Please Talk about Me When I'm Gone

Discursion: Faith (1)

The Vision of Christ that thou dost see

Is my Vision's Greatest Enemy.

I didn't say that.

But I'm happy to repeat it.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a

child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man,

I put away childish things.

What he said.

God's will?

Who knows. I don't, but neither do you. No one can say except for the vulnerable ones who say it, and need to believe it in order to grant order or at least coherence to things that are, by any other measure, incomprehensible. Whether one is grappling with the death of a parent or contemplating the plight of impoverished people, there exists, in God, an easy, irresistible answer that removes doubt and eradicates responsibility (ours, His). When we're young, or weak, or wanting, the concept of God is less a matter of belief than an enchanting vindication or our inability-or unwillingness-to confront our own fates.

We believe in one God,

The Father, the Almighty,

Maker of heaven and earth,

And of all that is, seen and unseen.

I did say that, often. Every week, in fact, from earliest memory through the summer after my senior year of high school. I was baptized and confirmed and served, without complaint, as an altar boy. All that time, I appreciated it and believed in it: the ritual, the words, and the ultimate reward that awaited all of us. My eventual self-imposed excommunication was neither rash nor uncomplicated. Like countless others born with a predetermined recipe for appraising this world, my dissatisfaction with-and ultimate disdain for-organized religion was a matter of considerable deliberation and more than a little disappointment.

He ascended into heaven

And is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory

To judge the living and the dead,

And his Kingdom will have no end.

December, 1989: I stopped midway through the familiar recitation and looked around me. Row after row of people-men, women, grandparents, children, some in Sunday best, others less formal-all reciting the lines in one undaunted voice, the voice of routine, history, and fidelity, some expressing a creed they felt articulated the core of our salvation-the fulcrum upon which our entire foundation, as fallible souls, is predicated upon-others repeating a memorized catechism, lines in the passionless play that was enacted each Sunday, some wholly invested, others indifferent, everyone endorsing this ceremony that preceded them and would, presumably, continue indefinitely after their deaths.

I closed my eyes and heard the words, trembling with revelation, albeit not the intended one that we're taught to aspire toward. For the first time this familiar oath, this fealty to an invisible force, seemed unsettling. It was, as I now understood it, the austere and unquestioning noise of a mob, however civilized. It occurred to me, egged on by the corrupting influence of Sociology and Psychology 101, that if I perceived this procession as one involving unclothed strangers chanting in an unfamiliar language, it would suddenly have more primitive connotations, or else invoke the brainwashed babbling of a cult. This sanctified service was different only because more people practiced it and it had been around longer-and was the one I'd been born into.

So what? Even if, reduced to its most simple origins, church served as a renunciation (Because He is our God and we are his people and the sheep of His pasture...), and these solemn incantations were merely guidelines for the less discerning, so long as these performances were being directed, from above, by the author of this sacred text, why trouble oneself over aesthetic considerations?

We believe in one holy, catholic and apostolic church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sin.

We look for the resurrection of the dead,

And the life of the world to come. Amen.

Here was the moment, the hackneyed shock of recognition, where you see something you've looked at a thousand times and it reveals itself, clearly. The response need not-or should not-necessarily lead to disenchantment or disbelief, but you have unwittingly opened a door that can't be closed. You can never not see things you've discerned, and you can't force yourself to forget them, although many people spend their lifetimes trying.

Whether it's a relationship, a job, or a religion, as soon as your participation seems pointless, or painful, or if it ceases to inspire you, it's time to look around-or better yet, inside-for other options. Some people need an answer; some people can never stop asking questions.

Maybe it was the drugs, the college curriculum, the embrace of free will as an agent of empowerment as opposed to a prison sentence, or the more (or less) complicated proposition that there was never any real possibility for me to emerge, as a semi-adjusted adult, reciting-much less accepting-the same magical thinking I was taught as a child.