If you're like me you think/thought the idea of god was baloney, ballyhoo, and boring. God is the creepy-crawly word that kept me out of the AA rooms for so long. As someone who grew up in the papist church, I was turned off to the whole idea of gob and jebus and highber powber by the time I was old enough to pour my own drinks. Flash forwards (or backwards, depending on where in time you are) to psalm psunday, 2009. At my local watering dump, I see a woman who I knew drank little and went to church but yet hung out in that place. I says to her I says "Psst! Hey! I wanna go to church with you."
At that time in my drinking career, I was close enough to wrecked that I was just about ready to give up my athiesm that I got from these guys and here more specifically, and most convincingly, him. I had this crazy idea that if I could just get a little religion, I'd be able to moderate my drinking and not have to stop. Pssh! Girl, please! That psunday was no different than the last time I was forced to go to church (the feeling of terminal boredom, "this-is-total-nonsense" banner ads running through my mind, and the familiar need to pee a lot). Yeah, I wanted to get some religion, ME, who knew religion was just a result of how our not-yet-developed reptilian brains try to make sense of the unknowable, and to connect to people we're isolated from in several dimensions: time, geography, language, tradition, nationality, race...don't get me started, don't EVEN get me started.
Ok, fine. The mass I went to with this woman commemorating when the easter bunny was nailed to a palm tree or whatever (I wasn't paying attention, ok?; I skipped out asap!) did nothing to chink my armor of athiesm, and I think I scampered to the barfy-stinking bar and filled up on easter beers.
The next few weeks, not much happened. I think somewhere in there I got a TV. But other than that, life went on as sourly usual. I went into my first AA meeting, with the broken desperation of wanting to give up drinking no-matter-what. Flash forwards again past things I'll address here at a later time, and my sponsor says to me he says "Ok, I want you to do something for me."
"What," I says, "pretend there's a god?"
"Shut the fuck up," he said. "I want you to imagine there is a loving, benevolant god who wants you to be happy. And I want you to pray to him every night."
FUCK. Last thing I wanted to do, I said. Whatever, my sponsor knew his stuff, and I admitted the first step ("We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable."). I assented. I had a sneaking suspicion up until then that, while AA claims you don't need to be a believer and you can make up your own god, it was simply a cover for their backdoor monotheism. I was wrong. Sponsor told me to imagine god however I wanted to. The first thing that popped into my mind was:
KYAN DOUGLAS (see Figure 2)
At that time in my drinking career, I was close enough to wrecked that I was just about ready to give up my athiesm that I got from these guys and here more specifically, and most convincingly, him. I had this crazy idea that if I could just get a little religion, I'd be able to moderate my drinking and not have to stop. Pssh! Girl, please! That psunday was no different than the last time I was forced to go to church (the feeling of terminal boredom, "this-is-total-nonsense" banner ads running through my mind, and the familiar need to pee a lot). Yeah, I wanted to get some religion, ME, who knew religion was just a result of how our not-yet-developed reptilian brains try to make sense of the unknowable, and to connect to people we're isolated from in several dimensions: time, geography, language, tradition, nationality, race...don't get me started, don't EVEN get me started.
Ok, fine. The mass I went to with this woman commemorating when the easter bunny was nailed to a palm tree or whatever (I wasn't paying attention, ok?; I skipped out asap!) did nothing to chink my armor of athiesm, and I think I scampered to the barfy-stinking bar and filled up on easter beers.
The next few weeks, not much happened. I think somewhere in there I got a TV. But other than that, life went on as sourly usual. I went into my first AA meeting, with the broken desperation of wanting to give up drinking no-matter-what. Flash forwards again past things I'll address here at a later time, and my sponsor says to me he says "Ok, I want you to do something for me."
"What," I says, "pretend there's a god?"
"Shut the fuck up," he said. "I want you to imagine there is a loving, benevolant god who wants you to be happy. And I want you to pray to him every night."
FUCK. Last thing I wanted to do, I said. Whatever, my sponsor knew his stuff, and I admitted the first step ("We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable."). I assented. I had a sneaking suspicion up until then that, while AA claims you don't need to be a believer and you can make up your own god, it was simply a cover for their backdoor monotheism. I was wrong. Sponsor told me to imagine god however I wanted to. The first thing that popped into my mind was:
KYAN DOUGLAS (see Figure 2)
Figure 2 : GodThat's right. My idea of god is totally made-up. Please forgive his stupid pants and lame silk-screened shirt (this pic is like 2002, bro!) but, whatever, you've seen Queer Eye. He's the guy who never looses his cool. I could be all, "Kyan! If I cut my hair short I'll look like a water-head baby!" and he'd be all "Don't worry about it, Maxie, I've got you. Hold my hand." Kyan has it under control! Yeah, Kyan really is a dumb name. Like his parents were fighting over the two equally-boring baby names Kyle and Ryan and had compromise sex. Anyway, I don't know why I chose anyone from that show. It's basically unwatchable now, the music is too early-twothousands and the clothes are hideous. But look who else was on that show: the black guy in the pilot episode had no personality, the interior designer was pouty and too puffy about the face, the guy with glasses had no personality and his mouth looked funny, the blonde guy looked like a muppet thrown in the dumpster, and the porter rican guy was just too twinky. Thus leaves Kyan Douglas, the down-to-earth one who shares my enthusiasm for Kiehl's prodct.
So, when you get into AA, you'll call your sponsor complaining that your sobriety is making you antsy or frowny or what have you, and he'll tell you, "Send it up to your HP." He doesn't mean send it to that Hewlitt-Packard printer that never worked that your parents got you for christmas in the 1990's. He means Higher Power. Personally, I can't imagine saying, to anyone other than Kyan, "Hey, man, even though your arms are full of groceries, can you please take care of this first world problem I'm having?" He'll say, with his barely-audible lisp, "Abssolutely."
I've variously described my god to people as my celebrity bromance crush, my imaginary friend, and god. I've somehow accomodated the idea of having god exist as this: our primitive reptilian brains are probably biologically adapted to believe in god, so why not play a trick on this and pretend, on a certain, strictly-personal level, that there is a divine being? We athiests can still be militantly against teaching garbage science in school, the church saying that gay people are no good, and that abortion is the worst thing ever.
Somehow I'm an athiest, AND, a believer. I don't pretend to have reconciled these two things yet. At least I'm fighting my papistly-ingrained homophobia...
So, when you get into AA, you'll call your sponsor complaining that your sobriety is making you antsy or frowny or what have you, and he'll tell you, "Send it up to your HP." He doesn't mean send it to that Hewlitt-Packard printer that never worked that your parents got you for christmas in the 1990's. He means Higher Power. Personally, I can't imagine saying, to anyone other than Kyan, "Hey, man, even though your arms are full of groceries, can you please take care of this first world problem I'm having?" He'll say, with his barely-audible lisp, "Abssolutely."
I've variously described my god to people as my celebrity bromance crush, my imaginary friend, and god. I've somehow accomodated the idea of having god exist as this: our primitive reptilian brains are probably biologically adapted to believe in god, so why not play a trick on this and pretend, on a certain, strictly-personal level, that there is a divine being? We athiests can still be militantly against teaching garbage science in school, the church saying that gay people are no good, and that abortion is the worst thing ever.
Somehow I'm an athiest, AND, a believer. I don't pretend to have reconciled these two things yet. At least I'm fighting my papistly-ingrained homophobia...
No comments:
Post a Comment