God

Diaries of the Breadman’s Daughter: Liberty Will Set You Free.

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Liberty will set you free.

I started writing letters to God about twenty years ago.  At the time, I desperately needed to talk to someone and there wasn’t anyone in close proximity that I could tell this stuff to.  I could have gone to a shrink I suppose, but I’m not sure I thought this was all that shrink-worthy at the time.  In retrospect, it probably was.  It was just private, intimate, inside your head kind of material that you can’t really share with anyone human, no matter how much you love them and they love you.  So who do you turn to?  I remembered from those years at Christ Lutheran that Pastor M said you could always talk to God and he would listen – even to the worst of the worst.  Well that was me.  I was a long-time renegade from organized religion by this point, and the mere thought of getting down on my knees and praying out-loud, or even silently, was painful.  So I did what came naturally to me.  I wrote.

Little back story.  My first letters weren’t actually letters at all.  And they weren’t written in a Plain Jane Hilroy notebook either.  The first compilation of “prayers, petitions and pleas to God” were contained in a genuine bona fide journal. I can’t remember who gave it to me but I’m guessing it was my best friend B because we gave each other gifts like that.  It is one of those cloth covered dealios with sweet little flowers in pink and periwinkle and many many many daunting blank pages to fill. The word “LIBERTY” is engraved in gold leaf front and back, along with the words “Hand Made in England”, also engraved in gold leaf.

All this gold leaf and English pedigree seemed to not only endow this chronicle of my early interior life with virtues I surely didn’t possess but with magical powers as well.  And I have to say I still love the notion that by the mere act of writing in this supernatural diary I would be set free, just as all that gold leaf LIBERTY promised.  If there was a theme, some common thread woven throughout this first flowery treatise, it was the need for freedom and the desire to hit the road Jack. And of course, I needed God’s help to achieve this.  Really.

It is also filled with all kinds of “New Age” postulations, which looking back, make the older me both smile affectionately and cringe with horror.  A bit like looking at prehistoric photos of myself in bell bottoms.  What was I thinking?  Here’s the thing.  I’m not sure I was.  Thinking that is, at least not clearly.  But somewhere between the inside front cover inscription of “My Book of Gratitude, Love & Appreciation” and the last sentence “Thank you Father” some sense of clarity was achieved.  Not a lot.  But enough to begin this journey, to first get me the hell out of Dodge and then to begin having these daily conversations with God.

Dear God.  It’s me.

Diaries of the Breadman’s Daughter: The Awesome Power in a Sweet Ride.

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There were other religious influences.  They say kids are like sponges.  I don’t particularly like that analogy, for a number of reasons.  But suffice to say Bob and Square Pants, and just leave it at that.  I do think kids possess naturally open and insatiably curious minds though.  More like bottomless toy boxes that always have room for more.  Or the magicians black hat.  Rabbits and endless chiffon scarves.  Doves and other wondrous things extracted with ease.

At least that was how my young mind worked. Still does.

One of my favorite things to ponder as a child, and to this day for that matter, is God.  Such an infinite subject.  I wanted to know Him/Her. I wanted to know me.  Where I came from.  Where God came from. If God made me then who made God? I thought about that so much it made my head spin.  Still no answer. Will I ever know?

Little back story.  When I was six my oldest brother met the love of his life and the woman who would become my sister-in-law.  They were engaged for four years, which at the time seemed like an eternity to me.  Truthfully, I think it seemed like an eternity to J as well.  We both had our reasons.  I was very young and she was eager to be a blushing bride.

During those four years my brother, who once smoked unfiltered cigarettes and drove a mauve Harley Davidson, wore his black Italian hair slicked back like John Travolta in Grease and had a chipped front tooth, became a Catholic.  He did it for love. I can’t think of a better reason. My sister-in-law played an instrumental role the conversion, which was a good thing. The entire family agreed. It transformed my brother’s life, gave it purpose and made him happy, beyond his wildest imaginings.  That was my first introduction into the awesome power of God. I was a firsthand witness to a metamorphosis so rich and profound and eternal.  Undeniable.  Love taking action. All these years later, it still exists.

The Awesome Power of God Manifested in a Sweet Ride

Even though by then, The Old Man, Ma and I were attending the Lutheran Church every Sunday I still felt kind of bad.  Not quite good enough.  Compared to St. Michael and All Angels Anglican Church that the other two Musketeers attended and Corpus Cristi Catholic Church, right across the road for God’s sake, that my brother and sister-in-law were members, the Christ Lutheran Church seemed somehow second rate.  No one I knew went there.  What did they know that we didn’t? Why were the other churches up on Red River Road and ours was down on Walkover Street?  It seemed we couldn’t get anything right.

Furthermore, the Christ Lutheran Church was full of Finlanders with blonde hair, pale skin and weird accents.  The Old Man fit in nicely, being a Finlander, but my painfully shy olive-complected Italian/English mother and I were misfits.  Strangers in a strange land.  As Jim Morrison so aptly put it, “People are strange when you’re a stranger.”  That’s predominantly how I felt the entire time I attended Christ Lutheran Church.

I stopped attending when I turned 19, the year of my emancipation from organized religion.  I was very disorganized after that.

I didn’t know it at the time but I guess it was also the year I became an “Other.”

Diaries of the Breadman’s Daughter: Sometimes It Can Be Awkward.

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boo posing awkwardly in white communion dress with white bible in front of floral curtains.

The day that I had the epiphany, that ‘ah ha!’ moment after reading Eric Weiner’s article in The New York Times, I got to thinking about when this whole thing began.  Not the world beginning, that big bang thing or whatever it was that started what is commonly known as life.  I’m talking about something far more personal.  I’m talking about my life with God – and when that all began.

I wish I could say it started in the womb and that I had these primordial memories of being in heaven and sitting on God’s lap, but it didn’t.  Or if it did I don’t remember so that doesn’t count.  The best I can recall is that this ‘relationship’ (and I use the term loosely, at least in this context) began in elementary school.

Little back story.  Until this juncture I don’t recall being from a terribly religious family.  We celebrated Christmas (with presents under the tree and a turkey with cranberry sauce) and Easter (with ham and scalloped potatoes, new shoes and an awkward photo op.)  But we also celebrated Thanksgiving (with mashed potatoes, turkey with cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie instead of presents), and Birthdays (no turkey, no cranberry sauce, no pumpkin pie but a galaxy of presents for the special one of the hour.)  So throughout the year there were many celebrations and it was hard to tell which ones, if any, had religious affiliations.  It was confusing at best, given the abundance of delicious food and divine presents attached to every one of these celebrations that took place at 204.

Anyway, my best guess is ‘it’ all began sometime in early elementary school when I hooked up with S and T and we became the three Musketeers, a nickname coined by T’s father, who was the manager of the local movie theater. It could have been worse. We could have ended up the Three Stooges.

They both went to church, as did many of my other classmates.  I did not. This made me feel bad.  Inferior. Flawed.  Unworthy of God’s favor, whatever that meant.  To not feel bad, or worse yet, to not be a blemished cursed sinner I approached my parents with the notion that we go to church.  At least this is what I recall.  I probably didn’t.  It was most likely their idea, but this is my take.  Besides, I’m too old to have clear memories, and that was a long long time ago.  But we’re talking about God and He/She forgives the forgetter.

Of my parents, oddly enough, it was The Old Man who had the closest connection to what would be considered organized religion. He was a Finlander and there was some sort of ancestral connection to Lutheranism.  Ma may have been Anglican as a child but that affiliation was long gone and best forgotten.  Her connection to religion was unorganized, I suppose.  So off we went to Christ Lutheran Church.

Thus began my indoctrination into the Christian faith.

Diaries of the Breadman’s Daughter: Letters to God.

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The thing about God is.  No one knows for sure. Really.

I read this article in The New York Times by Eric Weiner called Americans: Undecided About God.  Weiner so eloquently writes that the national conversation about God “has been co-opted by the True Believers, on the one hand, and Angry Atheists on the other.”  He asks,  “what about the rest of us?”   Weiner calls these folks the Nones.  Nones doesn’t do it for me.  I think of myself as an Other.  Don’t ask me why.  It’s just kind of the way I am. But regardless of the moniker – Nones or Others –   I agree with Weiner, we haven’t been a part of this conversation.  We’ve been this tight-lipped group who shied away from any discussion, even remotely religious, like sheep about to be sheared and left standing naked in the field.  Awkward.  Embarrassing.  Uncomfortable.  Skin-crawly. To say Weiner’s article resonated with me is an understatement.  It got me thinking.  Then it inspired me.  And then I felt like having a conversation about None Other than God.

Little back story.  For the past twenty years I’ve been writing these letters to God.  Some people, far more intellectual or spiritual, or hip to this pursuit than I, call this “Journaling.” I call it writing letters in spiral bound Hilroy notebooks.  Nothing terribly fancy.  But organized.  And to prove that these are letters, not emails or memos, or blogs to the Big Guy in the Sky, they all begin “Dear God” and end “Love, Me.”  In my world that constitutes the basics of Letter Writing 101.

I write one almost every day.  Except on the weekends.  I do other things.  Like grocery shopping.  Errand running.  Movie watching.  I relax and generally do everything I can to break the Monday to Friday routine. Basically I laze around and waste time.  Even God rested on the seventh day.

Box of Letters to God

After reading the New York Times article it occurred to me that after twenty years of writing almost daily to God, I must have something to say about the topic.  I’m an “Other.”  Typically when it comes to religion I keep my opinions to myself. Unless in the company of other “Others.”  Then I might say something provocative like “no one really knows for sure do they?”  Even that comment is plagued with doubt.  Ends in a question mark, implying uncertainty.  Not a definitive, confident period.

This blog is about all things God – big and little g.  It’s about wonder.  And awe.  And marvel.  About where we came from and where we’re ultimately going.  Not only in the big cosmic sense but in the small personal close to your heart way too.  All are welcome here – Others and everyone else.  Just open your heart.  And bring your head.