poetry and read Nietzche.

Okay — I had to strip THAT narrative from my experience of this piece, I guess. I tried. But then, I was put off by the style of it — he was walking into the camera which was backing up with his every step as he walked through I’m sure what was a carefully-chosen industrial area selected for its ultra-hip, countercultural appeal. He had the Ashley Banfield glasses, the skinny body, the — ART-SCHOOL-BLACK-TURTLENECK!!

I felt like I was watching Benny Hinn in a YouTube wrapper.

THERE IT GOES AGAIN!! MY INNER NARRATIVE THAT REACTS TO BAD ART, AND STEREOTYPES THE ARTIST!! Okay, I’m trying to calm down and open up again. Breathe…breathe.

The story begins. He voices over a dramatization about him and his son. It was like the ones on CourtTV where the actors kind of resemble the real people, and you’re not supposed to notice that they are different. He had his baby son in a backpack, and was beginning a walk with him in the woods. He described the moment as one of those perfect moments you’d like to freeze. Okay, I can get that. I’m trying, I’m really trying.

BLACK TURTLENECK!!! MYTHOLOGY-OF-ME-GUY!!!

Calm down, calm down…

The frozen perfect moment is invaded by a drop of rain, and he knows that he and his son have now found themselve in the woods with the rain beginning. He puts the hood on his son (remember…the son is on his back), and, unbeknownst to him, the hood falls off!

Okay, I’m already squirming in my seat. I’m thinking, “Only a GUY would think that you could put a hood on a baby, and keep him exposed on your back, and it would be okay!” Then, I immediately realize, my husband would never do that. He’d do what I would do — he’d take the baby in his arms and run as fast as possible to shelter.

Not this guy. It takes a while for him to realize that the kid is exposed. You know how he realizes? The kid’s crying escalates to a scream. Only at that point does he take the kid in his arms and cover him. He describes this as though he’s saving the kid’s life, a dramatic gesture of epic proportions.

MY GOD!! What a DUFUS!!! It’s got to get that BAD for him to know that the kid, hood or not, is more exposed than is appropriate? And then he thinks he’s doing something heroic?

It gets better. He, of course, winds up comparing this to how God carries us through rough times, and how rough times are an opportunity for us to really connect with God and his ability to carry us when we are weak.

This is a nice message, and if the whole narcissistic style of the video had not grossed me out at this point, I may have gotten it. But, I was really put off by his comparison of himself to God in the narrative. What’s more, I don’t think God would not be looking at me while I was on his back screaming.

I don’t scream to God to get God’s attention. I scream to God to get my own attention, to realize my own smallness, to remind me of how powerful he is, and how his love is accessible if we get out of our own ways. God does not need to be tapped on the shoulder, or screamed at, to know that I am in pain.

Here’s the icing on the cake: He imagines a narrative where his son is in therapy, and confronts his father about the trauma of letting him get wet in the woods. His answer to the son? HE WOULD NOT HAVE TRADED THE OPPORTUNITY FOR ANYTHING IN THE WORLD!! From start to finish, this guy’s experience of this entire thing is so self-centered, so utterly navel-gazing, that he sloughs off the trauma to the kid because, doesn’t the kid realize, his father had a peak experience comparing himself to God, so, shut up already?

I was just grossed out, and the rest of the room was moved. It was one of those moments when I feel like I’m in a different species. I feel, many times, that I have to not notice things in order to get to the space where others are. But, I can’t take sermons posing as art, and Web-based commercials posing as a sermon.

Our minister knows how to give a sermon without making himself the hero of the story. It takes a lot of humility to tell a story and make yourself the fool. It takes wisdom, and he has that wisdom. This guy, on the other hand, came across as a total jackass.

To everyone in the room tonight that enjoyed the film, my apologies. I’m not making fun of you, I’m just sad to see God packaged so poorly when the personal experiences I’ve heard from all of you are more inspiring than Mr. Turtleneck and his personal mythologies. You guys are real, and I love you.

In New York, my husband and I had a good friend named Wayne. Wayne was, at the time (10 years ago), 68-years old and lived on the street. He made a living by going into delis and asking them if they needed delivery help. With the few dollars he made for the day, Wayne would scrape together enough money to rent a room at his favorite flop house on the Lower East Side.

Wayne always wore a shirt and tie. He had the “old man pants line,” hiked up almost midway between his chest and navel. His hair was always combed, and he took pride in not being a beggar. At one point, I tried to help him to get social services help, but he had no idea what his Social Security number was, and he didn’t want to live in a shelter (a pre-requisite in NYC for getting help). So, Wayne kept on. After we moved to Virginia, he wrote to us a few times. The last time we heard, he had sustained a head injury after being mugged. That injury was sufficient enough to get him in the “system,” and get him permanent housing. What a country!
But, my reason for writing about Wayne is that he had this marvelous view of life. Everytime something happened in someone’s life that seemed eventful, fortunate or unfortunate, Wayne would say, “Could be good, could be bad.” He wasn’t being pessimistic. Rather, Wayne knew what it was to invest too much in false promises and dashed hopes. He also had known way too much pain to believe that painful events, on their face, were bad. So, when a fortunate thing happened (like, he got a longer term gig at the deli), he wouldn’t kiss the ground and thank God. Rather, he would acknowledge his good fortune, but also acknowledge that sometimes gifts can indeed by curses; that pleasure can sometimes be the precursor to pain.

Wayne was a trip.

So, my husband and I seem to have been granted a blessing right now. Betwixt and between residences, we own a house in another town and can’t sell it, so live in an apartment in Charlottesville. Turns out, many academics are usually betwixt and between when it comes to housing — that is, unless both get a tenure-track position in the same geographic area. So it has turned out for a post-doc in my husband’s lab. He needs to move his family to Taiwan where his wife has obtained a tenure-track position. He is willing to rent his house to us, and give us time to be able to sell ours so we can buy it.

We went to see the house last night, and it’s truly wonderful. In great shape, in the best school district in the county, near the city, but in the country. It’s not pretentious, and it’s big enough for all of us and our new baby to come.

I hear Wayne’s voice in my head: “Could be good, could be bad.” I struggle to eschew the narrative in life, so find the “it was meant to be” thing kind of one of those things we tell ourselves to sound like we are somehow in touch with the dynamics of the Universe and the elusive thing that human beings label as “God’s will” (will being a uniquely human characteristic, but, I think we like to anthropomorphize God sometimes to make him more accessible). Rather, I prefer to think that my husband’s presence on the UVA campus, combined with the per-capita existence of transient post-docs and adjunct professors in Charlottesville would skew towards a greater likelihood of an opportunity of this nature happening here. And the generosity of his friend is one of those blessings that make an opportunity like this feel even better.

So, I can see this as an event that I am grateful for, but, as with all of life’s events, will bring with it its share of worries and heartaches. I say this not to temper my gratitude for this house, which will make Blake so very happy (he’ll be able to use his slip-and-slide again!). Rather, my first impulse was to get on my knees and ask that I do with this opportunity the thing I need to do that is best for my family and me.

Blessings, like falling in love, and having a child, are complex things. If, after our failed attempt at IVF, Wayne had told us “Could be good, could be bad,” I think I might have socked him one. But, now that we are Blake’s parents, the “could be good” is so much more apparent to me. And when folks told me that Noel wasn’t right for me, I was devastated. But, the point is, well-meaning folks that were assholes notwithstanding, there seems to have been a point somewhere in my adulthood where I stopped being fascinated by the big blessing, and more invested in the inescapable day-to-day beauty that is life.

That is to say, when I found true love, or adopted the perfect baby, and now seemed to have found find the perfect home, Wayne’s admonition “could be good, could be bad” seems to apply. But, when it comes to feeling the sun on my skin, watching Blake play in the sprinkler, or laughing at my husband’s bad imitation of a German accent, there’s no ambiguity. The flat-out-truth of life escapes human evaluation or narrative, provides utter perfection in a moment. I’m thinking that’s God.

The big stuff is just distraction. Could be good, could be bad.

I usually try to stop myself from getting baited into an argument. But, I let my weaknesses get the better of me. I felt that “you need to understand my point of view” heartbreaking, senseless feeling that you get ONLY when you know darn well that it’s the last thing that’s going to happen. But, I ignored the 9th step’s warning to demonstrate “restraint of pen and tongue,” and commented on someone else’s blog.

It was not a constructive comment. It was a “blowing off steam” comment. And it was done towards someone who, from looking at her blog, just pisses me off. A superficial judgment, for sure, but honest. I just hate being poor amidst the Charlottesville elite. It makes me sick, and I’m indulging in self-pity right now. Not good. Not good.

That kind of motive is rarely pure, and I just knew I would feel icky about indulging it. And, I do.

The result? I was treated to the kind of response that I knew I’d get, and I’m kicking myself in the ass for being baited like that. Now, I can take the bait, and keep the argument going (did you ever see those threads of blog comments where something like religion is being argued? It’s the cyber-equivalent of watching Hannity and Colmes). Nobody wins, everyone’s heels get dug further and further into the mud of their own positions, and it just makes everyone feel yucky.

So, the person (who I will not name) whose blog I posted on to grind my personal axe of self-pity, I say, my apologies. I don’t even know you, and I can be incredibly self-righteous at times.

I should heed the Big Book: The last thing a recovering alcoholic needs is anger, justified or otherwise. Live and let live, and don’t indulge in reading strangers’ blogs when they piss me off.

At some point, Americans decided that it was better to be a consumer than a citizen. As a result, we have conflated our “rights” with access to an open marketplace, not to open ideas.

As a Christian living in the south, I find the materialism of American culture here among many (not all) Christians I have met to be discouraging. The notion of the “gospel of prosperity” has them thinking that because God wants us to be happy (I’m not sure I know what God wants, personally), he wants us to have what we want, so conspicuous consumption is tantamount to recognizing God’s abundance. It’s a very contorted view of things, for sure, but this American-style gospel is what has them driving large SUVs, and had two of our neighbors, best friends right next door to each other, EACH buy an oversized Recreational Vehicle for their once- or twice-a-year camping trip.

I’m being judgmental. I struggle with materialism, and since our temporarily downwardly-mobile lifestyle had me give away living in a large house, and buying clothes when I needed them, I’ve had resentments about it for sure. That points to the addictions to which I, too, Christian or whatever, am susceptible in this culture.

Which gets to a recent ad sponsored by the automotive industry has two women talking about the revision to U.S. CAFE standards resulting in losing their right to buy an SUV. The argument is to regulate light trucks, SUVs and minivans separately from cars, as introduced in the Pryor-Bond-Levin-Voinovich amendment. They also leverage the old “safety” paranoia that Americans have, because we’d rather kill the guy in the little car than sustain any injuries.

In short, they are far more interested in preserving their RIGHT to buy whatever gas-hogging vehicle they want rather than their RESPONSIBILITY as a citizen to “ensure domestic tranquility” and all that jazz that that moldy old Constitution assumed we would all carry on doing.

In many ways, the Buddhists have it over the Christians when it comes to understanding the underpinnings of materialism, and its consequences. For a Christian, it can sometimes feel like the old temptation/resistance dichotomy. To a Buddhist, I think it’s more like the conscious understanding that indulging an appetite can cause more pain down the road. It’s based on a desire for a deeper peace and happiness rather than a hairshirt-wearing resistance to what we REALLY want.

As a Christian, truthfully, on my best days, I REALLY WANT a deeper peace and happiness. I have found that in Christ, which is the distinction I would draw from someone who identifies his or herself as Buddhist. But, if Christians are also going to be citizens, we need to understand how our appetites, when indulged, cause not only imminent pain for ourselves, but for others. That understanding of responsibility to the planet, to our children, should overshadow living in luxury and ease on a trip to Yellowstone.

I am so ashamed of us.

If I am absolutely honest with myself, the answer to the above question would appear to be “never.” But, I don’t say that with some faux self-deprecating humor about perpetual immaturity. Rather, by any measure, I still have not “arrived” at that state of stable grown-up-hood. That’s not exactly what I had planned when I was younger. On the other hand, I’m not sure I really planned for ANYTHING when I was younger. But that’s for another post

The picture to the left depicts the image I have historically held for myself. The smallest person, the one who would always be held by a larger person. Frozen in time, I have expected the world to feed me, clothe me, love me unconditionally. But, the world pushed back over the past decade or so, and at first I didn’t like it. I’ve been called upon to become an ex-wife, an orphan, a new wife, an infertile woman, a mother, and a breadwinner. Roles I hadn’t anticipated for sure.

I’ve been through years of resentment, to be sure, kicking and screaming and digging my claws into old perceptions. I’ve had fights with family, fights with my husband, struggles to be patient with my beautiful son. I was utterly unprepared for all the things I have been called on to become. I’ve been, in a word, very unhappy with the realities of adult life. Embarassing, for sure, but the absolute truth.

Happiness seems to elude me when I search it out for its own sake. It always seems to come as a by-product of some other endeavor, usually a painful one. Darn the way that works.

So, I go to my family reunion this year. I usually approach this with eager anticipation and utter dread, hand-in-hand, and of equal proportions. I love my brothers and sisters, I just have very little in common with them other than an unbelievable history of family memories. When you have 8 kids in the family, the memories cross generations. We never tire of telling the same stories about our late parents, particularly my mother who was a unique person, to be sure. The favorites include:

• Mom, three sheets to the wind at one of my piano recitals at the Dominican Convent in Sparkill, trips in front of a statue of the Infant of Prague. While falling, she exclaims, “Look! He’s all dolled up!”
• Mom serves me a black, burned, ancient English muffin from the broiler, under the tipsy illusion that it’s a hamburger. We are afraid to tell her, and I cry quietly. In the retelling this is actually hysterically funny.
• When my aunt’s friend trips on the steps, falling on her knees in front of one of my brother’s Jesuit friends, Mom says, “Geez! You don’t have to genuflect!”

And then there were the countless oddities about our family, like the fact that our furniture came from the hospital where my father was the administrator (it was all naugahyde and chrome), our roasting pan was actually a surgical instrument tray, and that my brother Peter’s spelling list for grade school was taken from reading the labels in my parents’ generously stocked liquor cabinet.

The stories are told over and over, and the drinking gets more and more intense. Some drop off and go to bed, not able to take the smoking and drinking, the increasing volume and inebriation. In the past, I was among the drinkers. In the more recent sober past, I’ve been among those that left really early. This time, I stayed as long as I could because I just love my brothers and sisters.

Oddly enough, their getting drunk, their immature behavior didn’t phase me. That was a first. It was not unlike a few days before my Mother died. She asked me to hold her drink for her because she was trembling too much to hold it still. She needed a straw to get the beloved rye whisky to her lips. I held that glass and, for the first time, experienced no critical judgment of her. She was, three days before she died, squeezing the marrow out of life the only way she knew how, and I just loved her. I hated her alcoholism, but I loved her boundlessly, as she loved me.

Human love is so darned flawed and limited. We really don’t know how to do it. I think lots of folks kick and scream like me, resent inconveniences brought on by responsibility, long for the unconscious happiness of satiation. But. as much as I hate to admit it, not satisfying momentary whims, and pushing myself to accept the unacceptable (except where inappropriate), putting my family’s needs over my own, flexes some sort of muscle. It’s the idea of spiritual practice versus just spiritual belief. It’s very nice to believe in Christ, but what does it matter if it doesn’t empower me to push myself into something bigger, to force growing up on myself, even if it, well, sucks.

I have not declared myself a grownup yet, but I do declare that I am on the road to something other than a perpetual adolescence. It was great to sit with my family and suspend judgment. It was great to just love them. What a gift.