Then–Cassandra, whose name meant in Greek “one who ensnares men,” scurried by me in an oversized pair of purple men’s slippers. She was a renowned kleptomaniac who only spoke with well-known lines of characters from legendary films.
“Give me back my slippers,” I heard a frail male voice say from behind me. “Give them back…or I’ll…”
“Ha! Rubbish! You have no power here. Be gone! Before someone drops a house on you.” She was nabbed by the nurse as she passed the lounge and asserted, “Not me that needs to see a psychiatrist, Blanch.”
Arriving at the conference room for Report, I noticed Oedipal Al, slouched in high-back plastic armchair just outside the door. He was coined the name by the staff. He believed he had killed his father and married his mother–now deceased. No need for penance, apparently. He’d meet everyone with a smile, he was supporting his bony elbow on the arm rest and repeatedly flicked with his fingers the ash off an invisible cigarette. I had never seen anyone hold an imaginary cigarette so stylishly. He waved hello to me with his free hand. I handed him an ashtray that was not there.
“It’s all about protein molecules,” he said as he meticulously brushed off the nonexistent ashes from this lap. “Yup…those molecules.”
I drifted in and out of the conveying of relevant information by the nurse to the oncoming staff—machine-gunned fragments, mostly. “Bowel movement. Refused meds. Public masturbation.” As I stared at the bird-of-paradise-patterned wallpaper, I thought of how I would feel if someone surveyed me for eight hours and then summarized me–my identity–in six words. “American Gigolo. Accidents happen. Not saved.”
My thoughts returned to Gloria. Her God had been construed for her by her religion of definitive answers. Faith can be a beautiful thing only when it is a mediator of a new consciousness. Living in a rigid frame of reference is confidence in an opinion with unyielding borders. If we interpret a spiritual reality through a particular set of someone else’s defined conjectures, our life will become this someone else’s desired guesswork. If we need objects of authority and edicts for our convictions to be compelling, then our life is one of detailed fears. If we need a chronicled faith, then our life is history and following directions.
Spirituality is not quantitative or qualitative. There is no primary superior character or routine to it, standards to be valued or measured, identifications to cleave to or methodologies to abide by.
Organized faith is conventional, habitual, uniform. On paper, it’s ideal.
Spirituality is innate, effortless, open. Noteworthy.
“What is the meaning of life? …The great revelation…never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.”
Virginia Wolfe (1882-1941)