Wednesday, April 8, 1998
This is God … I’m not in right now
COLUMN: Seeking truth isn’t as easy as phoning heaven for quick
advice
Hello God? God? Busy signal yet again. I think He left the phone
of the hook … indefinitely.
Where’s His secretary? Where could He be? My friend Nietzsche
told me that God was, in fact, dead. (I figure there must be some
validity to Nietzsche’s statement because he, too, is dead.) This
explains the busy signal.
Damn, what a waste of my one phone call.
While serving my 18-year sentence at the oppressive prison known
more commonly as home, I embarked on a quest for truth. (Such a
vague, ideal concept, this truth thing.)
I hoped that there would be something worth believing in this
hell – world, I meant to say. So I picked up the phone and dialed
the toll-free number to speak with God.
In my frustration, I began to dial random numbers. (My jailers
weren’t watching.)
I ended up conversing with dead philosopher types. Funny how a
disproportionate number of them labeled themselves atheist. Logic
conquers all, I learned. So throw away that garbage called religion
and let’s create a communist state. (Damn you Marx! You stay out of
this.)
After escaping home, I found myself searching for truth in
Westwood (yet another euphemism for "hell") because truth is an
elusive concept at times. Although listening to the likes of Camus
and Nietzsche tainted my opinions regarding religion, the pamphlet
pushers on Bruin Walk managed to stir my curiosity. Perhaps truth
could be exhumed from some religion.
I made several blunders in my search for truth in religion. All
in all I gleaned a couple of free Bibles, some flyers on Buddhism
and a dreidel from my adventures. I also managed to attract the
attention of various scary evangelist-types.
(Warning: Donating money to well-dressed people toting such
pamphlets as "Awake!" at your front door to make them go away may
result in them coming back every month. They may even convince you
to let them into your home so that they could sit with you for
Bible study.)
Even after being "stalked" by well-meaning souls out to spread
the Gospel, I still planned on considering religion as a possible
way to find truth. So imagine my disappointment when God decided
not to start His own talk show on channel 18 a few weeks ago.
I waited so patiently to be burned to a crisp in front of the
television. I hoped I could ask Him about truth before I died. All
for the better, I suppose. I probably would’ve burned from
witnessing His brilliance before He answered. (I think all that
Christian guilt imposed upon me as a child is starting to ooze into
my awareness.)
Among the many yellowing, dusty memories decaying in my mind,
the memories that most disturb me involve my attempts to find a
ticket into heaven. (Heaven must be worth going to, seeing how so
many people want to go there. Unfortunately, according to some
sects of Christianity, there are limited spaces, so hurry!)
At an early sage, suffering through long-winded sermons about
Jesus and God did not nurture my enthusiasm. In retrospect, I
understood very little of what was being said. It had something to
do with the hour and 30 minute sermon being in Korean. (I could
recognize about three words in every sentence. Here’s a sample for
you: Christ. God. Jesus.)
My wardens (a.k.a. parents) dragged me out of bed every Sunday
morning. They forced me to wear strange prison garb (dresses with
lace, dresses with bows, red dresses, yellow dresses, etc.) so that
I would fit in at this place called "church."
After listening to the pastor with my parents and siblings, I
was herded into a small classroom called Sunday School. There, the
youth pastor force-fed impressionable kids stories about what it
meant to be a good Christian. This sounds fairly harmless, but it
could get ugly. Very ugly.
One especially traumatic experience at Sunday School started
harmlessly. The youth pastor – whose name I forgot due to fear –
made some "volunteers" read a passage out of the Bible.
The passage dealt with the Crucifixion. One of the criminals
being crucified next to Jesus said that he believed Jesus was the
son of God. Jesus replied that because the criminal believed in
Him, they would soon be in paradise together. Paradise meaning
heaven.
After the passage was read, my youth pastor looked very solemn
and then turned to the kids in the classroom and asked, "If you
died right now, would you go to heaven?"
"Yes!" replied most of the kids. I sat there confused, as usual.
I always had my doubts and they crept up to me and whispered,
"Hell, hell." I just looked around and grinned. My youth pastor
smiled back at me.
By the time I lived to be 9 years old, I knew my destiny. I was
bound for hell. Heaven became a tiny speck in the sky and hell grew
to the size of earth. Whenever I prayed, I couldn’t concentrate. I
kept getting a busy signal. All the lies I told, all the sins I
committed weighed down on me. And still I went to church, to suffer
more guilt.
One miserable Sunday, my older brother cornered me in the church
auditorium to brag about how our parents permitted him to go to the
annual winter retreat up in the mountains somewhere. I actually
grew envious and begged my parents to go. They actually agreed.
So away I went, with my brother and the rest of the older kids
from my church, to some remote mountain camp to get closer to God.
Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that this was a collective retreat
with other churches. This was my first experience with people
speaking in "tongues" during prayer.
"Tongues" sounded more like people possessed by the devil than
by God. This disturbed me, seeing how I was at a Christian
retreat.
During one of the many prayer sessions I lived through, I recall
not being able to concentrate again due to that annoying busy
signal and then hearing some unintelligible wail. The girl next to
me started to shake and mumble words that weren’t quite words.
I tried to slide over, but I couldn’t ignore this strange
spectacle because some other people began to engage in similar
displays of their communication with God.
At this point I was glad that I couldn’t reach God up in that
tiny speck of heaven. But during one of the prayer sessions,
something happened. I felt all the guilt leave and something told
me that hell wasn’t the world and heaven was far bigger than any
speck. Heaven became a possibility for a second.
Soon afterwards, I managed to alienate myself from all the other
Christians in this remote mountain compound after a vicious
snowball fight. My bitterness returned and the world I lived in
turned back into hell. I grew tired of all this wholesale hypocrisy
and felt that truth could be found elsewhere.
I stopped attending church. My parents stopped forcing me to go
after several ugly arguments. One time, my father tried convincing
my youngest brother to go to church, long after I had declared my
agnosticism.
My brother asked, "Why should I go to church if Julianne doesn’t
have to?" (I overheard this conversation and thought that my dad
should leave the poor boy alone lest he meet a person who speaks in
"tongue.")
My father brilliantly answered, "Because she is the Devil." (My
suspicions were confirmed. So I already was in hell, but why was I
suffering? As the devil, wasn’t it my duty to ensure that others
suffered?)
I retreated to my dead philosopher friends. Quite by accident I
bumped into Martin Luther in a political theory class. He opened my
eyes to my poor attitude. All my life I had associated Christianity
with the people who practiced it.
Martin explained that Christianity dealt with an individual’s
relationship to God. Hypocrisy happens whether or not a person is a
Christian.
This explanation seemed reasonable. So with Luther cheering me
on, I attempted to find truth, within Christianity in
particular.
Well, I’m still looking. Why do I get the feeling that truth is
sitting in front of me laughing?