I crutched into the joint where I was meeting Erin for our first breakfast together since she’d moved back from Tennessee the prior week. She was planning on accompanying me to a church that morning, but wasn’t expecting me to be injured. Her green eyes widened when she saw me. “What happened?” she stood up to help me into the two-person booth. I sat down heavily and scooted in while she leaned my crutches against the wall.
“It was so stupid. I turned my heel on loose gravel in a lumberyard parking lot. It felt broken but the x-ray says it’s just a bad sprain—hugely swollen and fourteen shades of black and blue.”
“Ick. I’m sorry.”
“At least it’s not broken.” I tried to be positive. “And it’s my left ankle, so I can still drive.” I put my head on the table and groaned. “As if I ever want to drive to another lumberyard. Don’t get me wrong; I am really thankful to have a job, but . . .”
“. . . But you never want to see another lubricated nail in your life?”
“Exactly.” We grinned at each other with the understanding of friends who had cheered together at the sidelines of high school football games, held each other’s hair back when sick (and drunk) in college, and proofread each other’s first post-collegiate résumés.
“Erin, I am so glad you are back! You can make new friends, but you can never make an old friend.”
Over omelets and pancakes, we discussed her transition back to Ohio and I caught her up on my project. Erin didn’t have any PTCS issues, but she was a hundred percent behind me, even to the point of accompanying me to church after breakfast that day. “There’s just one thing I don’t get about you,” said Erin when the waitress brought the check.
“Just one thing?” I snorted. “There are about three thousand things I don’t get.”
“I mean one thing about your project. If you no longer believe what you grew up believing about life, what do you believe?”
“You’re getting so deep, and I haven’t even finished my coffee,” I teased. “My best guess is that maybe we choose our lives on earth like we are choosing a major in school. I’d like to think that instead of God just plopping us down, we agree to come here and put up with all this crap because we know our souls will learn from it and we’ll be better in the end.”
“So, you don’t believe in Jesus? You’re not a Christian?” asked Erin, perplexed.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I know I don’t believe in him or Christianity the way I was taught, but maybe I believe another way. I’m just not sure.” I paused. “I like that author Rob Bell’s open-for-doubts, maybe-we-got-some-things-wrong, I-don’t-have-all-the answers brand of Christianity. His book Love Wins makes it almost something I could live with. In fact, I would very much like to buy him a drink.”
“Well, I think you should!” Erin said, smiling. “And you should keep going until you figure everything out. It’s like exposure therapy. You know how people who are afraid of snakes just keep making themselves be around them until they’re not afraid anymore? That’s like you and church.”
“Speaking of which, are you ready for this church?” I asked. I felt I needed to prepare her. “The congregation we’re going to meets in a basement beneath a storefront, and their sign has a Homer Simpson quote on it: ‘Well, I may not know much about God, but I have to say we built a pretty nice cage for him.’ ”
“I don’t know about a church that quotes the Simpsons,” Erin said, helping me out of the booth, “but I’m ready to help you cross a visit off that list.”
WHEN WE ARRIVED AT the “Basement Church,” as I was calling it, the sign in the window had changed since I had last driven by. It now read: “Many people are leaving the church and going to God.”
“I assume Homer Simpson didn’t say that,” I observed as we made our way down the concrete steps to the basement. It was a slow process due to the crutches.
Downstairs, we faced orderly chaos: an exposed coat rack and a messy half-kitchen, fifty folding chairs, the remains of a potluck breakfast on a table by the back wall, and a haphazard set-up of microphones and sound equipment. As the whole place was only a thousand square feet, the audio components were entirely unnecessary.
I poked Erin in the ribs. “Did you know I once witnessed the exorcism of a church camp sound system that looked like that one? The system was behaving badly, and it was clearly no ordinary power surge. Demons had infested the equipment to keep fourth graders from hearing the message of salvation for the twenty-seventh time in six days!”
Erin didn’t flinch. This is the type of statement she had come to expect from the friend who could recite all sixty-six books of the Bible without taking a breath (even after multiple shots of tequila) (and blindfolded) (and balancing on one foot). “Demonic speakers, huh? Where do you want to sit?”
The pastor strode over to welcome us. A compact man in his late forties sporting prematurely graying, if well-spiked, hair, he wore blue jeans and a button-down shirt with rolled-up sleeves, as if to announce, “I’m here to do some heavy Bible-lifting today.”
“Jesus bless you for coming this morning! We’re going to have a sweet time of fellowship,” he boomed, inches from our faces. If I hadn’t been on crutches, I might have cowered in the face of his close-talking Christianese. (Also? He needed a breath mint.)
“Thanks,” Erin rescued me from having to speak. “Glad to be here.” She smiled encouragingly when he walked away. “If it’s too bad, we’ll just leave, okay?”
I nodded uncomfortably and crutched my way to a seat. “Oh no,” I whispered to Erin as the two-man praise band floated the first strains of a far too familiar worship song. “This is not good.” I felt claustrophobic when the singing started. Everyone was so earnest and worshippy: closing eyes to see things I couldn’t see, raising hands to a God I did not feel.
When the title of the sermon flashed on the projection screen, I couldn’t breathe. “Place your identity in Christ,” the pastor yelled into the microphone.
“Placing your identity in Christ” is lingo for church-approved codependence: you allow your church’s brand of Jesus to dictate what you do or don’t wear, eat, read, discuss, watch, and listen to. You let your church’s Jesus pick out your lipstick and your friends, run your bank accounts, and prescribe your wardrobe. Having my identity in Christ was the problem, the entire reason I fell apart when I could no longer believe. When I left my faith, I didn’t have anything of my own. I was exactly like a woman who allowed her husband to make her every decision; I’d let the principles of the Bible (as taught by my brand of Christianity) govern everything from my finances to my schooling to what I would and would not do with my body parts.
As the pastor continued on, I remembered the very last person who had told me to put my identity in Christ: Amy. I was twenty years old, in Starbucks, with my young women’s small group. All of us were part of The Fire, an intensive megachurch ministry-training program. (For the record, it was a high-profile evangelical minister’s church, pre-scandal.) We were tight. These were my only friends for hundreds of miles; they knew nearly everything about me. They knew about my recent traumas and that I was recovering from deep depression. They knew I was alone, so very alone; they were my only support system, the last string tethering me to the church, to God, to myself.
And yet they tossed me out.
“Your identity just isn’t in Christ, Reba,” said Amy, the leader of the posse and the last to speak. She shook her head sadly, as if the next part was breaking her heart instead of mine. “We’ve voted and think it’s best for you to no longer be in our group.” Amy was everything I hoped to be one day: beautiful, sure of her faith, a happily married mother of five. I’d been at the hospital for the birth of her youngest son; that’s how close this group was. I couldn’t believe she was saying this, doing this.
Amy and the others had spent the last twenty minutes going around the circle. One by one they shared how my doubts and failures were bringing down their walk with Christ, and they were so sorry but they were going to have to ask me to leave the group because I wasn’t serious enough about God. They were just concerned about me, they soothed, just speaking the truth in love; their chastisement was intended to give me the wake-up call I needed so that I could come back to the fold, when I was ready to fully place my identity in Christ.
Without hugs or good-byes, they left me there all alone, sobbing in a Starbucks, hands clutching my arms so tightly that I had eerie finger-shaped bruises for days, like someone had grabbed hold and shaken me hard.
Here in this odd basement church service, I felt the spasms of PTCS along with the memory. My heart contracted as if it hadn’t been almost ten years, as though I hadn’t been doing Project Thirty by Thirty for months, like I hadn’t made any progress at all. If we don’t leave I’m going to puke, I thought.
“We have to leave. Now. Right now,” I told Erin with urgency, even though the pastor wasn’t even halfway through the sermon.
We made quite a ruckus in the small room, my crutches banging against the metal chairs. The pastor and congregation looked puzzled, and I could feel the eyes of the small congregation on our backs as Erin helped me ascend the stairs. We burst out into the cool sunshine and I inhaled freedom with deep breaths.
“That was a little weird,” she said reasonably—right before I began to cry.
“I hate this project,” I spat. “I hate it!” Actually, I hated that I could not look at this evangelical service with the same open-mindedness I afforded Diwali. I hated that I turned into an angry, mushy, crying mess with the mere mention of the harmless-sounding phrase “identity in Christ.” Mostly I hated that I was still sick in body and in spirit, even though I’d been trying so hard to get better.
But that’s not what I told myself. I channeled everything into hating the project; if there was no project, there wouldn’t be any extra triggers to tear apart my emotions. If there was no project, I would have more energy for dealing with the Sickness. Things would get better.
“I quit,” I announced to Erin. “As soon as I get home, I am tearing my list off the fridge. I am done.”
“HOW’S YOUR PROJECT?” MY book club friend Michelle asked when she picked me up a week later.
“I quit,” I said miserably, trying to adjust my ankle to a comfortable position. I was no longer on crutches, but it was still wrapped and achy, prompting a hefty limp in the evenings.
I thought Michelle was going to pull over the car to shake me. “Quit?! You can’t quit!”
“I can and I did.”
“Then why are we going tonight?” Michelle asked. She had invited me to this evening’s Forum on Religion a month ago; it was a panel discussion with several authors of note. Thinking it would be a good supplement to my project, I’d RSVP’ed, crossing my fingers that the Sickness would give me a reprieve. I hadn’t counted on either the sprained ankle or the quitting.
“Guilt,” I sighed heavily. “I would have felt bad if I’d made you go alone.”
The Forum was packed, standing room only. When I limped in, the room was abuzz with energy and despite my discomfort I found myself a teensy bit interested in the discussion, especially when the panel of authors mentioned interfaith work. “Interfaith,” Michelle whispered, “that’s like what you’re doing!”
“Correction: What I’m not doing,” I replied. “Besides, it was less interfaith and more ‘spiritual sojourn without leaving home.’ ”
I realized I was speaking of Project Thirty by Thirty in the past tense and felt a twinge of regret; I’d already poured so much time into it. Too bad that was all for nothing, I thought, just as Michelle whispered, “Do you think you could do just one more thing for the project before you officially quit?” Her eyes were luminous in the semi-dark auditorium. “I think you should ask the panel about your project during the Q&A,” she prodded. “I want to see what they’ll say. C’mon!” She actually elbowed me. “It’ll make a really good story at book club.”
And that is how I found myself in the spotlight, goaded into limping up to a microphone in the middle of a packed auditorium, my Quasimodo look projected on a huge screen. Five hundred people, two noted authors, and one famous mediator stared at me from the darkness. The light felt too bright on my face, like the police trying to force a confession. I nearly forgot my question, but as I started talking into the mic, I heard my voice echoing through the auditorium: “Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome . . . thirty religions . . .”
Something went sideways, just like it did with Pastor Judy under the watch of Psychic Jesus: I was talking, but also watching myself talk. Whether it was the stress of public speaking or the Godiverse at work I may never know, but when I finished speaking and the panel answered, I wasn’t really listening to them. I was listening to my heart, which was beating don’t quit, don’t quit in a nervous flutter.
I thanked the panel and stepped away from the mic, content that I had done my duty by Michelle and the book club. I limped away, teetering on the quit/don’t quit edge. The flutter was enough to make me reconsider my decision, but not enough to shove me back into the project. A woman tapped my shoulder.
“Excuse me,” she said, her face aglow, “but I wanted to ask you: Are you writing about your Thirty by Thirty experiences?”
I shook my head weakly, thinking, I’m not having any more experiences.
As the woman pulled out her business card, the room tilted even more. “I’m Sue Goodwin, the executive producer of Talk of the Nation on NPR, and this is one of the most original concepts I’ve seen in three years. Listen, you need to do a blog. There are so many people who would want to read about your project.”
As she spoke, I felt dizzy, like at the doctor’s office with the “Persevere” sign. This time, the Godiverse was sending me a telegram in all caps, courtesy of a messenger I couldn’t ignore. It could not have been more clear, in fact, if Ms. Goodwin had knocked on my door and started tap-dancing while singing: “This is your singing telegram . . . ba-da-ba-doo-da-ba!”
DO NOT QUIT (STOP) PERSEVERE (STOP) THIS IS BIGGER THAN YOU (STOP)
Sue and I stepped into the hallway to discuss our spiritual paths: hers from fundamentalism to mindfulness, mine from fundamentalism to Thirty by Thirty. The room never righted itself. Throughout the half hour we talked, the Energy coming from her was so strong that it tingled down my spine, making me shiver. Even though Sue wasn’t religious—and she certainly wasn’t prophesying—I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d had with Pastor Judy at the Christian Spiritualist Temple, like the whole Godiverse surrounded us.
I sent up a quick telegram of my own to Psychic Jesus, who I imagined must be smiling “Gotcha!” over my shoulder while petting his lambs.
GOT THE MESSAGE (STOP) WILL NOT QUIT (STOP)
and—just for good measure—
PLEASE HEAL ME (STOP)
The decision to pursue the Project felt made for me. Again.
In the car, Michelle smirked, “I knew you needed to ask that question.”
“You were right.” She had earned smirking rights for at least six months of book club. “But how did I go from ‘I quit’ to starting a blog in two hours?” I felt a little spiritually stoned, as if I had smoked a peace pipe with the Transcendent Telegrapher in the sky. I was almost afraid to try to quit again; what would the Godiverse do then? Mystical Morse Code? Psychic pigeon post? Seraphic skywriting? Would Psychic Jesus himself appear to me in a burning bush? Holy Toledo. I realized that if I started a blog I was committing to the project even if it got me committed—or killed. Between the backside bruises, broken/deformed pinky finger, sprained ankle, Sickness, and car breakdowns, I seemed well on my way to an untimely demise.
When I got home, I found the Thirty by Thirty list and taped it back on the fridge while telling Trent the story.
“NPR, like National Public Radio?” he said, eyes wide.
“Uh-huh,” I answered, proffering Sue Goodwin’s business card for his review.
“Wow,” is all he could muster.
“I know, right?” I answered, taping her card right next to the list. “If I ever say I’m going to quit again, just point to the card.”
Oxley was the only member of the family to remain unimpressed; he just sat primly next to the fridge waiting for a treat as usual, as if I hadn’t just been bested by the Godiverse.
“I may not be the wisest man in the nativity scene, Ox,” I said “but even I know when I’m beat.”