Letter to my son about religion

Dearest Son,
     To answer your letter concerning why we did not encourage you to participate in a organized religion. First: It's my fault if there is blame to apply. I take responsibility for the consequences of not inculcating you in a religion. I am still conflicted over that decision. The major reason is my personal prejudice against religion and another smaller part is geography. :::::Read this carefully!!!!
     First let me tell you about my own experience.I was born into a very Catholic family which indoctrinated me into the Catholic cult. Once one becomes part of these religious ranks the taste imparted lasts for a lifetime. It is fused to your tongue. Wherever you go and whatever way you turn it is still there garnishing any flavor you encounter. You see, my training was different than yours. I was taught religion in Sunday school from a very young age. I went to church every Sunday until I was 15 years old. I attended a strict Catholic high school and afterwards a Catholic college. You were allowed to run unbridled.
     As religions go, the Catholic religion allows for a lot of personal interpretation. It took me a long time to see that. Free will is an important tenant of the church, however it is interpreted, and allows catholics a psychological exit from disaggreable dogma,, of course only if they wish to depart. Let me explain. A catholic can be sitting in church, even praying by rote, yet at the same time be awash in skepticism. There is a duality at work here that falls somewhere between faith and reason and allows for both or neither. Reason, once it is employed, is stronger than the gospels yet it should not negate wondering about creation. Not all Catholics are the same. I consider myself a Catholic but I have many disagreements with the dogma (teachings) of the church. I don't even know if I believe in God,,,but I feel comfortable around most Catholics. Three hundred years after the death of Christ when the "religion" was invented by a group of politicians and devout shamans in Constantinople, this unknowing  ecclectic group replaced the fear of Almighty God,,, with "LOVE". This was revolutionary and the concept in itself is a soft form of atheism. An idea,,,, love, demoted God to the icy distance.  

      I have a distaste for priests who preach from an immoveable point of view. Most sermons are solely repetitions of a questionable history yet I like to attend mass once in a while because the ritual holds a strange pleasure for me. Perhaps the feeling is a remnant of my indoctrination. Also I enjoy the spaces,,,,,,  and who shouldn't enjoy sitting in a lofty tasteful space,,, where you can blot out the distractions. And the mass,,, for all its lavish redundancy  can be reduced to theatre,,, a re-enactment of a farewell,, (Jesus with his buddies),,,and then,,, well back to the pain of living. Catholics will forever be party animals who at times surprise you with their conscience.
      When you were a baby we decided not to force a religion upon you. One reason was that we didn't feel we could enforce it well,,,,like my Catholicism was enforced. We lived deep in the north country, a bastion of baptists. Who would take you to church? Who would re-enforce the dogma without grandparents near. I wasn't comfortable with baptists,,,the dominant religion in Maine. They are too single minded. I felt that it could be possible to enter the doctrinal waters of catholicism or judaism surviving with their skepticism intact and maintain a healthy perspective on religion. If at first there is an immersion, like with me, a good soaking,, there should come with maturity a distancing. After you pass through a ritual wether it be high school or the church,, well you should be able to see it more clearly. It may have been a mistake not to have given you the "treatment". You can learn a lot about human nature from religion but I didn't think we could have served you well as religious parents. To know religion you need familial backup and some religious pressure. I was not equipped with the backup or the pressure. I apologize for not trying.
     Probably your friend Churchill feels your responses about the subject don't show enough respect for religion in general. You can sound disrespectful in your tone....probobly because you are usually nervous. I really can't say because I don't hear the conversations. You really cannot call yourself a catholic just because of your brief time as a baby in El Salvador. Religion is not only genetic.You need to be indoctrinated, and you did not pass sufficient time to be indoctrinated. You should however show respect for the religion of others. They in turn should not force theirs upon you. You can answer him by telling your story and saying that you are not very religious and for what reasons,,,that you just haven't decided yet for instance. This is not to say you are looking either in case the other pérson sees an opening and wants to convert you. Your beliefs in God, Saints, Angels, Devils are your business and not for sale even if not formed yet.
    At any rate to think in religious terms is not a bad exercise. People have been doing it for thousands of years. Who is this person we call God. How does he fit in the universe? Is God great? Why then could life be extingushed by an asteroid? Why is there so much suffering if God is just? Why not just believe in water and sun and love for your fellow man instead of the traditional western concept of God? Is the universe ordered or is it just a chaos of accidents? These are interesting questions and worth the effort to explore.
     I came across this gentleman, Phillip Pullman somewhere. You are probobly already familiar with him. He is an atheist with whom I might get along with. He lacks all the fascist overtones,,,,they usually come big time when atheism or any religion that does not invite questioning is coupled with state policy. In his case however he comes off softer being a writer of children's books. Once you have chosen atheism, for example, there are prescribed thinking routes that you are obliged to take. Atheists seem to turn to science probobly because it gives the impression of spewing truths, or that it can discover everything. It is as natural a path for atheists, as is fence walking is for agnostics, and as anti scientific stands are for the fervent faiths. He is attracted to science too,,,but I have the opportunity to take what is sensibly said from whom I want whatever their predeliction.

Here is a short article-quote about-from Phillip Pullman.

"This impulse toward theocracy will defeat the School Of Morals (theatre, theatre being, for the devoted, a place to receive ethical instruction) in the end". He seemed oddly cheerful making this prediction; in his books Pullman enjoys striking a tone of meloncholy resolve. He continued," But that doesn't mean we should give up and surrender......I think we should act as if we should read books, and tell children stories, and take them to the theatre, and learn poems, and play music as if it would make a difference...We should act as if the universe were listening to us and responding. We should act as if life were going to win....That's what I think they do in the School Of Morals".

Russ

     

     The Colony Swim Club was a popular summer place in the 1950's with up and coming middle class families. My family rented a changing room there for three consecutive summers between from 1953-1956. A small changing room came with the membership. The population was a mix of a few Wasps, a gaggle of Italian Americans, who wanted to take the edge off their roots, and a bevy of multicolored askenazi Jews. I make these distinctions because they are concise. Some will understand my ethnic demographics and others no.  Post Second World War USA was a mix of new desperately mobile middleclass tribes, looking for some form of the good life after the years of deprivation during the War. Recreational sites like "The Colony" were not lavish. They flirted with austere given today's mandatory standards of brass and glass. These clubs sprung up to serve groups in transition. Ironically those distinct ethnic or religious groups who formed the population of "The Colony" didn't socialize outside the bounds of "The Club" but rubbed shoulders within its tight borders. It was a unique time and a unique situation,, a temporary down home melting pot that lasted until post war economic success created new more exclusive venues. Jews, Italian Americans, and a smattering of Wasps recreated in close quarters in a simple environment. 
    At the Colony the Wasps and Italian American women played a serious bridge and feasted on jello molds. The Jewish women, played a noisy mah jong under the same pavillion as they ate blintzes, cheesecake, and noodle pudding. The women also enjoyed shuffleboard and an occaisional dip in the pool. The men worked during the week but appeared on saturday and sunday. Under the shade of the pavillion, the Italian American men played gin for small pots of coins, leaving the table once and a while to play paddleball or go for a swim. Jewish men were scarce any day of the week and when seen they never gambled or drank liquor. Honestly, I don't remember what the handful of wasp men did. I seem to remember them hanging out near the bar.
     "The Colony" is where I learned to swim. I had stern but benevolent teachers. I remember our beginner group's first end of the summer test when each group member was required to swim across the deep end without the safety of water wings. The bottom of this part of the pool was painted an obscure menacing blue.  I swam a terrified doggie paddle thinking I would surely die, but I made it. By the next summer after a winter swimming at the YMCA, I was in competition with other youngsters of my age.  
     The swim competitions were always held near the end of summer. I remember the older catholic boys with medals of the virgin about their neck, like the iconic Vinnie DiCarlo, his hair always maintained in a perfect duck's ass with Odell's Hair Trainer. Before each race he cupped some water from the pool and made the sign of the cross yet always seemed to come in second. One other memorable summer day I saw the entire pool emptied by concerned parents when a teenage girl who had beaten polio entered the water. I am sure the bouyancy soothed her twisted body. There she was in the center of that vast turquoise sea floating alone like a twisted blond twig. 

     Russ was a crude mysterious man. He ran the pool filtration system at the Colony Swim Club. I do not know for sure that Russ was a drunk but he spent a lot of time inside the pump room out of the sun in his A shirt sitting on a chair amidst a maze of blue pipes and buzzing motors. He was a large man with skinny legs, a  perpetually stubbled face, and a barrel belly. He rarely came out into the light of day. One day a group of friends and I were playing, running about  between the pickett fence and the only strip of grass that existed in a field of concrete. We had made several passes in front of the pump room as a hoarde, then separated. When I alone passed in front of the pump room Russ made a gutteral raspy sound with his throat. I stopped and looked up because the sound was so unusual. I stared at him half hidden in the shadows when suddenly he took a healthy swig from a soda bottle filled with water, and purposely spit it all over me. The water was a shock and I was scared because he looked so aggressive. I am not sure but he might have been a little drunk. I suppose drunk is something I am using here to explain his behavior. I didn't know really. I just felt singled out and threatened by a man in a cave. It was saturday and my father happened to be at "the club" that day. When I returned to the pavillion he was in the middle of a game of gin. I stood there a minute and then when there was a break in the action I told him what had happened. My father was a calm man most of the time but when he heard this he took off running and the "ecounter" took place. He was screaming at Russ as Russ made gutteral replies. My father grabbed a hammer and held the claw to Russ's head. I stood terrified and sorry I had mentioned the incident thinking my father could have killed him at that moment. 
     
     I had another run in with Russ at the end of the last summer we spent at The Colony. I don't think he recognized me or associated me with the episode. Perhaps he was really just a drunk. Russ showed me and a couple of other boys how to construct huge kites out of newspaper and glue and a few lathes. We flew them high in the sky and off into the distance towards the horizon over the pool, a distance so far that it seemed like they might be in the next county. 
    After that incident I always felt more secure with my father. I had confidence he would protect me when push came to shove,,,,or less. I think my mother might have protected me, but I could never be as sure of her. I think an "earlier" version of my father would have thrown a hammer at the head of his best friend, or even a priest given the perception of threat to his increase. My mother would have told that same best friend or the priest that I was worthless and practicing to be a bum. I really admired my father for how angry he became  with Russ,,,,,justified or not. It made me feel more secure with him. It was physical proof. 
     As I am writing this I am remembering the last time that I saw my father when he was in the hospital with cancer,,, in New Jersey ironically on the same road where The Colony Swim Club had been. Two days before he passed away I went back to New England to take care of something. I cannot even remember what that something was at this moment. I left early in the morning but before departing I made a visit to the hospital. He was in his room accompanied by a nurse with a foul attitude. Her cold expressions and silent stares irritated me. My father was pretty drugged up, hazy, and swaying like a cobra sitting in the chair. He came out of the morphine fog for a just a brief moment, but a moment very important that I will always cherish. "Peter" he said to me softly but with real joy in his voice. It was said with a kind of relief at seeing me,,,,and a loving tone that I will never forget. He cradled my head with his hand and brought it forward and kissed me there on the top of my head so gently and sweetly,,,and then he let go and returned to the "Waiting",,,,,lost in the transluscent vapor, but with the knowledge I am sure that this was the end. Two days later, my phone rang early in the morning. My brother's voice was heard without any preface saying, "It's over". I knew from the moment the telephone rang what information would be delivered over the line. It was truly "over".

The Spa

     I was waiting in the spa the other day. Abuelita was finishing up her birthday facial. I was planted in a seat at the cross roads of two long, lightly, lumpily plastered cream corridors that resembled the tunnels of a well polished cave. From the Bose speakers in the ceiling emanated a soft string of sound,,,a kind of underwater celtic theme. Here the thermal waters pumped from below lure the "Iam Worthits" and the "I Deservits" for an array of exotic treatments available only to Kings and Queens a few centuries ago. Sanus Per Aquam (SPA). Health through water. 
     An unlikely pair, of contrary ages emerged from the roman baths with broad knowing smiles cleaned inside and out. Spa workers passed by robed like pharmacists treading on soft white thickly soled shoes. A parade cloaked in almost perfect silence, only given up by the brushing of their white garments. An elderly couple wrapped in wrinkled multi pocketed khaki garments and porting searching glances wandered. They looked like eccentric birdwatchers. 
     I pondered the tiled floor for a bit.There was an occaisional block of 25 softened burnt orange tiles with an aztec motif that broke the creamy monotony. I focused on a crack that ran transversely across the floor and cut one of the aztec figures in two. Was it poor construction or a result of the many earthquakes in the region? Probobly it was the forces of nature that always nag at all constuctions,,,,of human origin, and those formed by nature herself. The same day the first batch of cement is setting whatever you are building begins deteriorating. We sit upon giant thick scales floating on the surface of the spinning Earth which soars through the sky with no particular destination in mind. The crack provoked me to speculate that I might be atop a grand fault in the shifting mantle of my planet. This speculation lead to calculation. The crack was about two millimeters wide. If it were indeed a crack in motion, moving a millimeter each year,,,then in just the geological breath of 1,000,000 years one half the aztec figure on the burnt orange tile would rest on the edge of a chasm over 300 feet wide. 
     Lately I have thought of my father.Thoughts of him always coincide with our family corner of trimmed lawn in "Gates Of Heaven" cemetery. Cemeteries in the U.S. are like ball fields. It is a reflection of the unimaginably grand green space that exists there. I cannot help but conjur up his corpse, arms softly crossed, the skin that remains tight to the bone. Then I see him as he was and our eyes meet. Did his eyes see like mine? I am more like my father than my mother. That is all I am able to say. She saw the world from below,,,as a pyramid of competition for the prized chrome trophy, that, when it could be held, one was illuminated for just a bit,,for all the world to see,,,,finally,,,and tempoarily, recognized, for having leveraged the system to arrive there. Her life long frustration came from not really knowing how to advance. She was forever relegated to battle among the other pretenders at the base of the structure,,, a true motley crew. 
     My father didn't always focus his eyes aloft,,,more in the horizontal towards down, in order to check where he was, or upon what he might be treading. I fancy that we had the same tint to our vision,,,we just arrived at our destinations from different routes. He must have caught the same vignettes in his visual net. Selective "seeing" motivated by something we had in common. However, "seeing" is all in the processing through our baleen of accumulated prejudices,,yet he and I must have picked out some similar signals. 
     He was not a fighter,,, outside of a football field or a basketball court. In those fields of behavior he was intensely focused. There is a simple cause,,,try to win this one,,under established rules with referees. The social court was too ill-defined for him, I believe. He didn't even like the people in the arena with whom my mother threw him. He couldn't explain it, probobly never thought about it,,yet he seemed to know. What value is knowing however without the conciousness that you are peering inside. As a sense of wonder, however weak, is the baby step,,,reflection is the leap. I don't ever think he ventured much beyond the baby step. Somehow he suspected the prize that might be gleaned from social maneuvering was just not worth it. Ironically, one could write a play inhabited by a world of characters who lack reflection,,,the playwright will do the reflecting for them, turning their actions, just a bit paled, into something more colorful. It's a twentieth century phenomena to consider the penny stinkers as fodder for the theme of a play. It is one credit to the bloodiest century. The arts of the twentieth began the exaltation of the myriad classes of humanity. 
     And so I float upon my tectonic scale 4125 miles south of Gates Of Heaven pondering the cracks in the universe.