Unorthodox Pagan - Excerpt #8
I never considered myself a good Catholic. This likely is due, in no small part, to the fact that I wasn’t raised Catholic; not had I taken Communion; nor had I ever attended a Catholic mass; nor was I attracted to young, smooth-skinned boys.
But today, like a fat kid walking by the funnel cake vendor at the county fair, I am feeling rather drawn to my Virgin Mary-loving, fish-on-Friday-eating friends down at the local St. Juliana’s. Sure, I’ll never be one for donning Rosary beads or poking my head into a confessional, but the folks with a Pope have got something I so desperately need—the exemplary life of Mother Theresa.
I’ve got to admit, I was never a big fan of the diminutive orphan lover. Not that I had any issues with the good Mother, I guess the whole rescuing the downtrodden of Calcutta was just not on my radar. But even as self absorbed as I tend to be, there was a part of me that realized she was doing a bit more with her life than the living for fantasy football, blackout drunks, and appetizer trios at Chili’s existence that I cling to.
But what makes her life so remarkable isn’t that she’d skip a full portion of gruel to ensure someone else went to bed with a full belly, it’s the fact that she did what she did while wrestling with a tremendous handicap.
I don’t know why I picked up that tattered copy of Time magazine this morning. The dentist was running behind, my morning buzz was wearing off, and I was getting edgy. Maybe it was because Road & Track was never my cup of Magic Chinese Weight Loss tea. Or maybe it was because the headline, “The Secret Life of Mother Theresa” conjured up images of habit and fishnet wearing nuns spanking each other in their dormitories and wrestling in lime-flavored vats of Jello.
Turns out, her secret life didn’t play out like my teenage fantasies of naughty nuns gone wild. Her secret, like mine, was that she struggled endlessly with doubt: "I am told God loves me -- and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul" she once wrote.
Hers was not a momentary lapse of faith, but an emptiness that followed her throughout all her years of service. Cut off from God, yet she served.
For me, the doubt started when I realized that I could feel as “spiritual” hoping for a lottery win—convinced that I would win—as I could on my knees. I had the power to create the illusion of a spiritual connection where none existed. That realization left me feeling cold and alone. They say that God loves me, but I doubt that I have ever felt that love.
Apparently, the good Mother struggled with the same issues. Yet her drive to do good works was not diminished. That gave me pause. After all, who should we revere more? The fantasist who turns a good deed as God whispers in his ear, or that saint who serves others tirelessly while wrestling with her own doubts and fears?
Maybe I’ve been looking in all the wrong places. I’ve desperately sought that spiritual connection and fell into despair when the Angelic choruses did not materialize. Vodka replaced prayer—at least there was a sense of well being with the first few sips—but I still didn’t find what I was searching for.
Maybe, just maybe, I should try acting on the quiet promptings of my conscience. Put aside the laziness and the selfishness and just try doing what I intuitively know is right. Then again, I could just drink myself into a stupor and watch TV…
