The Day God Talked To Me

Yes, before going into much detail, I am insane. I am insane because I think God Himself descended from the Heavens and spoke to me—when in fact He didn’t. Or I am insane because He did and I still battle inside myself with the question of His existence. Either way, I’m quite crazy, demented, deranged, loony… and no, there will be no Patsy Cline puns today.

When I was born, 98% of the population of my country considered itself Roman Catholic. When I left, that number was down to about 90%. When I left, the population was down to 70% of what it was before: the rest had died or left.

After decades of dictatorship, and a war almost as long, spearheaded by people of little or no religious inclinations, the undercurrent of social development was one of mostly lip service to the church and to the God it brokered. After a while, the country had begun thinking of it (the church) as another western European or American (read estadounidense) franchise selling a commercially viable product to a needy consumer base. However, unlike Chevy novas, which gave a tangible (albeit hardly dependable) product for the cost, the God of this church took and took and took, and gave so little in return. Children’s fathers disappeared into the night, carried away by jeeps that never brought them back. Fathers’ sons were found dead outside the universities or movie theatres or dance halls where they congregated. Mothers and daughters fared no better, and God did nothing. “Pray,” the church said; and men prayed and children did not come back.

My parents were of the generation that grew up being taken to church on Sundays by their parents and felt little or no connection to the God that spoke only Latin and whose servants said mass with their backs to the crowd. By the time the Pope ordered otherwise, it was too late. My parents were a bit too worried with the practical requirements of survival in a hostile homeland to go back and make peace with a God that never made them feel welcome in His home. They never took me to church. I went of my own accord. They never took me to Sunday school. I snuck into the confessional one Saturday and asked the priest for help. From then, every Sunday I went to church and stayed an hour after mass to study whatever it is kids are supposed to study for First Communion. One of the things I learned was that, to pray, you need only say: “Padre Nuestro, que estas en los cielos…” I learned it was not proper to ask for anything specific, that God would look into your heart, know what was best for you, and grant you that. I learned you don’t ask God to heal your sick sister, to help with the test that’s coming up, to fix the car that’s broken. You say your prayers and the best will happen.

One Sunday, I got up and put on my nicest shirt and my best pants and left the house before my parents woke up. I got to church long before mass started and kneeled and started praying. Padre Nuestro… Ave Maria… Padre Nuestro on and on and on… And when the mass started I did everything as I had learned it. At the right moment I walked up to the altar and I waited in line for my First Communion. With hundreds of people who did not know how important that day was, I waited in line. With no one in my family smiling and taking pictures, I waited in line. And when I took my First Communion, there was only God and me and an old Spanish priest who taught me not what God was, but how to hear His word. God and I left the church and went home. God and I explained we’d gone to church to my parents when they asked. I don’t think my parents ever found out I had my First Communion. They never asked. I never told.

For reasons discussed on a previous post, I had already read the Bible from cover to cover twice by the time I took my First Communion. I was well versed with the God of the Jews, and the God of the Romans. All around me, though, there was a different God… a careless, uncaring creature that apparently was too busy willing every blade of grass to move to care that people were killing people, or worse. Ten years old is too young an age to find out that there are far worse things one man can do to another than kill him.

On Wednesdays and sometimes Thursdays and on Sundays I would go to church. I would participate in the mass, and I would pray. Confession on Saturdays; communion on Sundays. Prayer, prayer, prayer. And always the prayer went: Padre Nuestro, que estas en los cielos…

One would think that God would have something profound to say to a child whose life is precariously balanced on the edge of insanity. One night, after a particularly nasty fight between my parents, when my mother had broken a bottle on the wall next to my head and then lunged at my father with the full intention of cutting his throat, only to be beat into a pulp by him, I prayed. I wanted so badly to ask him to make them love each other, to keep them from hurting each other. I wanted to ask him for money, because they always argued about that despite having a lot of it. I wanted to ask him to take me away, to give me different parents that would love me like I saw my godmother love her children when we visited on weekends. I wanted to ask him to send an alien ship to recruit me as an assistant in their travels across the universe. I wanted captain Nemo to take me onboard the Nautilus to explore the oceans. I wanted to be the invisible man. I wanted to be Johnny from the Fantastic Four, to turn myself on fire and fly away. I wanted to ask him for so much. But all I could say in my head was: Padre nuestro que estas en los cielos… And then I must have gone to sleep. And in my sleep He came, a large figure with no face or shape, a bright light that did not blind, soft and warm. And I poured all my rage into this shape, and beat and bit Him. I screamed and cried and I asked and I begged for all the things I could not pray for. And all he said to me was “It is for the best.”

What The Fuck?

A child wants a hug. A child wants a kiss. A child wants a gentle caress and a “there, there…” What the hell does a child do with an “It is for the best”?

I don’t pray like that anymore. I have nice long conversations with The Guy when I go on long drives by myself. I look for His hand in all the beauty of nature. But I also know his hand is in all the ugliness of man. His is every ray of sunshine—and every drop of rain. His is every smile—and every tear. Today, I blame him for all the evil that men do, and for all the love and tenderness they sometimes have for one another. I have reached my teenage years in spiritual development, when I question the wisdom of The Father and wonder if His way is the best way. One day, I might outgrow this doubt, but for now I just know I paid dearly for the right to have it and I will cherish it.

But every now and then, just for the hell of it, to hear the old words in my mouth, I kneel and hold my hands in supplication, flat the one against the other in front of my face, and quietly say Padre Nuestro que estas en los cielos…