Vintage Anxieties

I have discovered that the only thing more exhausting than believing in God is trying not to.

Every morning I find myself waiting for something I cannot identify, dressed in convictions I no longer own. It is terribly inconvenient. I had planned to be finished with all this by now. One prefers to have one’s crises resolved before starting the day, yet here I am, past fifty, still arranging things for a guest who may not exist.

The problem is that I am afflicted with sincerity I cannot afford and skepticism that bores me.

Faith would be easier. Atheism would be cheaper. I have somehow managed to achieve neither while paying for both. It is very like me to choose the most expensive form of confusion available.

I pray, occasionally, to something I cannot specify. This strikes me as either the height of honesty or the depth of absurdity, and I have given up trying to determine which. The prayers themselves are rather good, I think. Well-composed. My teachers would swoon. It seems a waste that they go nowhere, but then most of my better work has suffered similar fates.

I suppose people wonder, often, what it is I must believe. The answer disappoints everyone equally. I believe in humor and the value of a well-timed silence. These are not evasions. They are among the few things I have found that survive prolonged contact with reality. Everything else exists in a state of permanent maybe, and after years of resistance, I have developed a genuine affection for maybe. It makes very few demands.

The believers pity me. The atheists find me tedious. I understand both positions completely and maintain neither.

I am a disappointment to everyone, which at least shows consistency. One must excel at something.

God, if He exists, has chosen not to announce Himself, which I find rather rude but ultimately understandable. I too avoid people where I am expected to explain myself. I do, however, have the decency to offer my regrets. He simply never responds. It is the silence of someone who no longer opens His mail, and while I cannot approve of the manners, I will admit I admire the commitment.

What do I wait for then, if not for Him?

I wait because some part of me insists on it, and I have learned it is useless to argue with one’s own convictions without evidence. They are the most stubborn kind. Justified faith is philosophy with delusions of grandeur. What I have is something more honest. I believe in nothing I can defend and doubt everything I can articulate.

It is very pure.

The Greeks had the good sense to make their gods comprehensible. Lustful, jealous, petty. One knew where one stood. Our God appears to have left without forwarding His address, and we are left checking our email hoping for correspondence. I check mine daily. Irrational? Of course. But still, inevitable. I am nothing if not irrational and inevitable in equal measure.

It has been suggested that I try meditation. I told them I already have a perfectly good absurdity, thank you, and saw no reason to collect another. Meditation is for people seeking peace. I am seeking something I haven’t words for, which is far more interesting. Peace is what one settles for when one has given up on questions. I am not ready to give up on questions. I am simply ready to admit I will never receive answers.

Which is progress of a sort.

If God appeared tomorrow I should be devastated. My uncertainty would collapse. I would have to begin again with different problems, and I have grown rather fond of these ones. They suit me. They match my disposition and complement me. New problems at my age would require an entirely different set of anxieties, and I am far too old to develop new anxieties.

The ones I have are vintage.

The truth, if we must speak of such things, is that I am split between the part of me that knows better and the part that doesn’t care what I know. They coexist beautifully, like enemies at a dinner party who have agreed not to make a scene. Each despises the other. Neither will leave. I am the house in which they argue.

So it continues. There are mornings when getting out of bed feels embarrassingly ambitious. I compose prayers to recipients unknown. I am someone expecting revelation while suspecting none will arrive. The theater of expectation is the last honest thing I have left, and how silly to give it up simply because it makes no sense.

Nothing makes sense. At least this has the virtue of being deliberate.

That is my rebellion. Not certainty. Not resolution. Maintaining beautiful confusion in a world that demands ugly answers.

The believers have their heaven. The atheists have their void.

I have waiting, a magnificent maybe, refusing to choose between comfort and truth when both are unavailable.

Honestly, the company is better.