God Is In The House
The first time I ever confessed my sins, officially, from behind a screen in a booth with a Catholic priest on the other side, patiently and compassionately listening, was on the weekend John Bonham died. I was in ninth grade at John Carroll High school. The same school that would eventually expel me for cheating on an exam which I simply did not do, but I had it coming. I was a pain in the ass to the school. I got a lot of laughs from the other kids, but I imagine they figured everyone concerned would be better off if I just left. Never mind that there were only five weeks left of my junior year and that my Father was the organizer of their yearly fundraising weekend fair. They had it with me. And my parents told them to fuck off. I've told you about this. My mom hates that place to this day. She'd bring fire down upon it if she could.
But long before this dramatic showdown, when my parents showed the world who they loved the most, I was in my third year at Catholic High School, which meant going on the yearly weekend retreat that almost all of us attended. I don't think it was every freshman. Maybe money was an issue. I don't know why anyone would say no to it, as it was a weekend-long field trip with pocketfuls of Valium and Seconal and tucked-away joints in John Carroll bookbags. At least for my little tribe, it was. I loved it. We "meditated," which amounted to forty or so kids giggling and trying not to burst out laughing over the simple fact that we were meant to be silent. We fucked with each other at night as some would fall asleep early, and we'd pull the shaving cream, toothpaste, or some sort of sticky fluid in the palm of a sleeping friend's hand and tickle their nose and wham! Gotcha!
The most exciting aspect of the weekend was that we all knew, or at least the coolest of us, that on Monday morning, tickets for Led Zeppelin went on sale, which was a reason to get as close to God as possible, if ever there was one. This was decades before Stubhub. If you wanted tickets, you got in line days before they went on sale. We had friends who'd stayed home to start camping out. "In Through The Out Door" had just come out, and while it was no "Physical Graffiti," it was still Led Zeppelin. We had no access to radios or TV at the retreat, so I really don't know how we found out, but news traveled much more slowly in those days. By the time we got to the retreat on Friday afternoon on September 26, 1980, John Bonham was already a day dead. Somehow we didn't find out until some point during the weekend. And it truly did a number on us. At least the coolest of us. Some had no idea what it meant, and we hated them for it. Some knew and dismissed it as "just what you get for being a junky rockstar," and we hated them even more. But for my little Valium-laced tribe, the news was devastating.
At some point, I was asked if I wanted to enter the confessional. I'd be brought up very Catholic-lite, but I was a curious kid, so I said yes. I remember walking into what seemed to be the kitchen and through another door where this ornate wooden little house, the smallest of all houses, sat in the middle of the floor. I went in one side, and the nice middle-aged priest went in the other. I can't begin to imagine what I confessed to. I suppose I mentioned something about getting high and jerking off a lot. I really had nothing on my mind. I was particularly ashamed of short of getting molested, which I still thought was my fault, and there was no way I was going there. He heard what I said, offered some kind words and a list of prayers to say, and I emerged and walked back out through the kitchen, only thinking of never getting to see Led Zeppelin. That seemed almost a sin in and of itself.
***
I always believed in God. Despite how much I railed against Catholic High School, it never touched my belief which I'd formed as a little boy, of God being this old man dressed in white robes with a long white beard sitting upon a shining marble or perhaps even more precious throne. That was good enough for me. It still is. It's all the visual touchstone I need. I never thought I knew God existed, but I just believed it. Even as a little kid, I knew it was a concept beyond comprehension and proof. You either believed, or you didn't, and those that said they knew, either way, seemed odd to me. Now they seem just sorta pathetic.
I've been the classic prayers in the foxhole kinda person. "Please, God, just let him walk around the corner with some dope, and I swear I'll kick tomorrow, but I just can't today." Or "Please, God, take my life and leave my Dad alone. At least he's doing something with his." I never wondered whether my belief might be faulty. Belief can't ever be faulty, I'd reason. Anything that can't be proven or disproven, which the very existence of God is maybe the purest example, allows me to believe that which makes me happiest. I'd be a damn fool not to believe in God and Heaven and all of its trappings, and by the same measure, I don't believe in Hell. I get to choose because I can never be proven wrong or right. I just choose the belief that makes me the most at peace. Nothing is at risk. Nothing can be lost. Only everything can be gained, and If I do, in fact, leave this world and am faced with the absence of God and Heaven and seeing my Dad again and all of my dogs, well then at least I lived a life where I drew some comfort from those ideas. It seems pretty mathematical to me. Believe that which gives you peace when no proof is possible.
***
These aren't popular views which is why I delight in espousing them. I admit to great joy in riling atheists up. It's so easy. No one thinks about God as much as an atheist, and it takes precisely the same amount of faith to believe there is no God as to believe there is one. They hate that. They short out. They sputter and foam and fall apart, and I light a cigarette, hug them, and pat them on their little confused heads. They don't understand the math of it. They think something is at risk to believe in God. And nothing is. It's simply a comfort that costs nothing to wrap around oneself.
And I am surely not talking at all, even remotely, about religion. Religion is man's attempt to argue the unarguable against one another since time immemorable. I don't fuck with religion. Nor do I condemn anyone who embraces it. Who am I to deny someone peace, wherever they get it? I shot heroin and cocaine for decades in a focused effort to be comfortable. You think I'm going to be the one to tell someone they shouldn't go to church? Far from it. I applaud them. Find peace and comfort and love where you can and try and spread it around.
We live in a world, well, I live in a world where believing in God is not as ubiquitous or as popular as it once was. And maybe that's good. Maybe that means people are making their own choices, but I think it's more a factor of blind hatred for what so many people see as the opposition to their tribe. Somehow, the atheist crowd has commandeered the idea of intellect as their main proof of the denigration of people who believe in God. Look, I'm smarter than almost everyone I know, and I believe in God, and I can eviscerate, given enough time, anyone who wants to argue it with me. And it's so easy because it's simply a belief. And to use intellect and science and such to disprove a belief is the nadir of dumb. Belief is that which we hold in our hearts to keep us from shooting a gram of fentanyl or sticking a gun barrel we found in our bedroom in our mouth and pulling the trigger when it all just becomes too fucking much. That's what belief is. Knowledge leads to zero comfort, and it destroys wonder. I want to live in a world of wonder, magic, and a billion possible and unanswered ideas. I want nothing to do with being sure of anything anymore. I lived that way for my whole life, and it just pushed everyone away, and all I was left with were tears and needles.
***
I believe in God. He's an old white guy with a long white beard and robes and sits on a glowing throne. So be it. I refuse to back down from it. I've caused enough damage and pain in my life to myself and others, yet I still feel like he likes me. That's enough. I think God likes me, and that's enough to keep me going as often as I think about just quitting. Not dying per se but quitting. Just sitting on my couch and drinking white wine mixed with fruit juice and watching Youtube until something gives out, and someone notices and they break in, and my poor confused dogs watch them take me away. And truly, it's more the idea of keeping my dogs from that day that keeps me going, but the idea of God liking me definitely helps.
If you're an atheist, I love you as much as the next guy and without any sort of denigration. We all have to do what we have to do to get through this thing. The old guy with the beard just makes it a little easier for me. Maybe he was there when I needed dope, and someone showed up as if by magic, and maybe he was there when they didn't, and I kicked my way to rehab. Either way, he was there, and that's fine with me.
Maybe God doesn't exist. But I won't know until after a lifetime of taking comfort in the idea that he does.