at least three our fathers

sr sue asked me to think about what i would need to make a commitment to catholicism. i've had that question hanging over me for awhile now. more so since sometime in march, when i had a meltdown one night in the car with P. i don't recall what sparked it, exactly, but i found myself crying pretty hopelessly, telling him i'm scared to lose my identity, that i don't want to do this. to his credit, he was nice about all of it; when i asked him how he would feel if i asked him to become a jehovah's witness he admitted that it would feel terrifying even though what they believe isn't too different. there's an identity bound up in that label.

i don't know that he'd thought about what i believe as an identity. in my experience, people with neat labels for their ideologies often treat the difficult-to-label as more or less nonexistent.  i've been told before that bisexuals don't exist - you're just playing around or being selfish. that tendency carries across more categories than sexuality, i suppose. if you're not one of Us and you're not one of Them, you must not be anything at all.

when i was 15 or 16, i had a bunch of big fights with my dad. some of them i was having alongside the big fights i was having with my chronically lying, damaged, deeply religious boyfriend. sometimes they were the same fights. J wanted me to come to church with him, and my dad wanted me to come to the kingdom hall with him. i didn't especially want to do either. there were other tensions between us - dad came over once and i didn't have my little brother ready to leave the house and he started bawling me out. my response was to scream that i wasn't zach's parent and slam my hand into the door. you know, for emphasis. i hit one of the window panes and watched it break around my hand. we fought about things like that; his desire for me to be an obedient child and an adult simultaneously. he'd been antagonistic about my comic books for a long time, telling my mom that it was idolatry and she shouldn't let me read them. by this point, i still liked comic books, but i was also in my vampire-books, black-clothes, marilyn manson and bad religion in the cd player phase. he forbade all of it. and he forbade me to see or speak with my unsuitable, catholic boyfriend. like any melodramatic teenager in love, i stopped coming to his house every weekend; he pressured me, and i dug my heels in.

this is probably the defining moment of my teenage rebellion. i remember him threatening to take my mom to court if she didn't force me to come to his house. i remember telling him he could show up at the house to get me, but i wouldn't be there. he liked to think he wasn't like his dad, but they both always wanted things the way they wanted them. he just kept telling me i *would* come to his house, and i *would* come to the kingdom hall with him.

it's typical of me that i both could and couldn't see the big deal in all of this. i did not understand why it mattered to my dad that J was catholic, and i don't think i understood how much it mattered to J that i wasn't.  but this i understood. like all witnesses, i'd been raised to believe that you didn't baptize babies, because they can't make that decision, they can't devote themselves to jehovah, and as much as parents might want to think otherwise, this isn't something they can do *for* a child. and so i knew, down in my bones, that you could not compel faith. to force me to come to the kindgom hall, when i wasn't sure i belonged there, seemed blasphemous to me.

at the time, i didn't know what to believe. the witnesses told me that women were a compliment/complement to men. they told me that my mother and my boyfriend wouldn't be in the new system. they told me that jehovah was all-powerful and all-seeing. and frankly, J's god seemed to say much the same thing. and it just didn't make sense to me. the inconsistencies of the bible couldn't be explained by telling me to have faith. i didn't feel any different from a man, and i knew transgendered people. why would you create this spectrum of gender and sexuality, just to cackle evilly and tell everyone to get back in their box? and, of course, like many people who have experienced trauma or abuse at first or second hand, i could not accept that compassion with the power to stop these things just didn't stop them. my father's father used to beat him, and so did J's dad. our dad terrorized us when he drank. it seemed to my unsophisticated mind that jehovah either couldn't stop these things, or wouldn't. if he couldn't, he was no better than me. if he wouldn't, i wanted nothing to do with him. but of course, i'd been raised in faith and you can't just walk away from that. i couldn't escape the feeling that there was something, or the feeling that i needed to go looking for it.

i remember being in the backyard during one of these fights and telling my dad that i just wanted him to accept that what i believed was just as important to me as what he believed was to him. it was one of those moments where i was actually being sincere or vulnerable, and got smacked for it. he said, in a disgusted, incredulous tone, "you don't believe *anything*." at the time, i didn't have the vocabulary or the confidence to explain myself, so i just went stubborn and silent, my usual plan B.

i was baffled by his reaction for years. after all, he'd fallen away from the witnesses for a long time, and had only recently come back. i don't think it occurred to me until this last year that he never stopped being a jehovah's witness; he just became a very bad one for a little while. but inside, he was always this, always devout.

we are what we're made. this is going to be an important point, whenever i get around to my actual point, i think. i am, always, my father's daughter. i set my will in opposition to his. i refused it when he tried to give me money once because i wanted to owe him nothing. i became someone who didn't drink, because he drank. i tried not to be him, and it shaped me. i look more like him than any of the other children. and in her most candid moments, my mother has told me how much like him i can be, how this worries her for me. i have his social awkwardness, his distance, his cynical mind and edged commentary. like him, i can be judgmental and overbearing in arguments. i'm observant, and when i am most angry or most hurt, i pull those observations out and use them to strip people naked. i could be him: an aging intellectual who never had the opportunity to develop his potential, isolated from friends and family, drinking alone to make the time pass. in some ways, i am the same shape as him, and in others my shape is defined by the white space of not being shaped like him.

the problem with calling god a father is that we all have one of those, one way or another. we mold god in the image of our dads, of what they were or what they wish they had been. my dad and J had a lot in common. god was someone to be feared, and to try to love, and to feel guilty - either for loving or for not loving. but for me, god was someone who told me to obey and didn't explain why. someone who was clearly flawed, but expected me to act like they were perfect. god was the naked emperor.

TBC

luke 7:20-23

"When the men had come to him, they said, "John the Baptist has sent us to you to ask, 'Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?'" Jesus had just then cured many people of diseases, plagues, and evil spirits, and had given sight to many who were blind. And he answered them, "Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me."  -NOAB

i've been thinking about this passage for a couple of weeks now. not in a helpful, personal-studies sort of way, but in an intellectual sort of way. and you could make a lot out of it. john, mr. intensity, displays an interesting mix of skepticism and willingness to believe - after all, you're asking someone who could easily lie to you to vouch for himself. it's also an interesting last line - not the follow me, obey me and you'll be blessed sort of message (which, to be fair, we tend to get from god, not jesus, and i will likely never break my JW habit of seeing them as different entities) but more like a don't fight against my purpose, don't get in my way and you'll be blessed message.

but what's *really* interesting to me is really the part that is 22. this is slavoj zizek, in what might be his own words or a paraphrase of frederick jameson: "Think about the strangeness of today's situation. Thirty, forty years ago, we were still debating about what the future will be: communist, fascist, capitalist, whatever. Today, nobody even debates these issues. We all silently accept global capitalism is here to stay. On the other hand, we are obsessed with cosmic catastrophes: the whole life on earth disintegrating, because of some virus, because of an asteroid hitting the earth, and so on. So the paradox is, that it's much easier to imagine the end of all life on earth than a much more modest radical change in capitalism." that has stayed with me for years - we can imagine the end of the world easier than we can imagine an end to capitalism. and obviously the bible wasn't written in the heyday of capitalism. but there's something similar at work here, no doubt. i mean, really think about that verse. the blind see, the deaf hear, the afflicted are cured, the lame walk, the very *dead* are raised, but the poor only have good news.

i'm not trying to belittle that good news here. and yes, i get that this was new. nobody was bothering with the poor, and so this was truly remarkable, and i appreciate that. but what this also indicates to me is that even at that time, before capitalism, and even within the confines of christian ideology, we can more easily imagine a triumph over death than we can imagine the end of poverty. the poor are not given food and jobs that allow them to live with dignity. they're given the message, instead of being ignored. this is as good as it gets for the poor - they get to be part of the audience. and again, not trying to belittle. but, really, the dead can live again and the poor will still be there. they are so eternal we can't even imagine an end to them. i feel like maybe this says everything you need to know about the human race.

donald spoto - In Silence 2

Prayer as Petition:

-all prayer is petition, he says, because it is always an acknowledgment that we stand in need of god

(from Book of Common Prayer: "Watch over those, both night and day, who work while others sleep, and grant that we may never forget that our common life depends upon each other's toil." Unrelated to my primary concerns, but interesting for its acknowledgment on our interdependence. I could get into how we seem to forget this most of the time, but why beat that drum again? Could also say that our prosperity depends on the suffering of others, in the system we've adopted...)

-we don't tell god anything he doesn't know, so instead "our requests reveal us to ourselves, they interpret our desires and show us what is important to us" (52)

-"it is always tempting to regard prayer as the solution to a problem -or, worse, to all problems. But prayer is not a means of escape from the ordinary lot of physical and emotional life, which necessarily involves experiences of diminishment, darkness and dying. In fact, prayer is rarely the solution to any problem at all." (76) he suggests that we might think of god's will as god's willingness - to allow us to use our own will to make choices.

Prayer as Forgiveness:

-we tend to cling to grievances and our culture supports victimization and entitlement

-another reminder in this chapter that spiritual aridness can happen, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. it can be good, because apparently prayer should not only be for pleasure. it should be work, perhaps?

-much of this chapter tells me that i need to see myself in need of god's forgiveness, and this is why i forgive others. i sin, and thus others sin because we're all human, and they're in the same boat as me. says that "Forgiveness, the making right of my relationship with God, is something I need" (92). so it's practical in this sense - i do it because it brings me closer to being able to ask for the forgiveness i need.

-also practical because forgiveness is the only way to resolve difference and preserve life - it ends revenge, retaliation, and judgment.

Reflection:

the petition section is probably more interesting to me. i remember asking my aunt, when i was a kid, what happens to people who never had the Jehovah's Witnesses come and tell them the truth. and she said that god knew what you would have done with the truth even if you never actually heard it. so the witnesses were, in some ways, going through the motions, performing an unnecessary task. it was an act of service more than a requirement. in some ways, this seems similar. we don't really need to tell an omnipotent god anything, because it's all already known - even more so, presumably, because an omnipotent god would know both what we intend to say and what we *actually* need.

i like the idea that prayer actually is no solution to anything, perhaps mostly because it justifies my dislike of the "I Lift Detroit In Prayer" bumperstickers that always make me want to say "what else do you do? just this? does that seem sufficient to you?" and i also like the idea that we use prayer to help us think. martha nussbaum says that we tend to think that emotions are the opposite of rational thought, but in fact that are complex evaluations - emotions, what we grieve for, what we hope for, reveal to us what we value, and the things we value have gone through some sort of judgment in our minds. this seems similar. prayer shows us what we're worried about, what we hope for, what we believe.

the forgiveness section is more difficult for me. i have a complicated relationship with forgiveness. both my mom and my sister have been in al-anon at one time or another, but i never liked it. there's an angry core in me, i guess, that doesn't want to love the addict and hate the addiction, that doesn't want to focus on myself. forgiveness is difficult, even if it's more healthy, and anger is easy, even if it's exhausting. and it seems selfish. i should forgive others because it humbles me and brings me closer to god? it reveals to me how much i need god? what a self-centered reason to forgive anyone.

let me just say right here, though, that i know that "forgiveness" doesn't exist. i know that it's an ideal, and we can't ever actually get there. i even think it might be dangerous to think we can, because then we ignore or explain away lingering negative feelings. it's not important that we be able to forgive so much as that we *try,* that we never quit trying, and that we never quit trying knowing that we're always going to fail. and i think that this is important for exactly the reasons spoto mentions - it helps us move forward, it ends revenge and retaliation.

so why am i not okay with this idea that i forgive people because *i* need *my* relationship with god to be good? because i expect better of something like religion? i know that there's a part of me that is resistant to acknowledging that i need anything, much less god. that whole "surrendering to a higher power" thing is another reason al-anon never worked for me. i'm not good at it. and i'm less good at it when it's all dependent on this idea of sin. i can acknowledge the interdependentness of the world and my place in that, but what i have trouble doing is thinking of myself as a sinner. it's all bound up in The Rules that determine what is and isn't a sin, and i so often don't agree with the definitions. i know not everyone feels the way i do, but it feels to me like the "bigger" god is, the more rules he imposes on my day-to-day actions, the smaller he becomes. it diminishes god for me.

but how do you pray for forgiveness if your motivation is supposed to be getting your own forgiveness for things you're not really convinced are sins? although i suppose there's nothing stopping me from ignoring this, and praying for forgiveness just because i feel it's the right thing to do.

at some point i'm going to have to put all this together, i know.

donald spoto - In Silence

(1):

"faith then involves a willingness to wonder, to ask questions rather than simply to deny what the senses do not immediately validate..."

discusses the hiddenness and silence of god, and how we become aware and have a relationship only in that silence. calls prayer an expression of an individual's inner life, a profound dialogue

"The paths to God are as many as there are people."

"prayer is not so much something we do as something God does, something we experience, something unbidden and uninvited...a voice and a calling that want to be heeded..."

(2) prayer as dialogue 1:

the text gives biblical examples, which he says are about being attentive, waiting, being eager for communication. prayer then is not about what you say, or about ritual. it is primarily because you're in a dialogue, it's about attentive listening. "it is first of all a condition of openness, of receptivity, which is the prerequisite of communication" (27). true prayer is not about when i ask, but when i listen.

(3) prayer as dialogue 2:

he quotes jesus saying to be brief, because god knows what you need. and that prayer should be private, or at least we should be aware of "the dangers of public display" (30). when i read this, i am put in mind of Cynrano deBergerac, and all his lines about wearing his graces on the inside.

St. Jeanne de Chantal "patience itself is a powerful prayer...we must be satisfied to be powerless, idle and still before God - even dried up and barren when He permits it" (49).



obviously the idea that prayer could be (maybe should be) private speaks to me (ha). i'm rarely comfortable with ceremony and spotlights. anytime anyone has ever prayed for me over a meal i squirm inside. i immediately want to say, even in my ambivalence about a personal, listening god, 'no, look, ignore that. i don't need any attention. i'm fine. please, ignore him/her, i'm lucky, i need nothing.' the things i need, even when they are very large, like money or health, seem so small in a global context.

but i think it also resonated because i have sometimes thought of running as prayer. a few sundays when i still lived in detroit i ran in the morning instead of going to church, and i don't think i saw a big disconnect. i felt that attentiveness, to my own body, to the morning, to the world. it's not something i feel with swimming, which i am still very bad at. it's the just-hard-enough-ness of running that makes that feeling, where you keep moving and you think yes and yes and yes. and also thank you, for this day, for this breath, for the sweep of my tired muscles.

this is important to me, i guess, because it *is* private, but also because attentiveness is hard to come by for me. i'm in the process of being evaluated for adult ADD, and one of the ways this manifests for me is difficulty keeping my brain on one thing. even as a child, when i tried to pray, it was often very difficult to keep my mind from wandering. so moments where i feel focused and part of something are rare, and they are often inarticulate. and while this book doesn't say 'running can be prayer,' it does suggest that moments of attentiveness, in whatever activity, could be prayerful.

i was also struck and delighted by what st jeanne de chantal said about barrenness - so much so that i found and downloaded a book of her letters. that book ultimately moved me less than this one quote, although i saw in it how her faith was work. not just that her day to day occupation was connected to her faith, but you imagine her reminding herself to be patient, to write another letter, to dispense advice. her spirituality is not something that always comes effortlessly. like running, you can see that there are days she is connected and soaring and days when she drags herself through every step. and so i loved what she said about allowing yourself to be dried up and barren, that patience with yourself could be a kind of prayer. there are nights when P wants to pray over dinner and i am able to enter into that, to participate in some fashion, but there are also nights when i am impatient, i'm hungry, i feel nothing, and i know i'm just waiting for it to be over. i think often my response to that has been guilt, and then mild annoyance at him for making me feel this guilt, and then more annoyance at myself for being such a jerk.

the idea that patience can be prayer is breathtaking to me. i'm not sure how to make this epiphany clear. the idea that my silence, whether it's empty or frustrated or exhausted, can be prayer, can be *listening* is a little bit amazing to me.