Last night I partied chez the evangelicals. And when I say “partied” I really mean prayed. And when I say “prayed” I actually mean I just stood there, perhaps in a salute to my stern Presbyterian roots, with my lips sealed and my hands firmly stuck in my pockets.
That’s not to say I didn’t have fun. Oh God no, I had the time of my lameass life. What I enjoyed so much is that it was completely unexpected. I mean, when I imagine the Church of England—even “evangelical” C of E—I imagine people in suits, women’s hats that seem to do their own interpretive dances, and a bunch of stiff people with posh accents saying, “Hallo.” You know, Queen Victoria, cricket, tuna and baked potatoes, and all that.
What I found at St Aldate’s, however, was a rock band, TV screens, and a crowd of people with their hands in the air. Old people were rockin out all over the places, and this one enormous gentleman who looked like Jeremy Clarkson only put his arms down once when he was very suddenly called by the Holy Spirit to rush off to the bathroom. To be honest, it was like being back at a miniature version of Willow Creek, my preferred megachurch back in the US. They had the same free-form prayers where every other word was “just” (“We’re just gonna take it down just a notch here and just pray, to just let Jesus know that we’re just thrilled that He could just be here tonight and just lead us to just know Him. Yeah, really just to know just how great He is.”), the live muzak during prayer intervals, the ubiquitous Australian teaching pastor who always seems on the verge of tears when he teaches, and the insanely hot member of the worship band—there’s always one.
The whole experience made me think of Roman triumphs, where the victorious general followed by a slave who has the job of being the dickhead who holds a wreath over the general’s head and reminds him, “Remember thou art mortal.” I just kept thinking that I need a dickhead like that to remind me, “Remember thou art in England.” Because I honestly didn’t believe it. Until last night it did not occur to me that actual, honest-to-goodness English people prayed like this. No, I kept telling myself, I am back in America. This is how Americans pray, not English people. The upside of all this is that I now know where to go when I’m feeling homesick.
Other than my initial shock at finding out that there are some English people (and a fair few!) who do enjoy rocking out while they pray, the service wasn’t all that different or weird from what I’ve seen before. Well, there was a sort of weird half an hour where I was convinced the guy giving the sermon had an Amish accent. I kept wracking my brain trying to figure out just how the hell an Amish guy ended up here and praying this way. Like, my family’s religious journey has been a weird one, but I think shaving off your chin beard and swapping your horse and buggy for a car kind of trumps everything…and then I realized that the guy was probably just from one of those Germanic or Scandinavian countries. But it was a lot more magical when I thought he was Amish.
Another thing that I love about this church, and about all evangelical churches really, is that they are constantly trying to pray for you. I mean, try getting evangelicals to NOT pray for you—Jesus Christ, there’s a miracle waiting to happen. All other churches you have to specifically ask for people to pray for you, which can often be really intimidating, but with evangelicals you have to beat them off with a stick if you don’t want them praying/preying on you. Evangelicals are kind of like benevolent zombies, lurching forward with their praying arms outstretched, groaning “Can we just pray for you?” instead of “BRAAAAAAAIIIINSSSS.”
Ah, it’s just so fabulous though. Knowing there’s a mini megachurch in my town, suddenly I feel a lot more enthusiastic about this year.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Sunday, September 25, 2011
you knew this post was coming.
I’ve actually lost a bit of weight here—true, I still look like a manatee with glasses, but it has gotten to the point where pairs of once-tight pants (trousers, not underpants, if any Brits are reading this) have started slipping down, causing me to either rely on the one belt I own or frantically hike up the waistband every five steps like I’m doing a folk dance. Part of me is thrilled about the possibility of at some point no longer being the Fat American, but then the practical part of me is sort of panicked about how I will be able to afford new pants should this trend continue. I’m terrified that I’m going to be on my school placement and I’ll be known as that strange teacher who holds up her pants with hemp ropes like a sack of potatoes. “Do you know Sam?” “Ah yes, she’s that well-educated hobo, right?”
The problem is that British food is absolutely vile. Look, I love this country, I so very badly want to be able to smugly tell my friends back home that even the food here is fantastic, but unfortunately here in England I’m frequently confronted by plates of food that I could not, even in my vague liberal artsish way of fudging the boundaries of my knowledge, pretend to be able to identify.
Occasionally I CAN identify what I’m eating, and that’s even worse. For example, steak and kidney pie. WHY? And I don’t mean why in the curious, academic sense. I mean it in the aching religious sense, the crisis of faith sense, where you ask God from the very depths of your soul how an omnibenevolent being could possibly treat his creation so terribly in allowing man to invent steak and kidney pie. It really is The Problem of Evil. I honestly believe that there should be special death camps set aside for people who serve other people steak and kidney pies. And, being in theory a candidate for Hitler’s own death camps, I think I’m allowed to say things like that.
Sometimes the food isn’t bad, it’s just put into weird combinations. For example, I keep seeing restaurants that serve baked potatoes with tuna (instead of sour cream, chives, bacon and cheese—like a NORMAL baked potato). WHY WOULD YOU PUT TUNA IN A BAKED POTATO? What on God’s green earth could have possibly possessed you when you dreamt up that unholy union? I mean, Jesus Christ, no wonder you lost the Empire.
Then there’s the whole issue of baked beans. Apparently people here eat baked beans with their bacon and eggs in the morning. I personally don’t see what business beans have coming to breakfast. I want to look the beans right in the eye and ask, “Who the fuck invited you?”
It’s not all bad though. The sweets have been fantastic. Last week I was inducted into the world of biscuits, and I have now heard the Gospel of Trifle. I find myself running home from class each day, literally sprinting through the park and bowling over old women trudging along with their shopping who dare stand between me and cake, just so I can make it back in time for cake. (How twee and British is it that my college serves us cake every afternoon? But that’s something that deserves its own blog post.)
And also in fairness the non-British food I’ve had here has been pretty fantastic. I’m eating shawarma like I’m back in Israel, and I have so many kebab shop options near my apartment that I’ve decided that from now on I will not eat at kebab shops that cut the meat off with an electric turkey carver. No, I will insist my shawarma be cut off with one of those bigass knives that look like samurai swords. Come to think of it, I think I’ll insist on using a samurai sword for all knife functions. How fantastic would it be to spread strawberry jelly on toast with a knife so large you’d have to clear everyone out of the way beforehand? (“OH MY GOD, GET OUT OF THE WAY—SAM’S SPREADING MARGARINE!” “OH GOD NO, THINK OF THE CHILDREN!” “AAAA!”) I think it’d lend a nice air of drama that is so sadly lacking at meals nowadays.
The problem is that British food is absolutely vile. Look, I love this country, I so very badly want to be able to smugly tell my friends back home that even the food here is fantastic, but unfortunately here in England I’m frequently confronted by plates of food that I could not, even in my vague liberal artsish way of fudging the boundaries of my knowledge, pretend to be able to identify.
Occasionally I CAN identify what I’m eating, and that’s even worse. For example, steak and kidney pie. WHY? And I don’t mean why in the curious, academic sense. I mean it in the aching religious sense, the crisis of faith sense, where you ask God from the very depths of your soul how an omnibenevolent being could possibly treat his creation so terribly in allowing man to invent steak and kidney pie. It really is The Problem of Evil. I honestly believe that there should be special death camps set aside for people who serve other people steak and kidney pies. And, being in theory a candidate for Hitler’s own death camps, I think I’m allowed to say things like that.
Sometimes the food isn’t bad, it’s just put into weird combinations. For example, I keep seeing restaurants that serve baked potatoes with tuna (instead of sour cream, chives, bacon and cheese—like a NORMAL baked potato). WHY WOULD YOU PUT TUNA IN A BAKED POTATO? What on God’s green earth could have possibly possessed you when you dreamt up that unholy union? I mean, Jesus Christ, no wonder you lost the Empire.
Then there’s the whole issue of baked beans. Apparently people here eat baked beans with their bacon and eggs in the morning. I personally don’t see what business beans have coming to breakfast. I want to look the beans right in the eye and ask, “Who the fuck invited you?”
It’s not all bad though. The sweets have been fantastic. Last week I was inducted into the world of biscuits, and I have now heard the Gospel of Trifle. I find myself running home from class each day, literally sprinting through the park and bowling over old women trudging along with their shopping who dare stand between me and cake, just so I can make it back in time for cake. (How twee and British is it that my college serves us cake every afternoon? But that’s something that deserves its own blog post.)
And also in fairness the non-British food I’ve had here has been pretty fantastic. I’m eating shawarma like I’m back in Israel, and I have so many kebab shop options near my apartment that I’ve decided that from now on I will not eat at kebab shops that cut the meat off with an electric turkey carver. No, I will insist my shawarma be cut off with one of those bigass knives that look like samurai swords. Come to think of it, I think I’ll insist on using a samurai sword for all knife functions. How fantastic would it be to spread strawberry jelly on toast with a knife so large you’d have to clear everyone out of the way beforehand? (“OH MY GOD, GET OUT OF THE WAY—SAM’S SPREADING MARGARINE!” “OH GOD NO, THINK OF THE CHILDREN!” “AAAA!”) I think it’d lend a nice air of drama that is so sadly lacking at meals nowadays.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Ah yes, I think Darwin explored that idea
Today I wandered around town to acquaint myself with the churches and religious life here, being the responsible trainee RE teacher that I am. Well, if I were to issue a press release that’s what it’d say. In all honesty I was just trying to get a bit of walking in so I could justify a mid-morning snack of cookies and lunch at McDonald’s, and stopping into a couple of churches was just a reasonable afterthought.
So I stop in at one church, take a few pictures, struggle to find anyone in there who is actually praying, and keep moving along. I then turn up a huge pedestrian street, just teeming with humanity. There’s fat teenage girls pushing strollers and yelling at tourists to clear the fuck off, there’s hordes of Japanese people taking pictures of everything and seemingly oblivious to the angry fat mob, and then there are the religious people, standing out on this street with the same sort of dedication as the Titanic band.
I’m not entirely sure why they stand out there. I mean, regardless of what kind of tempting real estate in Heaven a religion offers you, I can’t imagine anyone ever gets convinced to become a Christian simply because some odd-smelling man with a bunch of slightly crumpled and moist pamphlets told them that Jesus died for their sins.
But the thing is, I always talk to them. In fact, I find it impossible NOT to. And so I guess it’s no surprise that today, as I tried to slip past a guy I had talked to about a week ago, one of these crazies called out, to my absolute horror, “Hello, Sam!” There was definitely a moment where I considered putting on a ridiculous foreign accent (“oo ees dees Sem yu spik aff?”), or running away, or simply committing ritual suicide right then and there. Because any one of those options would have been preferable to accepting the terrifying truth that I’m now on a first name basis with a street evangelist.
Well, I didn’t want to be a dick, so I walked over and said hello…but quickly excused myself, at which point he called out after me, “God bless you!” They always say that, and it always makes me want to sneeze retroactively or start singing “Gooooood Bless Aaaaameeeericaaaa…laaaaaaand thaaaaat I looooove, etc etc”.
Eventually I found my way to the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ claim shanty where an overly keen Asian lady with a terrifying empty look in her eyes asked me if I agreed with the statement that science and creation are not incompatible. I honestly do believe that, so I told her so. I waited for the challenge or confirmation that universally follows anything you say to a street evangelist. And I was met with a startled silence. ………… ”Oh!” She wasn’t sure quite where to continue now that she didn’t have any convincing to do. But at the same time her body language and intense empty stare seemed to suggest that I wasn’t dismissed yet. Finally she settled on pulling out a pamphlet that discussed how science and religion are compatible, and she read extracts to me, all the while giving me sideways glances that seemed to suggest that she couldn’t believe I seriously agreed with her.
It was rather boring being read to, but things got really interesting once she put the pamphlet down and tried to ad-lib, which brutally exposed how little training these poor missionaries get. She started discussing with me the idea that people came off the backs of turtles, and how this used to be a ridiculous claim, but now science actually backs up this biblical claim.
Now, I try not to be two-faced, but sometimes when it comes to religious beliefs I make an exception. Even among some of the more fucked up creation stories—and even among doctrinally sound Jehovah’s Witnesses!—this sounds absolutely retarded. But I smiled and nodded anyway, much like how in Israel I used to smile and nod or answer with completely random words if I didn’t understand the question (“What kind of sauce would you like?” “Five.”) Like, I literally had no idea how to respond to her statement.
The first completely incomprehensible part of this conversation was the part where she claimed science thinks we rode in on the backs of turtles. This begs the question: Which branch of science are you following? Because your concept of science seems to be based on a redacted account of all the nonsensical shit I’ve said when I’ve had too much to drink, like the time I (I’m told) insisted I was a brontosaurus. If this is the case, I’d like to know—I’ve always wanted to establish my own religion, but I’ll settle for a field of science. Samology?
And secondly, but more importantly, WHAT BIBLE ARE YOU READING? I mean, I understand the Bible says a lot of really weird things, but I’m pretty sure that, no matter how you want to interpret this woman’s statement, the Bible does not talk about humans mutating from turtle backs, nor does it mention humans coming to Earth, riding in on the backs of turtles like a slow, geriatric invading army. I mean, for fuck’s sake, even the “The Message” translation doesn’t embellish the Bible that badly.
Completely confused, I wandered away from the JWs and found myself at the table hosted by the Catholics. Instead of telling me crazy tales that trump even the tale of how Jesus is edible, they silently handed me a pamphlet on why the pope is a badass and I was left to walk away in peace. God bless the Catholics.
Achoo!
GOOOOOD BLESS AAAMEEEERICAAAAAA…..LAAAAAND THAAAT---aw, fuck it.
So I stop in at one church, take a few pictures, struggle to find anyone in there who is actually praying, and keep moving along. I then turn up a huge pedestrian street, just teeming with humanity. There’s fat teenage girls pushing strollers and yelling at tourists to clear the fuck off, there’s hordes of Japanese people taking pictures of everything and seemingly oblivious to the angry fat mob, and then there are the religious people, standing out on this street with the same sort of dedication as the Titanic band.
I’m not entirely sure why they stand out there. I mean, regardless of what kind of tempting real estate in Heaven a religion offers you, I can’t imagine anyone ever gets convinced to become a Christian simply because some odd-smelling man with a bunch of slightly crumpled and moist pamphlets told them that Jesus died for their sins.
But the thing is, I always talk to them. In fact, I find it impossible NOT to. And so I guess it’s no surprise that today, as I tried to slip past a guy I had talked to about a week ago, one of these crazies called out, to my absolute horror, “Hello, Sam!” There was definitely a moment where I considered putting on a ridiculous foreign accent (“oo ees dees Sem yu spik aff?”), or running away, or simply committing ritual suicide right then and there. Because any one of those options would have been preferable to accepting the terrifying truth that I’m now on a first name basis with a street evangelist.
Well, I didn’t want to be a dick, so I walked over and said hello…but quickly excused myself, at which point he called out after me, “God bless you!” They always say that, and it always makes me want to sneeze retroactively or start singing “Gooooood Bless Aaaaameeeericaaaa…laaaaaaand thaaaaat I looooove, etc etc”.
Eventually I found my way to the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ claim shanty where an overly keen Asian lady with a terrifying empty look in her eyes asked me if I agreed with the statement that science and creation are not incompatible. I honestly do believe that, so I told her so. I waited for the challenge or confirmation that universally follows anything you say to a street evangelist. And I was met with a startled silence. ………… ”Oh!” She wasn’t sure quite where to continue now that she didn’t have any convincing to do. But at the same time her body language and intense empty stare seemed to suggest that I wasn’t dismissed yet. Finally she settled on pulling out a pamphlet that discussed how science and religion are compatible, and she read extracts to me, all the while giving me sideways glances that seemed to suggest that she couldn’t believe I seriously agreed with her.
It was rather boring being read to, but things got really interesting once she put the pamphlet down and tried to ad-lib, which brutally exposed how little training these poor missionaries get. She started discussing with me the idea that people came off the backs of turtles, and how this used to be a ridiculous claim, but now science actually backs up this biblical claim.
Now, I try not to be two-faced, but sometimes when it comes to religious beliefs I make an exception. Even among some of the more fucked up creation stories—and even among doctrinally sound Jehovah’s Witnesses!—this sounds absolutely retarded. But I smiled and nodded anyway, much like how in Israel I used to smile and nod or answer with completely random words if I didn’t understand the question (“What kind of sauce would you like?” “Five.”) Like, I literally had no idea how to respond to her statement.
The first completely incomprehensible part of this conversation was the part where she claimed science thinks we rode in on the backs of turtles. This begs the question: Which branch of science are you following? Because your concept of science seems to be based on a redacted account of all the nonsensical shit I’ve said when I’ve had too much to drink, like the time I (I’m told) insisted I was a brontosaurus. If this is the case, I’d like to know—I’ve always wanted to establish my own religion, but I’ll settle for a field of science. Samology?
And secondly, but more importantly, WHAT BIBLE ARE YOU READING? I mean, I understand the Bible says a lot of really weird things, but I’m pretty sure that, no matter how you want to interpret this woman’s statement, the Bible does not talk about humans mutating from turtle backs, nor does it mention humans coming to Earth, riding in on the backs of turtles like a slow, geriatric invading army. I mean, for fuck’s sake, even the “The Message” translation doesn’t embellish the Bible that badly.
Completely confused, I wandered away from the JWs and found myself at the table hosted by the Catholics. Instead of telling me crazy tales that trump even the tale of how Jesus is edible, they silently handed me a pamphlet on why the pope is a badass and I was left to walk away in peace. God bless the Catholics.
Achoo!
GOOOOOD BLESS AAAMEEEERICAAAAAA…..LAAAAAND THAAAT---aw, fuck it.
Friday, September 23, 2011
The Cosmic Couch
I’m writing this entry between pub trips. I’m not going to go on and on about the pub issue and how English people seem to like pubs more than Americans like clogged arteries, but just be aware.
I’m also gonna go ahead and warn you that if you’re expecting this post to be a silly romp through farting in church or how the Brits all have snaggleteeth…well, you might want to skip this post and come back tomorrow for another installment of my immaturity. Because shit’s about to get real.
I also want to warn you, since I know at least a couple confirmed readers are Godosexuals, that this post is also potentially offensive (like everything I write/say). I’m probably the only self-described religious person who could use the words “God” and “fuck” in the same sentence, so please just be warned.
Henyways…
Because I’m studying religion and because I live in a seminary, it’s hard for me to not think about religion and to not think about prayer, The Bible, God, and all that on a pretty constant basis. Today for example I started daydreaming about the New Testament and came up with a little jokette about St Stephen and rain (“When it rains really hard does St Stephen look up and say, ‘I see the heavens opened’?”) And then I realized that I would probably be better off spending more time developing social skills rather than jokes about proto-martyrs. But, let’s face it, I’m probably going to keep trying to develop Bible jokes.
Yeah, religion on an academic level is a huge force in my life. But at the same time I find it deeply, deeply embarrassing to talk about my own personal beliefs. I’m fine talking about my positions on ethics, but when asked larger theological questions I try to switch the subject to Doctor Who. And it’s so weird because I am the honest and open sort of person who will publicly claim ownership of farts in polite company—some would argue that I have no verbal filter whatsoever. But for some reason faith is so difficult to talk about. And this blog post is probably as close as I'm ever going to get to sharing my thoughts on the subject.
So before I continue with all this heavy shit, we have to go back a bit. Yesterday in grad school we went on a field trip to yet another church, this time the town’s cathedral. As part of our educational experience the tour guide instructed us to lie down on the floor, right in the chancel, and stare up at the vaulted ceiling. And as he tried to describe to us how this ceiling would have looked before the Reformation, I was so overwhelmed that I even temporarily forgot the nuclear reaction occurring in my stomach (coffee allergies…). I mean, I liked the church before, but the church was hands-down inspiring from this perspective. Think about it: you’re out in the countryside and you look up and see a bunch of stars—okay, you think to yourself, that’s a lotta stars. But you’re out in the countryside and you lie down to look up at the stars—okay, now suddenly you appreciate just what an incredible place the universe is, and if there is a God (and at this moment you’ve never been more convinced in your life that there must be) He must be shitting his almighty pants every day over the beauty of the universe, because you’re already losing control over your bowels just looking at this tiny fraction of the universe. So that’s kind of what lying down in the cathedral was like.
I tried to recreate this feeling in one of my college’s chapels. So I sprawled out on the floor in my scruffy jeans that were well overdue for a wash, and I just had myself a staring contest with the Virgin Mary. Occasionally I glanced up at the ceiling, which is much plainer than the cathedral’s. And instead of the overwhelming feeling of beauty, I felt an overwhelming feeling of ownership.
What do I mean by that? I mean I can pray here, this is MY space. This isn’t a place I show up to once a week, having put on a stuffy sweater and nice shoes, and pretend to have a chat with God. No, sitting on the floor of this church, I OWN this place. Well, actually God owns this place, but God and I are such BFFs that I can just hang out on His floor. I don’t sit up straight on his upholstered chair that he reserves for guests while he stiffly and politely offers me a glass of water—no, I plop down on God’s cosmic couch and chill the fuck out.
If he has something to tell me, he’ll tell me when he feels like it, and if I wanna ask him something I’ll ask him when I feel like it. Just like dear friends whose friendship has moved onto that wonderful stage where they don’t feel they have to constantly interact to avoid awkward silence and chatter about nothing.
That’s kinda the relationship I’d like to have with God. I don’t want to sit in a pew, I want to chill out on God’s Cosmic Couch. And I recognize that this all makes me sound like a total weirdo. So let’s remember that I’m still me. I don’t want to sound like the youth pastor of some Vineyard church, trying to sound all hip and with it and failing miserably (“Hey, dudes, Jesus’ love is so rockstar!”). And, even worse, I don’t want to get overly kumbaya on your asses, because that’s also so not me.
So my only option is to relate it to bathroom humor, which we can all agree seems to be my comfort zone. So put it this way: lying down in church gives you the same feeling of ownership that peeing does for bathrooms. Yeah, I should probably explain that: Once on a road trip I remarked to my brother that I liked peeing in roadside bathrooms, because then “it’s like I live there.” Yeah, that explanation probably didn’t help… I guess it’s just a Me thing.
So lying down in a church is all about ownership, and the beauty of the universe on a large scale, and closeness with God, and, and, and, and and….
And it’s also just lying down in a church.
I’m also gonna go ahead and warn you that if you’re expecting this post to be a silly romp through farting in church or how the Brits all have snaggleteeth…well, you might want to skip this post and come back tomorrow for another installment of my immaturity. Because shit’s about to get real.
I also want to warn you, since I know at least a couple confirmed readers are Godosexuals, that this post is also potentially offensive (like everything I write/say). I’m probably the only self-described religious person who could use the words “God” and “fuck” in the same sentence, so please just be warned.
Henyways…
Because I’m studying religion and because I live in a seminary, it’s hard for me to not think about religion and to not think about prayer, The Bible, God, and all that on a pretty constant basis. Today for example I started daydreaming about the New Testament and came up with a little jokette about St Stephen and rain (“When it rains really hard does St Stephen look up and say, ‘I see the heavens opened’?”) And then I realized that I would probably be better off spending more time developing social skills rather than jokes about proto-martyrs. But, let’s face it, I’m probably going to keep trying to develop Bible jokes.
Yeah, religion on an academic level is a huge force in my life. But at the same time I find it deeply, deeply embarrassing to talk about my own personal beliefs. I’m fine talking about my positions on ethics, but when asked larger theological questions I try to switch the subject to Doctor Who. And it’s so weird because I am the honest and open sort of person who will publicly claim ownership of farts in polite company—some would argue that I have no verbal filter whatsoever. But for some reason faith is so difficult to talk about. And this blog post is probably as close as I'm ever going to get to sharing my thoughts on the subject.
So before I continue with all this heavy shit, we have to go back a bit. Yesterday in grad school we went on a field trip to yet another church, this time the town’s cathedral. As part of our educational experience the tour guide instructed us to lie down on the floor, right in the chancel, and stare up at the vaulted ceiling. And as he tried to describe to us how this ceiling would have looked before the Reformation, I was so overwhelmed that I even temporarily forgot the nuclear reaction occurring in my stomach (coffee allergies…). I mean, I liked the church before, but the church was hands-down inspiring from this perspective. Think about it: you’re out in the countryside and you look up and see a bunch of stars—okay, you think to yourself, that’s a lotta stars. But you’re out in the countryside and you lie down to look up at the stars—okay, now suddenly you appreciate just what an incredible place the universe is, and if there is a God (and at this moment you’ve never been more convinced in your life that there must be) He must be shitting his almighty pants every day over the beauty of the universe, because you’re already losing control over your bowels just looking at this tiny fraction of the universe. So that’s kind of what lying down in the cathedral was like.
I tried to recreate this feeling in one of my college’s chapels. So I sprawled out on the floor in my scruffy jeans that were well overdue for a wash, and I just had myself a staring contest with the Virgin Mary. Occasionally I glanced up at the ceiling, which is much plainer than the cathedral’s. And instead of the overwhelming feeling of beauty, I felt an overwhelming feeling of ownership.
What do I mean by that? I mean I can pray here, this is MY space. This isn’t a place I show up to once a week, having put on a stuffy sweater and nice shoes, and pretend to have a chat with God. No, sitting on the floor of this church, I OWN this place. Well, actually God owns this place, but God and I are such BFFs that I can just hang out on His floor. I don’t sit up straight on his upholstered chair that he reserves for guests while he stiffly and politely offers me a glass of water—no, I plop down on God’s cosmic couch and chill the fuck out.
If he has something to tell me, he’ll tell me when he feels like it, and if I wanna ask him something I’ll ask him when I feel like it. Just like dear friends whose friendship has moved onto that wonderful stage where they don’t feel they have to constantly interact to avoid awkward silence and chatter about nothing.
That’s kinda the relationship I’d like to have with God. I don’t want to sit in a pew, I want to chill out on God’s Cosmic Couch. And I recognize that this all makes me sound like a total weirdo. So let’s remember that I’m still me. I don’t want to sound like the youth pastor of some Vineyard church, trying to sound all hip and with it and failing miserably (“Hey, dudes, Jesus’ love is so rockstar!”). And, even worse, I don’t want to get overly kumbaya on your asses, because that’s also so not me.
So my only option is to relate it to bathroom humor, which we can all agree seems to be my comfort zone. So put it this way: lying down in church gives you the same feeling of ownership that peeing does for bathrooms. Yeah, I should probably explain that: Once on a road trip I remarked to my brother that I liked peeing in roadside bathrooms, because then “it’s like I live there.” Yeah, that explanation probably didn’t help… I guess it’s just a Me thing.
So lying down in a church is all about ownership, and the beauty of the universe on a large scale, and closeness with God, and, and, and, and and….
And it’s also just lying down in a church.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
I get a little mean about English teeth. But I do honestly love the English.
The other day I was sitting in a group of English people in a pub. I’m beginning to find that English people don’t tend to sit anywhere else—no one here ever suggests just sitting around in the lounge, or sitting in a café all French-like, or sitting in a movie theater, or sitting in a park, or sitting on a boat, or any of the other millions of places you could possibly sit. No, they always want to sit in a dark room that smells faintly of piss and looks like a butch gay pirate’s boudoir, and they want to clutch glasses the size of oil barrels filled with warm beer. And no matter how empty the pub is, it’s always impossible to hear anything anyone else is saying. Even if you are literally the only person in the bar, you still have to shout to hear your own thoughts as I’m pretty sure pubs blast ambient soundtrack CDs of drunk British people shouting about something the French did 200 years ago.
But enough about pubs. I came here to be mean about something in particular, and today I’m going to be mean about English teeth. So anyway, we’re in the pub and somehow the conversation turns to Miranda Hart. I get really excited as, for once, this is someone I think I’ve heard of. So I pipe up, “She’s the one on that lying show hosted by Rob Brydon, right? She's very funny, I think... She’s the one with the bad teeth?”
In a second I knew I had said something very, very wrong, as the British fell silent. Well, when I say silent I mean that those around me stopped talking but the other pub patrons were still pissed off and shouting about something. Everyone kept giving each other a confused look, and finally someone said, “Well, she’s on ‘Would I Lie to You?’ but she doesn’t have bad teeth…”
At that point I shut up about it because I realized that clearly some kind of boundary had been crossed. But being the member of academia that I am, I did my research.
Look, Englisher types. I can get over your love affair with this mysterious “brown sauce.” Or your inability to comprehend the concept of “toaster oven.” Hell, I could even forgive your naughty giggles whenever I accidentally refer to my trousers as “pants.” But I have to put my foot down somewhere and insist that Miranda Hart looks like ½ of a goddamn equestrian team.
And this isn’t me being mean and laughing at this veritable Quasimodo of the dental world while claiming to be some sort of a beauty queen—I’m well aware of my own aesthetic shortcomings! I’ll happily admit, among other things, that I need to get my fat ass in shape and that when I look at myself in the mirror from certain angles I’m pretty sure I have Down Syndrome. I don’t deny these things. So why would I do Miranda Hart the disservice of saying that her teeth are not freakishly horse-like?
I have to talk about it. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and just assume that everyone in England is just too kind to comment on it, but since I’m a total bitch I’ll go right ahead and say it: there are some seriously fugly sets of teeth I’ve seen here. Like, I’ve seen teeth here that have made me question the existence of God.
There’s one woman here in particular whose teeth do actually frighten me. Before I continue, let me just say that she’s certainly not someone who will be reading this blog, and she is certainly not someone I have EVER pretended to be friendly with—I mean, I may be a bitch but I’m not two-faced. I want to be vague, but not too vague. Let’s just say that she’s not the Queen. So that narrows it down.
Anyway, whenever this woman opens her mouth to speak I cringe a little, while at the same time imagining driving a large tractor through the gap between her two front teeth. Sometimes when I’m feeling less frightened I imagine tossing boba through the gap.
The worst thing is that I’m pretty convinced I’m the only person distracted by this woman’s proscenium arch-like mouth. So now in addition to the fear I feel every single time she opens her mouth, where I silently panic that the gap is just going to keep expanding until it consumes us all, I’m frightened that I’m going to fail at life. Come to think of it, I may have already.
But enough about pubs. I came here to be mean about something in particular, and today I’m going to be mean about English teeth. So anyway, we’re in the pub and somehow the conversation turns to Miranda Hart. I get really excited as, for once, this is someone I think I’ve heard of. So I pipe up, “She’s the one on that lying show hosted by Rob Brydon, right? She's very funny, I think... She’s the one with the bad teeth?”
In a second I knew I had said something very, very wrong, as the British fell silent. Well, when I say silent I mean that those around me stopped talking but the other pub patrons were still pissed off and shouting about something. Everyone kept giving each other a confused look, and finally someone said, “Well, she’s on ‘Would I Lie to You?’ but she doesn’t have bad teeth…”
At that point I shut up about it because I realized that clearly some kind of boundary had been crossed. But being the member of academia that I am, I did my research.
Look, Englisher types. I can get over your love affair with this mysterious “brown sauce.” Or your inability to comprehend the concept of “toaster oven.” Hell, I could even forgive your naughty giggles whenever I accidentally refer to my trousers as “pants.” But I have to put my foot down somewhere and insist that Miranda Hart looks like ½ of a goddamn equestrian team.
And this isn’t me being mean and laughing at this veritable Quasimodo of the dental world while claiming to be some sort of a beauty queen—I’m well aware of my own aesthetic shortcomings! I’ll happily admit, among other things, that I need to get my fat ass in shape and that when I look at myself in the mirror from certain angles I’m pretty sure I have Down Syndrome. I don’t deny these things. So why would I do Miranda Hart the disservice of saying that her teeth are not freakishly horse-like?
I have to talk about it. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and just assume that everyone in England is just too kind to comment on it, but since I’m a total bitch I’ll go right ahead and say it: there are some seriously fugly sets of teeth I’ve seen here. Like, I’ve seen teeth here that have made me question the existence of God.
There’s one woman here in particular whose teeth do actually frighten me. Before I continue, let me just say that she’s certainly not someone who will be reading this blog, and she is certainly not someone I have EVER pretended to be friendly with—I mean, I may be a bitch but I’m not two-faced. I want to be vague, but not too vague. Let’s just say that she’s not the Queen. So that narrows it down.
Anyway, whenever this woman opens her mouth to speak I cringe a little, while at the same time imagining driving a large tractor through the gap between her two front teeth. Sometimes when I’m feeling less frightened I imagine tossing boba through the gap.
The worst thing is that I’m pretty convinced I’m the only person distracted by this woman’s proscenium arch-like mouth. So now in addition to the fear I feel every single time she opens her mouth, where I silently panic that the gap is just going to keep expanding until it consumes us all, I’m frightened that I’m going to fail at life. Come to think of it, I may have already.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Nuns and Ex-Shetland Ponies
So I’m walking down the road by myself, reflecting on a full day of classes. A full day of being asked about my accent, explaining that, no, I actually prefer the weather here, and having to explain that we don’t do RE in the US (Me: “It’s illegal in state schools.” Englisher Type: “[*doing a spit-take with a mouthful of Hob Nobs and tea*] WOT? Ah you sehrious???”) My mind’s swimming with all this new information I have to deal with, all these new people to socialize with, and all these new cultural norms I have to wrap my mind around.
And suddenly I see a nun. I’m half blind and she’s about a football field away, but man do I have nun radar. Well, radar suggests it’s an intentional and deliberate thing, whereas the truth of the matter (as I explained in the previous post) is that I get distracted by celibate clergy in the same way that small children get distracted by shiny objects. She’s about to enter the Pitt Rivers Museum, so I take off running, cutting across the sacred English grass like a rocket. Well, I say rocket but I’m such a fat ass that I took off more like a wonky-legged ox with a weight problem. But even wonky-legged oxen make it to Oregon eventually, and before long I had caught up with the nun inside this famous museum.
Look, I promise that not every post on this blog is going to be about how nuns, monks and priests don’t have sex. But I’m not gonna lie and tell you that it’s not going to come up often. So anyway, the reason I’m running after this nun is that I want to spy. I want to follow her around so that I can know what nuns do in their spare time. What does a person who doesn’t have sex do?
The answer: They stare at dead Shetland ponies.
I’m not sure how, nor am I sure of the more important Why, but there is a dead, stuffed Shetland pony right in the entry hall of the Pitt Rivers Museum. Apparently it’s been dead for longer than I’ve been alive, and it just sort of lumpily stands there with an empty look in its glass eyes for all eternity. I can’t stop imagining that the soul of this poor dead creature is looking down from Shetland Pony Heaven, indignantly reflecting on the fact that Shetland ponies don’t stuff dead humans and put them in museums for comically small horses to stare at.
But you know, I’m not here to talk about the ethics of taxidermy. I’m here to talk about nuns. So this nun that I’ve chased after is just standing there in silent reverence of this creature that is the animal kingdom’s version of a fun size pack of M&M’s. There was a sign in front of this pickled animal that encouraged the museum visitors to “PLEASE TOUCH!” And I’d like to hope that, among the various other things nuns silently contemplate at all times, the nun was silently contemplating whether or not to give this dead pony a good stroke.
Do it, Sister. And I mean that in the sense of the larger sisterhood of all women, not the sisterhood of nuns. Or traveling pants for that matter.
Obviously I had to leave at some point. The nun seemed to be giving this particular dead animal some seriously long consideration, and I couldn’t just sneak around all afternoon, hiding behind dead cheetahs and ducking behind deceased penguins just to see if this nun eventually touched the Shetland pony. But I’d like to think she did.
And suddenly I see a nun. I’m half blind and she’s about a football field away, but man do I have nun radar. Well, radar suggests it’s an intentional and deliberate thing, whereas the truth of the matter (as I explained in the previous post) is that I get distracted by celibate clergy in the same way that small children get distracted by shiny objects. She’s about to enter the Pitt Rivers Museum, so I take off running, cutting across the sacred English grass like a rocket. Well, I say rocket but I’m such a fat ass that I took off more like a wonky-legged ox with a weight problem. But even wonky-legged oxen make it to Oregon eventually, and before long I had caught up with the nun inside this famous museum.
Look, I promise that not every post on this blog is going to be about how nuns, monks and priests don’t have sex. But I’m not gonna lie and tell you that it’s not going to come up often. So anyway, the reason I’m running after this nun is that I want to spy. I want to follow her around so that I can know what nuns do in their spare time. What does a person who doesn’t have sex do?
The answer: They stare at dead Shetland ponies.
I’m not sure how, nor am I sure of the more important Why, but there is a dead, stuffed Shetland pony right in the entry hall of the Pitt Rivers Museum. Apparently it’s been dead for longer than I’ve been alive, and it just sort of lumpily stands there with an empty look in its glass eyes for all eternity. I can’t stop imagining that the soul of this poor dead creature is looking down from Shetland Pony Heaven, indignantly reflecting on the fact that Shetland ponies don’t stuff dead humans and put them in museums for comically small horses to stare at.
But you know, I’m not here to talk about the ethics of taxidermy. I’m here to talk about nuns. So this nun that I’ve chased after is just standing there in silent reverence of this creature that is the animal kingdom’s version of a fun size pack of M&M’s. There was a sign in front of this pickled animal that encouraged the museum visitors to “PLEASE TOUCH!” And I’d like to hope that, among the various other things nuns silently contemplate at all times, the nun was silently contemplating whether or not to give this dead pony a good stroke.
Do it, Sister. And I mean that in the sense of the larger sisterhood of all women, not the sisterhood of nuns. Or traveling pants for that matter.
Obviously I had to leave at some point. The nun seemed to be giving this particular dead animal some seriously long consideration, and I couldn’t just sneak around all afternoon, hiding behind dead cheetahs and ducking behind deceased penguins just to see if this nun eventually touched the Shetland pony. But I’d like to think she did.
Flying Catholic Priests and "The List"
I think I might possibly be the most immature person in all of England. Well, not that that’s really saying all that much. I mean, take a look at this place, high school kids here dress more professionally than I do, and I think my 15 days in England so far have been the only 15 days of my life in which I haven’t heard the phrase, “That’s what she said!” …followed by an exchange of high fives. (And, on that note, I’ve had only a few high fives these past two weeks—and I’m pretty sure the few I’ve had were just done to humo(u)r the silly American.)
There was a moment today where I thought all this had changed, where I thought that finally the legendary English refinement had rubbed off on me and I was actually a proper adult now, no longer a small child in a 23-year-old’s body, constantly on the look-out for opportunities to tell a good fart joke. Or even a bad fart joke. I ain’t picky.
I’m talking, obviously, about the fact that today I met a Catholic priest and I was not tempted—-not even for a second—-to scream out, “YOU’RE NOT HAVING SEX!” And if you know me you know what a big deal this is. As someone who studies religion and who has met celibate members of a couple different religions, it’s something I used to always struggle with. I mean, the words have never actually escaped my lips (though I have planned a follow-up recovery sentence should I ever scream the first one: “Oops, sorry, I mean, it’s just—NOT EVER! NEVER EVER!”), but the fear of accidentally letting it slip one day used to always color my interactions with these people.
And please don’t think I’m picking on Catholics or Buddhists or Shakers or whoever—being a future RE teacher I am proud to announce that I have strange urges around people of ALL creeds. For example, whenever I’m in certain parts of Jerusalem (*COUGHMEAHSHEARIM*) it takes every ounce of my limited self-control NOT to run around naked and eat bacon.
Anyway, not having to fight the urge to loudly point out to this priest (in case he wasn’t aware) that he wasn’t having sex, I saw this as a sort of graduation into adulthood. “Finally,” I thought to myself, “I am a goddess of serenity. I am not thinking about this man’s lack of a sex life. Therefore I am the mature equal of my English cousins.”
But then I realized that, while sitting in a chair in front of an altar, this priest’s legs did not reach the ground. They just sort of hung there, occasionally kicking about, like a small kid chilling out on a swing. No, it actually made him look like a fairy or pixie, or something. And once I realized this there was basically no point in him continuing his lecture on John Henry Newman, because how are you supposed to concentrate on JHN’s Oxford links when there is essentially a wood sprite sitting in front of you? I’m doing a terrible job of explaining this, and maybe even there isn’t a good way to explain it at all, but the fact that this guy’s feet weren’t touching the ground and were instead swinging around basically made me think that at any moment he was going to sprout wings and take flight, fluttering all over the Oratory like that terrifying Israeli cartoon from the 70’s I once saw—it wasn’t about priests flying around churches, but it was about creepy cartoon butterflies…so…it’s sort of the same thing. Thankfully I didn’t break down into the giggles that threatened to form, but I sat there with a glazed happy expression on my face, like I was high on incense or something.
Later on in the day, after I’d had time to shake off images of this priest zooming around the church on his fairy wings (and not having sex), we went off to another church. It was an old, gorgeous college chapel, you know, dead people in the floor and everything. All was going smoothly as, thankfully, this time the priest leading us around was Anglican, whose sex life was therefore wholly uninteresting to me. But unfortunately he commented on the “stillness” of the chapel. We all paused to take in the silence and the stillness…
…which, of course, made me think of The List.
If you’ve read this far you’re surely curious/masochistic enough to want to know what The List is. So I’ll tell you. Rewind a bit: I like to go church surfing. I like to go to different churches and see what they’re all about. Sure, I like to pay attention to the liturgy, and the music, and the sermon, and the architecture, and the congregation…but I also like to make a note of where this church ranks on my “The List of the Least Fart-Friendly Congregation.” It’s hard to explain why I do this, and to be honest I’m not really sure why I do. It’s not like I’m really planning on launching some kind of bio-terrorist attack in church, it’s more like the same sort of thing that inspires people to climb mountains. Just because.
To fill you in, The List of the Least Fart-Friendly Congregations is topped by the Evanston Society of Friends and is bottomed out by whichever charismatic church has the best sound system. So there I am in this historic college chapel, lead by a fantastic tour guide, and all I can think about is, “On a scale of one to horrific, how bad would it be if one were to fart here?” And I started smiling and giggling to myself when I concluded that this chapel was almost as discriminatory against farts as the Quakers.
And this is normal for me. I have a feeling that if I had mentioned this particular aspect of my church surfing adventures on my grad school application, expensive overseas tuition fees or not, nothing would have tempted those poor bastards into accepting me. (Whenever I make eye contact with my RE tutor the phrase “NO TAKE BACKSIES!” comes to mind.) And I just don’t get it. I don’t get how I could be so immature and giggly. I am a dedicated student, a chair in the library here is already intimately acquainted with my ass, and I genuinely want to know more. But then everything is just so fucking hilarious.
Part of me wants to ask God/Shiva/Richard Dawkins just what the hell is wrong with me. But then an even larger part of me is so thrilled that I wrongfully find everything to be so delightful that, well, I just don’t want to be right.
There was a moment today where I thought all this had changed, where I thought that finally the legendary English refinement had rubbed off on me and I was actually a proper adult now, no longer a small child in a 23-year-old’s body, constantly on the look-out for opportunities to tell a good fart joke. Or even a bad fart joke. I ain’t picky.
I’m talking, obviously, about the fact that today I met a Catholic priest and I was not tempted—-not even for a second—-to scream out, “YOU’RE NOT HAVING SEX!” And if you know me you know what a big deal this is. As someone who studies religion and who has met celibate members of a couple different religions, it’s something I used to always struggle with. I mean, the words have never actually escaped my lips (though I have planned a follow-up recovery sentence should I ever scream the first one: “Oops, sorry, I mean, it’s just—NOT EVER! NEVER EVER!”), but the fear of accidentally letting it slip one day used to always color my interactions with these people.
And please don’t think I’m picking on Catholics or Buddhists or Shakers or whoever—being a future RE teacher I am proud to announce that I have strange urges around people of ALL creeds. For example, whenever I’m in certain parts of Jerusalem (*COUGHMEAHSHEARIM*) it takes every ounce of my limited self-control NOT to run around naked and eat bacon.
Anyway, not having to fight the urge to loudly point out to this priest (in case he wasn’t aware) that he wasn’t having sex, I saw this as a sort of graduation into adulthood. “Finally,” I thought to myself, “I am a goddess of serenity. I am not thinking about this man’s lack of a sex life. Therefore I am the mature equal of my English cousins.”
But then I realized that, while sitting in a chair in front of an altar, this priest’s legs did not reach the ground. They just sort of hung there, occasionally kicking about, like a small kid chilling out on a swing. No, it actually made him look like a fairy or pixie, or something. And once I realized this there was basically no point in him continuing his lecture on John Henry Newman, because how are you supposed to concentrate on JHN’s Oxford links when there is essentially a wood sprite sitting in front of you? I’m doing a terrible job of explaining this, and maybe even there isn’t a good way to explain it at all, but the fact that this guy’s feet weren’t touching the ground and were instead swinging around basically made me think that at any moment he was going to sprout wings and take flight, fluttering all over the Oratory like that terrifying Israeli cartoon from the 70’s I once saw—it wasn’t about priests flying around churches, but it was about creepy cartoon butterflies…so…it’s sort of the same thing. Thankfully I didn’t break down into the giggles that threatened to form, but I sat there with a glazed happy expression on my face, like I was high on incense or something.
Later on in the day, after I’d had time to shake off images of this priest zooming around the church on his fairy wings (and not having sex), we went off to another church. It was an old, gorgeous college chapel, you know, dead people in the floor and everything. All was going smoothly as, thankfully, this time the priest leading us around was Anglican, whose sex life was therefore wholly uninteresting to me. But unfortunately he commented on the “stillness” of the chapel. We all paused to take in the silence and the stillness…
…which, of course, made me think of The List.
If you’ve read this far you’re surely curious/masochistic enough to want to know what The List is. So I’ll tell you. Rewind a bit: I like to go church surfing. I like to go to different churches and see what they’re all about. Sure, I like to pay attention to the liturgy, and the music, and the sermon, and the architecture, and the congregation…but I also like to make a note of where this church ranks on my “The List of the Least Fart-Friendly Congregation.” It’s hard to explain why I do this, and to be honest I’m not really sure why I do. It’s not like I’m really planning on launching some kind of bio-terrorist attack in church, it’s more like the same sort of thing that inspires people to climb mountains. Just because.
To fill you in, The List of the Least Fart-Friendly Congregations is topped by the Evanston Society of Friends and is bottomed out by whichever charismatic church has the best sound system. So there I am in this historic college chapel, lead by a fantastic tour guide, and all I can think about is, “On a scale of one to horrific, how bad would it be if one were to fart here?” And I started smiling and giggling to myself when I concluded that this chapel was almost as discriminatory against farts as the Quakers.
And this is normal for me. I have a feeling that if I had mentioned this particular aspect of my church surfing adventures on my grad school application, expensive overseas tuition fees or not, nothing would have tempted those poor bastards into accepting me. (Whenever I make eye contact with my RE tutor the phrase “NO TAKE BACKSIES!” comes to mind.) And I just don’t get it. I don’t get how I could be so immature and giggly. I am a dedicated student, a chair in the library here is already intimately acquainted with my ass, and I genuinely want to know more. But then everything is just so fucking hilarious.
Part of me wants to ask God/Shiva/Richard Dawkins just what the hell is wrong with me. But then an even larger part of me is so thrilled that I wrongfully find everything to be so delightful that, well, I just don’t want to be right.
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