The Only God Worth My Time

I had a little time, so I went to the chapel.

It was that same old chapel in the old hospital, the one I’ve been to several times before. It doesn’t scare me the way a church scares me, most of the time.

I slid into the yellow wood bench, a little anxious as usual. I don’t know how many other people use that chapel. The dead clover somebody brough to the statue of the Virgin Mary in a glass of water before Christmas are still there.

I didn’t have anything reverent to say, so I started to tell Him everything.

I told Him that I am happier, lately; much happier. But not completely happy.

That I’m having so much fun gardening with the neighborhood children and helping out at the church that I feel like I’ve found a whole new life. Sometimes I imagine I’m a nun in a little convent school, and these children are my vocation, and it takes the edge off the pain of nothing working out the way it should have before.

That my physical health is the best it’s ever been, now that I’m in my forties, and I’m so happy to have freedom to go swimming and hiking and gardening as long as I’m careful, but I also feel cheated out of the first several decades of a life.

That even though part of me is at peace with never having another baby, I still feel like I’m dying every time I get my period.

That I still have flashbacks when I see or hear someone who resembles my stalker. That sometimes I search her name in all the county websites, just to reassure myself that there’s no sign of her because she’s really dead. That sometimes when a dog’s chain jingles, I flash back to when she menaced us with that German Shepherd.  That I’m afraid to say “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,” because I can’t forgive.

That I am glad to be going back to Sunday Mass regularly, but I still stand in the back of the church because the religious trauma is still severe. I usually leave during the homily because I can’t stand to hear a priest weigh in on the Word of God for me. I will never, ever, ever, trust a priest again, not as long as I live, not in any afterlife, not in all eternity. That I want to go to confession but I honestly don’t know how I could, because the panic overwhelms me and I go completely mute. And I am still afraid, because I don’t know how He feels about that.

That when Father Mike Scanlan was praying over me in deliverance prayer sessions, grooming me with all that hugging and kissing, he told me that I was a beautiful, sweet, innocent, soul, and the Lord must have meant me to be a saint by preserving my sweetness like this. And I was so pleased. I felt so loved by God. I wanted to be a saint more than anything in the world, and it hurt like hell when his personality cult was exposed for what it was. I realized those were the words of a con artist and not a holy man. And that meant that maybe I wasn’t sweet, and I wasn’t a saint, and God didn’t really loved me.

That a long, long time ago, when Adrienne was a baby and I was still trying to get along at Franciscan University, I prayed and opened the Bible to the verse, “Many are called, few are chosen,” and it scared me. Because I was terrified that I wasn’t chosen. How can a person know she’s chosen? How are you supposed to go through your entire life, unsure that you’re chosen? Back when I wasn’t so traumatized and could follow every single rule, I felt a little safer.

No, actually, that’s not true. I didn’t feel safe then, either. I’ve always been terrified I was going to hell. I used to be afraid I’d forget a sin in the confessional and then be run over as I walked out of the church, and find myself facing a god who was angry with me for the sin itself and also for the sacrilege of a bad confession. Sometimes I went to confession two days in a row, just in case. Now I’m just as scared, but I also can’t go to confession.

I remembered that the breakthrough I had, in all the terror that followed, was that the only god worth my time was a God of Love. A God of Justice. A God of Mercy. Not the puny little god of that con artist Father Mike Scanlan and the Charismatic Renewal. And even with all my OCD and scruples, I cannot imagine how a God of Justice and Mercy and Love could condemn me for my trauma. And I refuse to worship a god smaller than I am. I will only worship a God more merciful and just than I am.

That is why I keep coming back to pray. Because if that’s the God I’m talking to, I’m going to be all right. And if it’s not, there is no god worth my time.

I looked up at the tabernacle and said “forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” and I confessed all my sins, counting out the Ten Commandments on my fingers. I stated my contrition and hoped He forgave me. When I got to the part about “to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life,” I added “if you ever heal me so I can.”

I went out into the hazy chill of late March, warm where the sun hits and still wintertime under a cloud. The daffodils were bright yellow and the grass was greening. And I was happy.

The only person I could ever possibly be is myself. The only saint I could ever become is Saint Mary Pezzulo. I can’t possibly be anybody else. I’ve tried. I’ve tried with all my soul, and lost everything I had, and now I am all I have left.

But I wasn’t sad to be myself, just then.