All Is Vanity

[Teresa]

She looks like Victoria from The High Chaparral and in a thick Selma Hayek accent tells the story of her little girl falling from a twelve-foot balcony.  She is able to cry and speak at the same time and somehow her mascara doesn't run as she takes us on this nightmarish journey during a support group meeting for parents of disabled children.

"I go to chapel every day and pray to Jesus - Jesus, just save my little girl, sweet-sweet Jesus, and I will praise your name over the rooftops - and then I ask him to just take away my husband's money, all of it, so he will spend less time at work and more time with his family, so he will go to chapel with me because he won' come but don' get me wrong - my husband is a gooood man...a gooood man"; that last part is whispered for effect and I decide as I look at all the jewelry she's wearing that not only has she practiced this story in the mirror, Jesus did not take away her husband's money.

Her story goes on for a good half hour, dismal then doubly dismal, and just as I reach for tissue because I'm picturing a helpless vacant vegetable in a Disney decorated children's hospital, she tells us that for going to chapel "every day for seven years" God healed her now ten year-old daughter who miraculously progressed from severely disabled to cured. 

At the end of the story she passes photos around the room to women whose children are not cured of Down Syndrome, severe autism and cerebral palsy, and as I look at the lovely image of perfection I think about good people who just get a busy signal when they call the Almighty. 

I'm ashamed for wanting to take needle-nose pliers to those who portray themselves as having graduated God Cum Laude, those so well-versed in the language of effectual prayer with God on speed dial; it's like the kid with the easy ride waving like a beauty contestant at the weary kid on foot. 

[Russo Lewis]

The last sentence is too good to let go.  "the language of effectual prayer with God on speed dial;"   "the kid with the easy ride waving like a beauty contestant at the weary kid on foot. " You've set the hook deep, tempting me to thank the author,  but fearful lest in doing so I dislodge the hook. " God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him." That quote from John Piper, with your words, leads me to consider the state of faith in the 'kid on foot, in me,  and in the 'kid with the easy ride,"  and ask if there does exist for the three of us, that same Agape, love, divine, unconditional, self-sacrificing,  love of God for all humanity?  Though I fear the answers,  I still ride for the Holy Grail.  Thank you for helping to make for me, a better day.  I've much to learn.

[Jamie Hogan]

For whatever you believe about faith, or don't, you can not leave tact at the door. Some folks can't differentiate between inspirational and insulting, based on their setting. And then some, as Mike illustrates well, are reckless dumbasses. I'm sorry that both of you have had to deal with these things.

[Edward Dean]

I always luv your character descriptions T. and this one was a beaut!

[Cita]

Where the HELL did you encounter this person?  Damn, I am so glad I left Texas... really, I am.  I will always be a Texan at heart but I can't live there.  Ok... so I know it isn't the region's fault,  but now I want to fly to you and have a big stiff drink while we cuss a blue streak, T.

[Mike Handley]

I wasn't going to include this, as I didn't want to hijack your post or your well expressed angst. The reason this screed "played well" with me is very personal. A former admitted murderer-turned-preacher-because-god-forgives-ya-know once convinced my aunt that if she had faith enough, she would be cured of diabetes. Insulin (as well as all medicines) were the devil's tools. All she needed was to pray with him, which she did. While she was in a diabetic coma in the hospital, the family prayed for her recovery. She did snap back into this world, but she died a very few years later at the age of 32, layed in a coffin with a gold crucifix around her neck. She obviously didn't pray hard enough, and the devil's tools no longer helped either. The preacher dared not show his face at her funeral.

[Toby Tucker Hecht]

Shouldn't there be rules in this kind of support group?  Didn't someone say to her, "Please leave." 

[Joe Gensle]

You were fashioning the comment that hit before my own. You're spot-on, T.

[Joe Gensle]

Terrific writing, T, that plays well well to the anti-Christian, agnostic and atheist crowd. Educated theologians have a very different perspective on the "If you do this, God, I'll do this" and woman's conjecture, but how many of us include those people in our circles of influence and/or intellect?

[Teresa]

I was accused of having faith in nothing when I brought this subject up to a Catholic I know...cough...and too late it occurred to me that I should have said: Faith doesn't drive kids miles and miles to special schools, to speech, occupational and physical therapy, to doctors and special needs dance sessions and special needs playdates, etc.  Faith doesn't clean shit off the walls, clean non-stop disasters, practice speech and sign language, etc.  Faith is like bubble gum or silly putty; it holds us until the answers come, it keeps us busy, plugs up doubt.  Or maybe faith is all those things in the sense that we're working toward whatever progress is possible and believing it is possible is a practical faith.  But hard work is key.  Going to chapel or praying a rosary 24/7 doesn't cause one to break a sweat.  I think faith is believing that everything just is, that we are strong enough to do what needs to be done, that love is powerful and we will get through this and whatever else comes.  But the God cured my kid but not yours shit just makes me ballistic.  I saw one of the group mothers at mass this morning, pushing her son in a wheechair.  His cerebral palsy is very severe.  He looks like a mini Stephen Hawking - a sharp kid - stuck in a bum body.  I hate that for him, and for his haggard looking mother, a eucharistic minister who deserves as much as anyone else to have her son whole.  No, it won't happen for her, but she doesn't need it rubbed in her face either.  Sorry for the rant.  My hormones are all in a wad...;-)

[Angela]

The last two lines were go-getters, and said things about God and prayer that have troubled me for years.  I think life is all completely random, and prayer is pretty much pointless, except when asking for guidance, hope, love, willingness, and strength.   Never ever pray for patience.