You waiting for somebody?” asked a guy sitting two bar stools over.
“I’m waiting for a whole group of somebodies,” I answered, looking his way. From his artfully waxed brows to his indoor sunglasses, he bore a striking resemblance to Mike “The Situation” from MTV’s Jersey Shore. I consulted the restaurant’s clock. “I don’t think they’re going to show, though. The meeting was supposed to start fifteen minutes ago.”
“Vinnie,” he offered by way of introduction, sliding himself and his Red Bull and vodka over next to me.
“Reba.”
Flexing one artificially tanned arm, Vinnie swigged his drink. “What meeting? Sorority or something?”
“Ha. Funny guy. I’m waiting for the Omnipresent Atheist Society. According to the Internet, they meet here every Tuesday.”
He clapped his hands and laughed like I’d made a joke. “Sounds like their version of a ritual is drinking beer. Maybe the atheists don’t believe in being on time.”
A passing waitress overheard our conversation and stopped. “The atheists? They changed their meeting to every other Thursday night.”
“Okay, thanks.” I turned to Vinnie. “That’s my cue to go. Nice to meet you.” I slid off the stool.
“Wait a minute—I’m confused. You don’t look like an atheist.”
I couldn’t resist engaging. I enjoy any line of reasoning that equates physical appearance with religion, especially when issued by a guy who looks like his own faith might involve fist pumping and Jell-O shots. “Tell me, Vinnie, what does an atheist look like?”
He studied the ceiling. “Um, I dunno. Angry or something? I think of them protesting and burning bras.”
I cleared my throat. “I think you’ve got your -ists mixed up.”
Vinnie shrugged. “I’m Catholic myself. Not practicing, mind you. But you know how it is: once Catholic, always Catholic.” He gave me an aggressive once-over. “To me you look more Catholic than atheist.”
I couldn’t help myself. “What does a Catholic look like?”
He didn’t miss a beat. “Guilty.”
“You’re saying I look guilty?”
Vinnie drained his glass. “You look guilty as sin, sweetheart.”
I laughed. I had to hand it to a guy who could deliver a compli-sult with a straight face, especially when his jeans were tighter than my own.
“Vinnie, I’m visiting a Roman Catholic church this weekend. Do you have any advice for me?”
He leaned in close and looked around like he was about to share a secret. “Listen. You find yourself an old lady, or a couple of old ladies, and sit right behind ’em. That way you can watch ’em, so you’ll always know what to do, even if you aren’t paying attention.”
Vinnie sat back, looking very pleased with himself.
I considered this stacked wisdom. “Find an old lady and follow along . . . I’ll try it.”
I named this strategy Vinnie’s Rule, and it works every time with every religion. If you ever use Vinnie’s Rule and it saves you embarrassment, light a candle for him. Thanks, Vinnie, wherever you are. Have a Red Bull and vodka for me.
“THIS IS A CONFECTION of Christianity!” I said to my mother-in-law, Becky, on the sidewalk outside the Catholic cathedral downtown. “It’s so pretty that even if it was your famous triple-chocolate cake, I wouldn’t eat it.”
Heads back, we stared up at the Gothic Revival structure of gray and light brown stone. I counted six stained-glass windows reflecting morning light.
“Let’s see what the Internet has to say about this building.” I queried Google. “Completed in 1872, stone quarried from local counties . . . Oh, this is interesting: Due to design changes, they had to tear down the original brick foundation and replace it with stone. Also, there were supposed to be two bell towers, but neither one has been completed.”
“It does look a little lopsided with the tower on the left,” Becky said, “but it’s still pretty.”
I looked up. Now that I’d seen the lopsidedness, I couldn’t unsee it.
“Let’s go in,” Becky said. “I’m a little chilly.”
“Whoa,” I breathed when we entered the building with its massive main sanctuary. “If churches were beauty pageant contestants, Catholics would win evening gown every time.”
I scanned the pews. “Do you see any little old ladies?” I whispered. Becky snickered; I’d already told her about Vinnie’s Rule.
“There!” she spotted a gray-haired crew toward the front. We slid in the pew just as angels started singing above us. Okay, they were just regular, everyday people harmonizing in the pipe organ loft, but a pleasant shiver ran down my spine at the beautiful music. The Latin helped; I had no idea what they were saying, so I could just float along the melody.
As the processional and service started, Becky and I followed the grandma crew: sit, stand, sing, sit, kneel, pray, stand, sit, kneel, repeat—a process that felt a little bit like religion-themed Simon Says.
“Are you smelling this?” I checked in with Becky when incense assaulted my nostrils.
She looked a little wan as she pointed up. “You can see it!”
A mist of incense hung over us, thick as clouds gathering for a storm. I am allergic to a great many things, incense among them. This worked in my favor at Ohio State (post–Christian college, post–Focus on the Family). Since I couldn’t inhale much more than a waft of scented candle, I never got into drugs. But it worked against me here at church. I started to hack, like Oxley after he has eaten forbidden garbage.
My mother-in-law patted my back as the old ladies looked to see who was making such a ruckus.
“It will diffuse,” Becky promised. Diffuse it did, right into my lungs.
“Inhaler,” I wheezed to Becky, who handed me my purse. I took a fast-acting allergy pill, a puff of inhaler, and covered my nose and mouth with the end of my long sweater, mimicking a child whose classmate has just ripped a foul one. I couldn’t continue the religious Simon Says, so I sat back and let church happen around me: the priest gave a homily; people kneeled and prayed and crossed themselves. I watched, not moving but also not bothered by the proceedings, no more attached than if I were in a corporate lecture suffering Death by PowerPoint.
I could remain detached because I lacked any ties to Catholicism, unless you count the premarital counseling weekend required by our wedding officiant. The blessed Catholic weekend event was named the “Engagement Encounter,” and we encountered our engagement in several poignant ways: soul-mate letter-writing, hours of listening to speakers followed by hours of discussion, and a seminar titled “The Effectiveness of Natural Family Planning.”
Imagine a room full of young professionals—who value career building, sex, and happy hours—and you’ll get an idea of the effect of this talk on our collective consciousness. Men were loosening their collars. Women were squirming. The doctors were rolling their eyes. At the break, I leaned in to the girl next to me and said, “Can you believe this?”
She gave me the evil eye, and I realized my mistake. I had spoken to the only Catholic virgin in the room. “My fiancé and I plan to use Natural Family Planning exclusively!” she huffed in the manner of a future PTA Mean Girl.
I answered with the best defense I could muster on short notice.
“I’m . . . Protestant!”
“Oh,” she said. “That explains it.”
In the pew, I smiled behind my protective sweater mask at the absurdity of that weekend, but at least it was a direct experience. As I thought back to what I’d been taught about Catholics—they may or may not be saved, their saints are too close to idol worship, there is no value to be gained in vain repetition of liturgy, their rituals get in the way of a relationship with God—I uncomfortably realized the Engagement Encounter was my only personal experience with the world’s largest religious organization.
Catholicism was about as far away as I could get from the church of my childhood and still have Jesus at the front. If a full Catholic Mass was an evening of food and wine pairings at a fancy restaurant, the church I grew up in was the kind of casual joint where you throw peanut shells on the floor and go home with balloon animals. Which is why I’m not reacting with PTCS here, I thought. Catholic rituals aren’t my triggers.
This insight hit me just before the congregants flowed up to take communion, a Catholic ritual with more than enough trigger power to override any spiritual inspiration. Communion felt like divinely approved discrimination. The idea that humans could use God to sanction rejection galvanized me with anger.
“Let’s go,” I whispered to my mother-in-law. Others shuffled forward; we shuffled out. “Sorry, Becky.” I breathed the crisp air outside. “I couldn’t handle any more incense.”
Well, that’s what I said. What I meant was: “I couldn’t handle communion.”
Which made me wonder: How often have I told myself I was escaping one thing only to realize I was running from another?
“HI, MOM,” I SPOKE into my cell while walking quickly from our house to the restaurant where I was meeting a friend. The days were getting shorter, so the evening was brisk.
“Hi, sweetie. How’s your project? What’s your next visit?”
I cringed. “The Omnipresent Atheists?” It might have been my imagination, but I think she thumped her head against the wall.
“The atheists?” I definitely didn’t imagine the maternal guttural noise that translated: “Why God, why?”
“You’re taking this project too far, Rebecca. Growing up wasn’t so bad. What about all the good people, the good memories, the positive lessons?”
I should have stayed quiet, but instead I got mad. “What about the collateral damage to my identity and my faith? What about the religion that I crash into every time I go looking for God? Why do you think I have to do this project in the first place?”
Walking faster now, I tromped through the small piles of leaves gathering on the sidewalk.
“Maybe there’s something else you need to face,” Mom continued in a soft voice that took the force out of my anger. “Maybe something is keeping you from seeing the good things about church and how we raised you. I think it’s easier for you to pin everything that went wrong on religion—than to think about what might be inside you.”
“I’m trying, Mom. But it’s hard to see a good cause where there are bad results.”
“Stop. The results aren’t that bad. You’re successful at work, happily married. You have to remember not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are good things about church and religion in general, things you know firsthand.”
“Uh-huh.” I arrived at the restaurant and ground the toe of my leather boot on its brick foundation, kicking loose flakes of old mortar.
“It’s easier to hang on to your hurt and bitterness than to work through it. There’s a valid time and place for spewing garbage, but if you sit in the garbage long enough, it will poison you. Do you have reasons to have garbage? Absolutely! We all do. But then we have a choice. Do we stay where we are, or do we move on?”
“I’m trying to use this project to move on, Mom, but you’re judging me for it.”
“I’m not judging you. I’m trying to figure out how to entrust you to the Creator. Every time you tell me you’re at one of those crazy places, I have to take a deep breath and tell myself, ‘Continue to put her where she already is: in the palm of God’s hand.’ ” Mom was quiet for a minute. “You may have been a victim, but you don’t have to stay a victim for the rest of your life.”
I remained taciturn, chipping more pieces from the restaurant’s foundation. I didn’t love what she was saying, but I knew my mother’s words didn’t come from an insulated bubble of Christendom. She was speaking from experience.
Mom had her own PTCS of sorts from her California years spent in an overbearing version of Christianity that required devout service, like cleaning the pastor’s house and unquestioning obedience. My parents were even told to delay having children for several years so they could better serve the ministry. But even these things didn’t test their faith; that happened when the church attempted to cover up the sexual abuse of children by a congregation member who frequently babysat during services. The church’s leaders didn’t want to investigate to find out how many children might have been hurt, or to involve the police. They just wanted to keep up appearances. My parents and others who knew about the situation would not be silenced. They fought the church leaders and strong-armed them into prosecuting to the fullest extent of the law.
Even though their effort was successful, my parents were disillusioned. They moved across the country to disentangle themselves from that church. The events threw my mother into a crisis. She would kneel by her bed, growing more bitter by the day. “God, how could you let this person hurt kids?” She pounded her fists and cried into a pillow. “How could you let people in charge hide it?”
One day while kneeling in prayer, she had an epiphany. She saw that if she didn’t choose forgiveness, she was only punishing herself. Somehow, my mother was able to recall the wonderful relationships and moments she had had in that church, and remember how many times God had touched her heart. Those things were real to her, even more real than the crimes. She didn’t understand why God had allowed the abuse, but she also knew God wasn’t a part of it. She had a choice: to be bitter or better.
And now she was offering that same choice to me.
I’d read that holding a grudge is like drinking poison and then waiting for the other person to die, but I’d never considered how complicit I might be in keeping myself bound up by PTCS. Did I like being angry? Was my grudge against bad theology and harmful churches shielding me from a greater truth—that there were things about myself that needed to change, too?
“Rebecca—are you there?”
“Yeah, I’m here,” I said. “I’m at the restaurant and I need to get going. Let’s talk tomorrow.”
“Can you please try not to become an atheist in the meantime?”
“I’ll try.”
“And Rebecca? Thankfulness is the antidote to unforgiveness. Maybe you should give it a try. When you choose grace, grace chooses you.”
Hanging up the phone, I looked down at my boots, which were now covered with flakes of mortar and dust. I kneeled to clean them off and found myself thinking of the Catholic cathedral I’d attended; its foundation had to be torn down so it could be reconstructed in stone.
Was I like that? Did the beliefs my parents taught me about God, the ones that were stacked one on top of another Jenga-style, have to be destroyed so something stronger could take their place? And what about all the anger and bitterness I’d stacked on top of those beliefs?
I thought of the cathedral’s towers that were never finished, and how I couldn’t unsee the lopsidedness of the building once I had noticed it. Maybe faith was like that. If I could choose forgiveness, might I be able to rebuild something different, something better?