Filomena

When that priest looked down at me it was like he was a giant. Maybe he was tall, but I was so little it wouldn’t have mattered. Mom had brought me to see if I would go to the parish school. I was used to adults looking down at me. They would smile and some would give me candy. The man in the black dress was stern-faced and almost yelled his question. “Do you accept Jesus as your personal savior and lord?” I was so scared I cried, and mom had to pick me up to keep me from running from the building.

Mom was very religious. She kept that picture of our precious Lady of Guadalupe years after the month pages of the calendar were torn off and thrown away, the virgin in her red gown and green and blue veil covered with stars. Still, to her great credit, mom carried me out of the parish school office and we never came back. It was not that I couldn’t answer. I didn’t understand the question.

I saw a friend recently with a long face and a far-away look. I asked if anything was wrong. I saw his eyes focus, maybe just then seeing me there. He was worrying about salvation, his personal salvation, about ‘in His name alone,’ and I didn’t know what to say. I guess I feel like worrying about personal salvation is a conceit, but I wasn’t going to say that to him. It’s like worrying about death. It’s holding onto your ego with white knuckles. It’s like being afraid God is going to mess up your case, like not trusting the universe.

But look around. Who wouldn’t think the universe isn’t being taken care of, at least part of the time? But trust is trust, a simple decision we make based on a complicated secret formula, secret often to ourselves. We trust a dear friend whether she is all together or in anguish, and trusting the universe is just the same. If that priest in his black cassock had smiled at me instead of screaming, it might have changed my life, but the universe is what it is, and he had no control over it.

And so I pray for my friend and his fear. In proverbs it says fear of the Lord is the first step toward wisdom (or something like that). A monk once told me fear of God is like fear of rollercoasters. It is a fear we will stand in line for hours to be inside of, if only for a few minutes. That is a healthy fear, fear with a racing heart and a smile.