An Essay on Church History - Lisa Davies
She's stout, wrinkly and shapeless. Her grey hair is pulled crossly back into a nasty tight bun. She's Miss Mullinos. She's my first Sunday School teacher. And she doesn't like us. She's attempting to teach a dozen bored six-year-olds about the creation story. We're fidgeting, or we're staring wistfully out of the window at the green summer Sunday morning, or we're picking our noses, or we're peeling the paper off the scruffy broken crayons arranged before us in old Blossom margarine tubs. I enjoy the Blossom adverts on TV. We don't have TV at home but on Monday evenings I go across the road to watch TV at the neighbours'. I always stay to watch the adverts before going home for supper. I like the way they spread Blossom margarine on bricks or books and bite into them. I wonder what Blossom margarine would be like spread on Miss Margery Mullinos' big, black, leather-bound bible.
“Now then, who would like to tell us something about Adam and Eve?” she asks, hopefully.
I raise my hand. Her sister, also a Miss Mullinos, is my older brother's school teacher. And he calls her Miss Snollienose.
She looks around the rest of the class. Eleven pairs of eyes stare blankly back at her.
“Lisa?” She utters a little sigh. It reminds me of the sound the milk bottle whispers when you press your thumb down over the silver foil cap to open it. Ooof, it goes. She peers over her spectacles at me. I can see little brown hairs above her upper lip, and some swirls of make-up not properly blended. Her eyebrows are raised.
“Well, it's a story.”
“Well, yes, of course, it's the story of Adam and Eve and how -”
“I mean, it's not true. It's just a story, written a long time ago, to try to explain things to people before they knew about science, and solar systems, and fossils, and things like that. It's not like there actually were some people walking around in a garden without any clothes on talking to snakes and eating apples.”
Her face is white.
“My dear girl, let – me – tell you something. The story of Adam and Eve is recorded in – the – bible.”
“Well, my dad says it's an – an – alleg – allegory. It's not – not fact. Not true.”
“Are you saying that God tells lies?”
“No, Miss Mullinos. God didn't write the bible, Miss Mullinos.”
And I'm about eight years old, and I'm in church with my family. There's Mum and Dad, my older brother and sister and me. There's no Sunday School today, as it's the school holidays. I'm bored, and my bottom is numb. I'm trying to scrape a piece of bubble gum off the pew in front of me (smells like it's banana-flavoured), and I'm half-listening to the words of the Eucharistic Prayer.
“Take, eat, this is my body which is given for you, for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you eat this bread, do it in remembrance OF me.”
I wonder why the priest always says the word OF so much louder than the other words. I know about underlining and italics writing, and I check in the prayer book. There's no underlining. No italics.
I nudge my sister and whisper “Why does he always say OF me?”
She shrugs and rolls her eyes. We giggle. Dad glances in our direction, frowns, and bows his head again. We look around at all the heads bowed over hands. The large pear-shaped man in front and to the left of us has a greasy comb-over and long blue socks, and his safari suit short pants are wedged up into his bottom. Suddenly everything strikes us as hysterically funny. We struggle not to giggle any more, but the effort of not laughing gets worse and worse and more and more painful.
We wait. We know the next part's coming. I'm about to explode. I force myself to stare straight ahead. I can feel my sister shaking next to me.
“Take, drink, this is the cup of my blood which is shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink this cup, do it in remembrance OF me.”
It's too much for us, and we can't suppress it any longer, and our mirth erupts aloud and everyone hears and looks around and our parents are shocked and our brother is pretending he's not associated with the family, and we know we're in deep, deep trouble, but oh, it doesn't matter for the blessed relief of letting out that laughter.
And I'm ten. And now I'm fascinated by the idea of the Eucharist.
We do not presume to come to this your table, Merciful Lord. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table.
It's my job to clear the table and sweep up after supper at home. For this reason, my brother purposely drops as much mess on the floor as he can. He's a slob. Still, it's his job to wash. And my sister dries.
There's an old scab on my knee. Roller-skating accident. And almost completely picked off now, after two or three days of my serious attention. You have to be careful just to pick off the right amount every time, to expose the new smooth pink skin underneath. I do a bit of work on it while the priest goes on. I wince. Too much. A pin point of bright red appears and wells up on my knee. I wipe if off with my finger and lick it away. Mum hands me a tissue. Its looks suspiciously second-hand, but I take it anyway and dab a bit at my knee. I enjoy the way the white tissue becomes patterned with spots of red.
I watch the priest hold aloft a wafer and the carafe of wine. It's red. It's blood. It's a jug full of blood. The wafers are bits of Jesus' flesh. They're little bits of skin. They make them thin not to use up too much flesh for each person. They remind me of the bits of potato peel that drop onto the floor when Mum peels the potatoes for supper. And I imagine a dusty overgrown place, untouched for two thousand years, and an enormous dead body. It's Jesus Christ's body, and it's half used up, and there's a long line of people waiting their turn, and they're holding paring knives and jugs and they've come to get their share of the body and the blood.
And I can't shake the image, and it makes me feel funny, and the more I try not to think of it the more I think of it, and the more I try to empty my head the more it crowds in and I feel bad for even imagining it and I can't tell anyone about it because it's so awful but most of all I feel sorry for Jesus Christ being dead and eaten up by all those people.
And now I'm thirteen, and I secretly love my parents, but they embarrass me, as do many, many things. I have new breasts and new braces, and more than anything I want to blend in.
We're on the way to church, in our old, old (embarrassing) car. We're late. This is a common occurrence. Dad, ready and waiting since 7.30, has been patiently-impatiently pacing the verandah, caged-lion style, while the other members of the family dawdle. At least half the family would rather still be in bed. He glowers on the drive to church. Almost but not quite speeding. He never speeds. The car is about 90 in the shade and doesn't change down very well. Or accelerate, corner, or brake. (He's perfected the art of hand-brake assisted stops.) And it sounds like a small aircraft. Mum, chiefly to blame for how late we are, is determinedly cheerily and points out the things we pass. As though, perhaps, no one else can see them. Gosh yes, now you mention it, I do see that new traffic light at which we've stopped.
We roar to a halt in the church parking lot, get out (careful how you shut the door, it doesn't do it any good to slam it), and walk towards the church door. Oh God, the service has started.
I want to sit somewhere normal, somewhere unobtrusive and good for blending in, like about two rows from the back. No. Mum marches enthusiastically down the aisle, all the way to the third row. Last week I tried going in to the church first, and choosing the row myself. That was even worse, though, as Mum still led the rest of the family to the front, and then I had to relocate to the front anyway, which was worse than going there in the first place.
So our family files into the pew. I try to get a seat on the far end as many bodies away from Mum as possible. Only I don't manage this because my brother and sister are much bigger than me, and I end up sitting right next to her. I've sometimes tried getting to the other end of the pew, the other side of Dad, but that's not reliable either.
The first hymn begins. Instantly I want to die. This is why I will do anything not to sit next to her in church. Mum sings with great gusto and enjoyment which is way out of place in the congregation, most of whom look like they lost their best friend, or the election. She's so loud you can't hear anyone else sing. And if the pitch is too high or too low for anyone to sing, so that everyone is just mouthing, why, that doesn't matter a bit. She simply harmonises. A bare octave or two away. She's got a good voice, and she loves to use it, and she should be leading the choir, but that doesn't matter. All that matters is fitting in and not being different and not being noticed. Everyone else's mother sings in the usual tepid manner of the rest of the congregation and I long to be everyone else – anyone else.
And now I'm fifteen. And the bible tells me that if I marry someone then I have to obey him. And no one else seems to have a problem with that. And it's so fucking unfair. And the men are so smug and patronising. And the women are so simpering and annoyingly self-righteous. God's word, and all that. Submit yourselves to each other, but hey, if there's any question, let's not be in any doubt who's got to give in. It's the route to healthy, happy family life. Every organisation needs a leader. Second in authority is not really second in importance. Each one's role is just as important as the other's. But they are different. And the husband is the head! Head of the wife as Christ is head of the church!
And I remember being a small child and mirthfully proclaiming “Wives, obey your husbands” when my parents had the occasional disagreement. And I see my younger self as an annoying little shit and wonder why my parents didn't put me firmly in my place. Suppose they must believe it too. They seem happy though.
And since the bible says that's what you must do if you get married, then to get married and not adhere to that will mean eternal damnation, since to knowingly sin and go on sinning is damming and you will not go to heaven. Hence the only solution open to me is not to get married at all. I can not promise to go through my life like a child obeying someone whom I would rather love and share with than obey, simply because he has a penis and I don't. And I can not marry anyone without obeying him as it will be the sure route to damnation.
I toy, briefly, with the idea of being a nun. I wonder if perhaps that's why all nuns become nuns. All the women who can't live with the idea of marriage become nuns so they won't be lonely. Only I decide this is not an option for me, as they wear such ugly clothes, with hairy grey socks and men’s sandals. And maybe in a life of frugality there's no money for frivolities like pads and tampons and so they have to use rags instead, which they are forever having to wash by hand.
And I believe this, silently and in misery, for some months. Until out of the blue, one Sunday we have to endure a reading and sermon on Paul's lessons for household bliss. I'm rigid and stony-faced in the pew. I'm so angry and depressed about it. And afterwards Dad and I are sitting together at home on the verandah. To my surprise I blurt out my anger and my fears. He tips the spilt tea from his saucer back into his cup, and passes me the shortbread. “Oh well, Paul was pretty much a bitter unmarried misogynist, don't you think, who was somewhat detached from reality. I wouldn't worry too much about old Paul, if I were you.”
And the relief that comes over me in the realisation that I am not alone in how I feel, and that even my out of touch old dad, for whom I secretly have a huge amount of respect, thinks it's a load of hogwash – that relief is indescribable. And I will never see the church, or my parents for that matter, in quite the same light again.
But now I'm older. Seventeen? And now fitting in means something different. Now it means being Born Again. And we're young, and we're Cool Christians, and we sit on a pew together (Yay! I can't hear my mother sing from here!). We're too cool to use prayer books. We say the words off by heart. Some of us know them better than others of us, but we cover up quite well. After all, you can always shut your eyes and be deep in sudden inspired silent prayer if necessary. And we follow the readings in our personal bibles, heavily thumbed and falling apart, full of cute Christian bookmarks and keepsakes, and annotated with things like “Yes! Thank you Lord! 26th March 1986!” And we play the guitar at youth group, and we listen to Christian pop music, and we're altar servers, and we attend committee meeting and prayer groups.
And we take the bible literally. And if we have ideas about marriage, or about evolution, and that perhaps, human beings didn't appear suddenly one day ('POP' – human beings), and that it wasn't due to the Fall that mosquitoes started drinking blood – if we have ideas like that, then we keep them to ourselves. Because the Bible is true. Because after all, All Scripture is inspired by God (II Tim 3:16). And if we find this sort of thing tautological, we keep that to ourselves too.
And we attend Slain in the Spirit seminars. We pray for people, and they pray for us. And we receive the gifts of the spirit. Everyone's doing it. And the atmosphere in the room is so thick you can feel it pressing down on you. You might faint! If you do, you'll blend right in. Thank you Jesus! Everyone's caught up in it. Thank you Lord! And people are being prayed for, and having hands laid on them, and people are trembling, and falling down all over the place, and prophesying in strange non-existent languages, and interpreting, and you're so caught up in it, or at least you want to be, and you're not sure if what you are doing and feeling is real or whether you are as big a fake as you secretly fear.
And I'm twenty. And I've come full circle. Only I'm not exactly sure where I've come to. I'm the proud owner of the first of a handful of science degrees. I've read more, and more widely, than I could have imagined. What matters now is fact. Fact and logic, things that you can prove, and adherence to universal laws.
I am shocked to come to the realisation one Friday afternoon, crying in Peter's little dirty orange car, that I don't hold on to much of it anymore. Core Christian truths I simply don't believe anymore. Sexless conception? Virgin birth! Come on! One egg and one sperm plus copulation equals zygote. Zygote becomes foetus becomes baby. That's it. Why all this monkeying about with other theories. And most of all, why does it matter? Coming back to life three days after death. Sorry, doesn't make sense. I still believe that Jesus was an incredible person who taught some good stuff. In fact, he seems to be about the only person in the bible who had it right. After him, every one seems to get confused. But the whole concept of God seems like a fairy tale to me now. A nice fairy tale, an attractive proposition to be sure, but really. Look around you! It's a fantasy. There's an explanation for everything. Things which are unexplained are imagined.
But with the loss of faith also comes grief. I've lost something which once mattered, once anchored me. I'll never get back to that state again. It's gone forever. And with the grief is also despair. Because despite my unbelief, there's a small voice of doubt. 'Cos what if? What if it is all true? And the ones who still believe have it all worked out? I can't deceive myself that I believe anymore. I don't. Not really. But if – if – it is real, then sadly, I'm heading for oblivion. No eternal life for me.
The thought of ceasing to exist, oblivion, blackness, terrifies me. I want so much to live. I feel passionately about so many things. I love the heat of the sun on my face, and the smell of cut grass in summer. I love the smell and sound of winter fires and lying in front of the grate with good friends and cheap wine. I love my cat and the way he creeps through me window and into my bed in the early hours of the morning, cold-nosed and rumble-purring. I love the way the birds call in the stillness of the early morning in the Drakensberg, and the rhythm of the surf on the beach – the way each time the waves crash on the rocks the spray falls slightly differently from the time before. I love the power of the evening storms over the hills of Maritzburg and the shocking thrill of unexpected lightning. I love my parents and how well they know each other – and how gently. I love Peter and taking the dogs for walks in the park and watching them emerge from the stream wet and filthy. I love the feel of sailing in a stiff breeze and the idleness of being becalmed on the water waiting for the wind. I hate so much to have to leave it all one day. In exchange for – probably nothing at all.
And now I'm – hah – half-way to seventy. Where does all this leave me now? I'm in a gentler place. A more accepting place. I believe in a universal creative power, but the specifics are vague. I’m no longer so desperate for answers. I believe in the basic goodness of the human spirit, and the magnitude of human potential. I am drawn to kindness and wisdom and joy, and to connection with other people and with the world. I still fear death. The fear and pain of separation, one day, from parents, husband and children, is still real. But the fear is losing its grip to some extent, and I am beginning to appreciate the nature of the journey more.
“Now then, who would like to tell us something about Adam and Eve?” she asks, hopefully.
I raise my hand. Her sister, also a Miss Mullinos, is my older brother's school teacher. And he calls her Miss Snollienose.
She looks around the rest of the class. Eleven pairs of eyes stare blankly back at her.
“Lisa?” She utters a little sigh. It reminds me of the sound the milk bottle whispers when you press your thumb down over the silver foil cap to open it. Ooof, it goes. She peers over her spectacles at me. I can see little brown hairs above her upper lip, and some swirls of make-up not properly blended. Her eyebrows are raised.
“Well, it's a story.”
“Well, yes, of course, it's the story of Adam and Eve and how -”
“I mean, it's not true. It's just a story, written a long time ago, to try to explain things to people before they knew about science, and solar systems, and fossils, and things like that. It's not like there actually were some people walking around in a garden without any clothes on talking to snakes and eating apples.”
Her face is white.
“My dear girl, let – me – tell you something. The story of Adam and Eve is recorded in – the – bible.”
“Well, my dad says it's an – an – alleg – allegory. It's not – not fact. Not true.”
“Are you saying that God tells lies?”
“No, Miss Mullinos. God didn't write the bible, Miss Mullinos.”
~~~
And I'm about eight years old, and I'm in church with my family. There's Mum and Dad, my older brother and sister and me. There's no Sunday School today, as it's the school holidays. I'm bored, and my bottom is numb. I'm trying to scrape a piece of bubble gum off the pew in front of me (smells like it's banana-flavoured), and I'm half-listening to the words of the Eucharistic Prayer.
“Take, eat, this is my body which is given for you, for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you eat this bread, do it in remembrance OF me.”
I wonder why the priest always says the word OF so much louder than the other words. I know about underlining and italics writing, and I check in the prayer book. There's no underlining. No italics.
I nudge my sister and whisper “Why does he always say OF me?”
She shrugs and rolls her eyes. We giggle. Dad glances in our direction, frowns, and bows his head again. We look around at all the heads bowed over hands. The large pear-shaped man in front and to the left of us has a greasy comb-over and long blue socks, and his safari suit short pants are wedged up into his bottom. Suddenly everything strikes us as hysterically funny. We struggle not to giggle any more, but the effort of not laughing gets worse and worse and more and more painful.
We wait. We know the next part's coming. I'm about to explode. I force myself to stare straight ahead. I can feel my sister shaking next to me.
“Take, drink, this is the cup of my blood which is shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink this cup, do it in remembrance OF me.”
It's too much for us, and we can't suppress it any longer, and our mirth erupts aloud and everyone hears and looks around and our parents are shocked and our brother is pretending he's not associated with the family, and we know we're in deep, deep trouble, but oh, it doesn't matter for the blessed relief of letting out that laughter.
~~~
And I'm ten. And now I'm fascinated by the idea of the Eucharist.
We do not presume to come to this your table, Merciful Lord. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table.
It's my job to clear the table and sweep up after supper at home. For this reason, my brother purposely drops as much mess on the floor as he can. He's a slob. Still, it's his job to wash. And my sister dries.
There's an old scab on my knee. Roller-skating accident. And almost completely picked off now, after two or three days of my serious attention. You have to be careful just to pick off the right amount every time, to expose the new smooth pink skin underneath. I do a bit of work on it while the priest goes on. I wince. Too much. A pin point of bright red appears and wells up on my knee. I wipe if off with my finger and lick it away. Mum hands me a tissue. Its looks suspiciously second-hand, but I take it anyway and dab a bit at my knee. I enjoy the way the white tissue becomes patterned with spots of red.
I watch the priest hold aloft a wafer and the carafe of wine. It's red. It's blood. It's a jug full of blood. The wafers are bits of Jesus' flesh. They're little bits of skin. They make them thin not to use up too much flesh for each person. They remind me of the bits of potato peel that drop onto the floor when Mum peels the potatoes for supper. And I imagine a dusty overgrown place, untouched for two thousand years, and an enormous dead body. It's Jesus Christ's body, and it's half used up, and there's a long line of people waiting their turn, and they're holding paring knives and jugs and they've come to get their share of the body and the blood.
And I can't shake the image, and it makes me feel funny, and the more I try not to think of it the more I think of it, and the more I try to empty my head the more it crowds in and I feel bad for even imagining it and I can't tell anyone about it because it's so awful but most of all I feel sorry for Jesus Christ being dead and eaten up by all those people.
~~~
And now I'm thirteen, and I secretly love my parents, but they embarrass me, as do many, many things. I have new breasts and new braces, and more than anything I want to blend in.
We're on the way to church, in our old, old (embarrassing) car. We're late. This is a common occurrence. Dad, ready and waiting since 7.30, has been patiently-impatiently pacing the verandah, caged-lion style, while the other members of the family dawdle. At least half the family would rather still be in bed. He glowers on the drive to church. Almost but not quite speeding. He never speeds. The car is about 90 in the shade and doesn't change down very well. Or accelerate, corner, or brake. (He's perfected the art of hand-brake assisted stops.) And it sounds like a small aircraft. Mum, chiefly to blame for how late we are, is determinedly cheerily and points out the things we pass. As though, perhaps, no one else can see them. Gosh yes, now you mention it, I do see that new traffic light at which we've stopped.
We roar to a halt in the church parking lot, get out (careful how you shut the door, it doesn't do it any good to slam it), and walk towards the church door. Oh God, the service has started.
I want to sit somewhere normal, somewhere unobtrusive and good for blending in, like about two rows from the back. No. Mum marches enthusiastically down the aisle, all the way to the third row. Last week I tried going in to the church first, and choosing the row myself. That was even worse, though, as Mum still led the rest of the family to the front, and then I had to relocate to the front anyway, which was worse than going there in the first place.
So our family files into the pew. I try to get a seat on the far end as many bodies away from Mum as possible. Only I don't manage this because my brother and sister are much bigger than me, and I end up sitting right next to her. I've sometimes tried getting to the other end of the pew, the other side of Dad, but that's not reliable either.
The first hymn begins. Instantly I want to die. This is why I will do anything not to sit next to her in church. Mum sings with great gusto and enjoyment which is way out of place in the congregation, most of whom look like they lost their best friend, or the election. She's so loud you can't hear anyone else sing. And if the pitch is too high or too low for anyone to sing, so that everyone is just mouthing, why, that doesn't matter a bit. She simply harmonises. A bare octave or two away. She's got a good voice, and she loves to use it, and she should be leading the choir, but that doesn't matter. All that matters is fitting in and not being different and not being noticed. Everyone else's mother sings in the usual tepid manner of the rest of the congregation and I long to be everyone else – anyone else.
~~~
And now I'm fifteen. And the bible tells me that if I marry someone then I have to obey him. And no one else seems to have a problem with that. And it's so fucking unfair. And the men are so smug and patronising. And the women are so simpering and annoyingly self-righteous. God's word, and all that. Submit yourselves to each other, but hey, if there's any question, let's not be in any doubt who's got to give in. It's the route to healthy, happy family life. Every organisation needs a leader. Second in authority is not really second in importance. Each one's role is just as important as the other's. But they are different. And the husband is the head! Head of the wife as Christ is head of the church!
And I remember being a small child and mirthfully proclaiming “Wives, obey your husbands” when my parents had the occasional disagreement. And I see my younger self as an annoying little shit and wonder why my parents didn't put me firmly in my place. Suppose they must believe it too. They seem happy though.
And since the bible says that's what you must do if you get married, then to get married and not adhere to that will mean eternal damnation, since to knowingly sin and go on sinning is damming and you will not go to heaven. Hence the only solution open to me is not to get married at all. I can not promise to go through my life like a child obeying someone whom I would rather love and share with than obey, simply because he has a penis and I don't. And I can not marry anyone without obeying him as it will be the sure route to damnation.
I toy, briefly, with the idea of being a nun. I wonder if perhaps that's why all nuns become nuns. All the women who can't live with the idea of marriage become nuns so they won't be lonely. Only I decide this is not an option for me, as they wear such ugly clothes, with hairy grey socks and men’s sandals. And maybe in a life of frugality there's no money for frivolities like pads and tampons and so they have to use rags instead, which they are forever having to wash by hand.
And I believe this, silently and in misery, for some months. Until out of the blue, one Sunday we have to endure a reading and sermon on Paul's lessons for household bliss. I'm rigid and stony-faced in the pew. I'm so angry and depressed about it. And afterwards Dad and I are sitting together at home on the verandah. To my surprise I blurt out my anger and my fears. He tips the spilt tea from his saucer back into his cup, and passes me the shortbread. “Oh well, Paul was pretty much a bitter unmarried misogynist, don't you think, who was somewhat detached from reality. I wouldn't worry too much about old Paul, if I were you.”
And the relief that comes over me in the realisation that I am not alone in how I feel, and that even my out of touch old dad, for whom I secretly have a huge amount of respect, thinks it's a load of hogwash – that relief is indescribable. And I will never see the church, or my parents for that matter, in quite the same light again.
~~~
But now I'm older. Seventeen? And now fitting in means something different. Now it means being Born Again. And we're young, and we're Cool Christians, and we sit on a pew together (Yay! I can't hear my mother sing from here!). We're too cool to use prayer books. We say the words off by heart. Some of us know them better than others of us, but we cover up quite well. After all, you can always shut your eyes and be deep in sudden inspired silent prayer if necessary. And we follow the readings in our personal bibles, heavily thumbed and falling apart, full of cute Christian bookmarks and keepsakes, and annotated with things like “Yes! Thank you Lord! 26th March 1986!” And we play the guitar at youth group, and we listen to Christian pop music, and we're altar servers, and we attend committee meeting and prayer groups.
And we take the bible literally. And if we have ideas about marriage, or about evolution, and that perhaps, human beings didn't appear suddenly one day ('POP' – human beings), and that it wasn't due to the Fall that mosquitoes started drinking blood – if we have ideas like that, then we keep them to ourselves. Because the Bible is true. Because after all, All Scripture is inspired by God (II Tim 3:16). And if we find this sort of thing tautological, we keep that to ourselves too.
And we attend Slain in the Spirit seminars. We pray for people, and they pray for us. And we receive the gifts of the spirit. Everyone's doing it. And the atmosphere in the room is so thick you can feel it pressing down on you. You might faint! If you do, you'll blend right in. Thank you Jesus! Everyone's caught up in it. Thank you Lord! And people are being prayed for, and having hands laid on them, and people are trembling, and falling down all over the place, and prophesying in strange non-existent languages, and interpreting, and you're so caught up in it, or at least you want to be, and you're not sure if what you are doing and feeling is real or whether you are as big a fake as you secretly fear.
~~~
And I'm twenty. And I've come full circle. Only I'm not exactly sure where I've come to. I'm the proud owner of the first of a handful of science degrees. I've read more, and more widely, than I could have imagined. What matters now is fact. Fact and logic, things that you can prove, and adherence to universal laws.
I am shocked to come to the realisation one Friday afternoon, crying in Peter's little dirty orange car, that I don't hold on to much of it anymore. Core Christian truths I simply don't believe anymore. Sexless conception? Virgin birth! Come on! One egg and one sperm plus copulation equals zygote. Zygote becomes foetus becomes baby. That's it. Why all this monkeying about with other theories. And most of all, why does it matter? Coming back to life three days after death. Sorry, doesn't make sense. I still believe that Jesus was an incredible person who taught some good stuff. In fact, he seems to be about the only person in the bible who had it right. After him, every one seems to get confused. But the whole concept of God seems like a fairy tale to me now. A nice fairy tale, an attractive proposition to be sure, but really. Look around you! It's a fantasy. There's an explanation for everything. Things which are unexplained are imagined.
But with the loss of faith also comes grief. I've lost something which once mattered, once anchored me. I'll never get back to that state again. It's gone forever. And with the grief is also despair. Because despite my unbelief, there's a small voice of doubt. 'Cos what if? What if it is all true? And the ones who still believe have it all worked out? I can't deceive myself that I believe anymore. I don't. Not really. But if – if – it is real, then sadly, I'm heading for oblivion. No eternal life for me.
The thought of ceasing to exist, oblivion, blackness, terrifies me. I want so much to live. I feel passionately about so many things. I love the heat of the sun on my face, and the smell of cut grass in summer. I love the smell and sound of winter fires and lying in front of the grate with good friends and cheap wine. I love my cat and the way he creeps through me window and into my bed in the early hours of the morning, cold-nosed and rumble-purring. I love the way the birds call in the stillness of the early morning in the Drakensberg, and the rhythm of the surf on the beach – the way each time the waves crash on the rocks the spray falls slightly differently from the time before. I love the power of the evening storms over the hills of Maritzburg and the shocking thrill of unexpected lightning. I love my parents and how well they know each other – and how gently. I love Peter and taking the dogs for walks in the park and watching them emerge from the stream wet and filthy. I love the feel of sailing in a stiff breeze and the idleness of being becalmed on the water waiting for the wind. I hate so much to have to leave it all one day. In exchange for – probably nothing at all.
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And now I'm – hah – half-way to seventy. Where does all this leave me now? I'm in a gentler place. A more accepting place. I believe in a universal creative power, but the specifics are vague. I’m no longer so desperate for answers. I believe in the basic goodness of the human spirit, and the magnitude of human potential. I am drawn to kindness and wisdom and joy, and to connection with other people and with the world. I still fear death. The fear and pain of separation, one day, from parents, husband and children, is still real. But the fear is losing its grip to some extent, and I am beginning to appreciate the nature of the journey more.
posted by Lisa at
8:00 pm
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