When I was in the 3rd grade, I really wanted to be a nun.
This was an interesting time to be presented by myself with such a desire, since my father, a quietly nonsectarian Christian fighting in Saudi Arabia, was once again temporarily withheld from my life. I lived instead with my aunt and uncle just outside of Washington DC, two people who refused to even go to my choir concert, announcing the danger of bursting into flames upon entry into any church. They were, as we call it, atheist. I don't believe in atheists. Maybe I'll write about this another time.
I attended Queen of Apostles Catholic school, chosen for its convenient location and nothing else. I was the only student in my class that sat quietly in the hard wooden pews of our church every Friday morning, while everyone else took communion, or disappeared into the strange phone booth at the back of the room to tell the priest all of their deepest darkest 8 to 10 year old secrets. I had not been baptized.
Watching the nuns who, unlike most stereotypical catholic schools did not teach but simply resided and prayed, I became unknowingly inspired by their faith, a thick and weighty thing they carried, but with great meaning, something else they kept to themselves, hidden in the depths of their habits and robes.
I was convinced that God must surely be quite the catch if all these women wanted to be near him so badly.
My concept of God as friend and companion was very vivid as a child, and I believed that the relationship between him and those who dedicated their lives to being a follower was just great. I found it all, in a wide-eyed way, very romantic.
When the principal of my school heard that I had expressed desire to become a nun of all things, she acted immediately, holding nothing back. "SARA LINDSEY," she called from the doorway of my classroom. I remember her voice being deep and scratchy, her arms being veiny and thin like a dried out slice of watermelon, and the hair on her head the color of cloudy Sundays, brittle as frozen straw...though, this is probably a mostly inaccurate rendition. Children remember things with great detail, but also with the aid of the SupersonicVision ability brought upon by youth. I do know that she was old, in every way one can use the word, and had been in the military. A true child of the American dream.
I walked out of my classroom to stand before her in the hallway. She boomed on about blasphemy, and displayed her ageist ideals with the utmost perfection. She had also found out that I acted as priest at Franky and Bridgette's wedding at lunch on the playground. This already had me on her black list.
In response to all this hubbub, I did only what any 3rd grade girl with little power in the world could, and that was to privatize my love affair with my new boyfriend God, and start a very public vampire club who anyone could join, grades K through 9.
It was very popular.
I've since put away my plastic fangs, though now they seem to be replaced with real ones. Like a vampire, I feel that I understand who God is, have a relationship of sorts, but more often than not realize the shame and humility of being a relatively lowly creature of no importance beyond that of a snowflake. This however is a shifting tide, and my opinions and feelings of worth will swell and sink. There are moments I wonder what the universe could have been having missed the birth of such a radiant bird. These are great instances of escape, finding myself outside my own home, seeing my body from a distance. Then I have a slight worry, a splinter of doubt, and am crammed in the cave of my own brain once more. Like Orpheus, I make the routine mistake of turning around to make sure all is well, leaving faith aside for a breath of a moment. A lost tourist with no headlamp.
God is here. I'm electrified whenever I remember this. But there it goes again like busted clockwork, the thought bubbles of some unfortunately educated goldfish crowding my view once more. I've seen far enough to find that I'm either in a very large tank, or no tank at all. I can't tell which is more comforting. It's the mystery that demands charging on, to push these obstructions aside, to find the lost pearl of truth. But this pearl is a self-revealing who-dun-it, so "trying" makes discovery impossible...and simultaneously it's impossible to drop the effort! Perhaps I'll learn one day to balance this tightrope act.
God willing.
Friday
My First Date: Life Before the Bite.
When I was in the 3rd grade, I really wanted to be a nun.
This was an interesting time to be presented by myself with such a desire, since my father, a quietly nonsectarian Christian fighting in Saudi Arabia, was once again temporarily withheld from my life. I lived instead with my aunt and uncle just outside of Washington DC, two people who refused to even go to my choir concert, announcing the danger of bursting into flames upon entry into any church. They were, as we call it, atheist. I don't believe in atheists. Maybe I'll write about this another time.
I attended Queen of Apostles Catholic school, chosen for its convenient location and nothing else. I was the only student in my class that sat quietly in the hard wooden pews of our church every Friday morning, while everyone else took communion, or disappeared into the strange phone booth at the back of the room to tell the priest all of their deepest darkest 8 to 10 year old secrets. I had not been baptized.
Watching the nuns who, unlike most stereotypical catholic schools did not teach but simply resided and prayed, I became unknowingly inspired by their faith, a thick and weighty thing they carried, but with great meaning, something else they kept to themselves, hidden in the depths of their habits and robes.
I was convinced that God must surely be quite the catch if all these women wanted to be near him so badly.
My concept of God as friend and companion was very vivid as a child, and I believed that the relationship between him and those who dedicated their lives to being a follower was just great. I found it all, in a wide-eyed way, very romantic.
When the principal of my school heard that I had expressed desire to become a nun of all things, she acted immediately, holding nothing back. "SARA LINDSEY," she called from the doorway of my classroom. I remember her voice being deep and scratchy, her arms being veiny and thin like a dried out slice of watermelon, and the hair on her head the color of cloudy Sundays, brittle as frozen straw...though, this is probably a mostly inaccurate rendition. Children remember things with great detail, but also with the aid of the SupersonicVision ability brought upon by youth. I do know that she was old, in every way one can use the word, and had been in the military. A true child of the American dream.
I walked out of my classroom to stand before her in the hallway. She boomed on about blasphemy, and displayed her ageist ideals with the utmost perfection. She had also found out that I acted as priest at Franky and Bridgette's wedding at lunch on the playground. This already had me on her black list.
In response to all this hubbub, I did only what any 3rd grade girl with little power in the world could, and that was to privatize my love affair with my new boyfriend God, and start a very public vampire club who anyone could join, grades K through 9.
It was very popular.
I've since put away my plastic fangs, though now they seem to be replaced with real ones. Like a vampire, I feel that I understand who God is, have a relationship of sorts, but more often than not realize the shame and humility of being a relatively lowly creature of no importance beyond that of a snowflake. This however is a shifting tide, and my opinions and feelings of worth will swell and sink. There are moments I wonder what the universe could have been having missed the birth of such a radiant bird. These are great instances of escape, finding myself outside my own home, seeing my body from a distance. Then I have a slight worry, a splinter of doubt, and am crammed in the cave of my own brain once more. Like Orpheus, I make the routine mistake of turning around to make sure all is well, leaving faith aside for a breath of a moment. A lost tourist with no headlamp.
God is here. I'm electrified whenever I remember this. But there it goes again like busted clockwork, the thought bubbles of some unfortunately educated goldfish crowding my view once more. I've seen far enough to find that I'm either in a very large tank, or no tank at all. I can't tell which is more comforting. It's the mystery that demands charging on, to push these obstructions aside, to find the lost pearl of truth. But this pearl is a self-revealing who-dun-it, so "trying" makes discovery impossible...and simultaneously it's impossible to drop the effort! Perhaps I'll learn one day to balance this tightrope act.
God willing.
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