Despertar

evolution

At the beginning of the Kwanzaa program, the MC led us in a "moment of reflection," or personal prayer, and because I don't pray, I watched Justin pray, instead. He bowed his head, pressed his hands together, and, when the moment was over, touched his knuckles to his forehead and tipped his face toward the ceiling.

Before that point, I didn't know what he was about, spiritually. I knew his parents were Baptist, but so are mine. I worried about it for a couple of days, until I heard him make a Pastafarianism joke.

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Dating Marcus, one of the things I worried about most was the likelihood that he'd end everything with one clean swish, on this note: "You and I will never work out because you haven't accepted Christ."

He never got around to saying that, or did more than to sort of hint at it sometimes in anger, but I worried about it a lot. I could meet him "halfway" on pretty much anything else. If he became too busy to put time into our relationship, I could clear my schedule and be ready whenever he had two minutes to rub together. If he didn't want to end each night with a long, intimate phone conversation, I could make do with an "I love you, good night." If he needed touch, I could touch him. If he needed silence, I could shut up.

I couldn't be the Godfearing church girl with both eyes on the heavens. Or, I could have. He made a liar out of me; I reached a point where desperation would have manufactured faith to please him. But I had made the mistake, in one of our early interactions, of telling him what I really thought about most organized religion, and he never forgot. He knew what I was really saying when I told him my New Year's resolution for 2005 was to "become a better Christian": that I was trying to force his hand, daring him to admit there was something else wrong with me, that he wanted more than a born-again version of me.

I don't know what was wrong with me, that I didn't see that it could work both ways. Arguably, I deserve someone who more closely matches my vaguely disinterested disbelief, who has questions of his own, who thinks arrogant skeptics are just as hilarious as religious fanatics. Who has read the Books, all of them, with an open mind, and is content to acknowledge that some of the stuff therein borders on the ludicrous.

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Generously, I don't mind if Justin worships God. I envy people with faith. When you're pretty sure God has a plan for you, it's hard to reach that breaking point of purposelessness.

If I could choose for them, I'd want my children to have faith; I'll feel sorry for them if they don't. They won't learn it from me, even though I'll raise them in some church somewhere and expose them to a spiritual community for support purposes. Some of the most encouraging people in my life are my mother's church friends, and I don't think that's coincidence. I'd love it if we could distinguish the elements from one another, start a mass movement and get people to cut out the middleman--admit they're not worshipping God so much as Goodness. I'd feel more comfortable with it then. I'd want to go to church then. I'd maybe even think about upping my "love offerings."

I always wonder if maybe I don't get it, if everyone but me recognizes that it's all metaphors and that the pageantry and personification are just window dressings. If that's it, if it's that obvious, I should have seen it much earlier, and I'm sorry.

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That said, I am majorly offended that there's still anyone living who doesn't even want to hear about evolution. What does that say about your faith, that it can't stand up to a little theoretical, also largely unproven, logic?