Poetic License

Today is Easter, and lately you might find me going back and forth between trash TV and Jesus movies. I always watch Jesus Christ Superstar at Easter. I also watched Jesus of Nazareth, another good one, and The Greatest Story Ever Told, starring everybody. Seriously, that last one has Max Von Sydow as Jesus, and though I would never have cast him in the role, he was beautifully suited for it. Each Jesus in those movies had blue eyes, which I find odd. Would a Middle Eastern man have had lightish hair and blue eyes? I don’t know.

I don’t usually talk a lot about religion, unless it is to say what a mess it is these days. I remember when I was a child and didn’t hear a thing about politics in church, but now that seems to be a favorite topic, or so I hear. I could probably go through a Catholic Mass without hearing about politics, but the most conservative Catholics are the ones who helped to bring about the fall of Roe v. Wade. I’ll never forgive them for that. But oh, I miss hearing the Mass sometimes. And I miss the social aspects of church, which I enjoyed as a child.

My son came over this morning. We had been planning to go out to breakfast, but my eyes were giving me problems, so I asked him to come over here. He had a dozen eggs for me from his best friend, Jay, and his wife. They are the richest, most delicious eggs. They make store-bought eggs seem like they are made of styrofoam. I made some toast and grits to go along with the eggs, and I cooked up a rather nice breakfast, if I do say so myself.

While we were sitting at the table, I told him how sad I get on Easter. I mused on how we celebrate two holy days that have to do with Christ’s birth and his death, much like we celebrate Stephanie’s birthday and the anniversary of her death. She is remembered especially on those days. On Christmas, Christ’s birthday is celebrated; on Good Friday, his death day is celebrated and mourned. Stephanie’s special days fall very close to Christmas and Easter, perhaps making each of them more poignant for me. He nodded. Sean is not religious nor spiritual at all. He is like his father. Sean was baptized Catholic and went through all of the sacraments through Confirmation, but he couldn’t care less about any of it. But I struggle.

My ex-husband asked me once if I were not too educated to believe in God. I don’t think it has anything to do with education. Nothing I learned in college or graduate school went against anything I was taught as a child, though one can certainly learn a lot about human frailty and failure by studying history. My ex-wife wondered that I could still have any affinity for the Catholic Church, given all of the molestation stories. Oh, I will not defend the Church over any of that. It was horrific and unforgivable. But she was born and raised Catholic, so I guess she has her own opinion, which is not the same as mine.

At times like this, I feel lost. The churches of my youth and adulthood let me down, but that’s not what faith is supposed to be about. Faith is about you and God, and whatever understanding you have between the two of you. I can’t speak to whether you should go to this church or that, because I don’t go anymore. I can’t tell you to obey all the Commandments or anything, because I’m no Biblical scholar. I can only tell you I’ve broken a few, and when I broke them, I felt it. You could say it’s because all that “nonsense” was drilled into my head as a child, but I would tell you that each of the Commandments has strength, purpose, and validity. My good friend Ned and I had many conversations about that very thing.

God, I miss talking to him. Too many wonderful people are missing from my life.

My religion now, if you could call it that, is of trying to live softly. I fail at that constantly. I’m jealous of others’ successes when my own hard work is ignored. I’m envious of people who have it “all figured out.” Whether they do or they don’t doesn’t figure into the equation. I waffle on important decisions. Some days I feel like I have my life figured out, and then the next day I’m a mess. Most of that was accelerated on November 6, 2024, when the fascist and his regime came to power.

See what I mean? That isn’t living softly, but it’s reality. It isn’t “living softly” when I scoff and get upset with the people on My 600-Lb Life. I expect these people to pick themselves up by their own bootstraps and get to losing weight! Not nice, but at least they can’t hear me in my living room. Who knows where any of them are anymore. Dr. Nowzaradan is 80 years old, so I think that show is long over. Trash TV for the win. My compassion is lacking, but I try every day to start again.

It has been a lifetime since I lost my daughter. Sixteen years.

I’m struggling with the memoir, but I haven’t given up. It’s just so draining to sit down and harken back to the days when she was alive, because when I close my laptop, I am alone again. I’ve lost her all over again. It’s damned hard to have faith in God or even in myself when I am in that emotion. So I take breaks that sometimes drag on for weeks.

Today, my son helped me set up my bird feeder with camera. We put it up on a tree out front. I have yet to see any birds there, but they will come. It took time for them to show up on the regular bird feeder in front of my window, too, when I put it up a couple of years ago. In my old age, I love my little bird friends, and they make my cats pretty happy, too. While Sean worked on putting the feeder together, we talked about video games and how one of the vendors he buys from recently dropped their prices to help people be able to afford their games.

“So I did the obvious thing,” he said. “I bought all the collectors’ editions!”

We know we’re lucky to be employed by companies who let us work remotely. And we are paid adequately.

“Sometimes I wish I could recoup all the money I’ve spent on entertainment over the years,” I said. “That money could have been sitting in a savings account, growing.”

“Eh,” he replied, “entertainment or therapy. You’ve got to pick one!”

He’s not wrong!

It was a good Easter for me, despite the fact I am spiritually homeless. I’m alone and celibate, not necessarily by choice. I’m living in a red state and a conservative burg. I am usually quite private about my faith, because I’m either scoffed at or proselytized to. I don’t like either. I just like the relationship I have personally with a God of my understanding. He gets me through tough days, existential crises, and fascist regimes. I hope you have something that helps you, too.

Namaste,
Jude