Unrecognizable recognizable me

What do I want to say? I’m not sure.

I was thinking of writing a list of all the ways I have suddenly activated this new Catholic situation in my life. I’m not sure what the above picture has to do with it… this was taken in a photo booth when I worked at an indie record label in Chicago and was drinking at an insane level. I had my “dream job” (never mind that it only paid $8 per hour, no benefits) with music industry cred, but I still felt like a sycophant whom everyone either disdained or dismissed. I had ended an 8-year relationship with a brilliant, antisocial man who became my lifelong best friend (and, decades later, permanent—hopefully—housemate) because my social life was taking off. I was hanging out with very low level famous people. I was traveling to festivals and hobnobbing with “celebrity rock critics” (they existed then) and having phone sex with lesser rock critics. I was chasing a married punk rock bandleader and painter (the reason I got this job in the first place—I was a superfan willing to work for pennies so I could rub shoulders with my crush) and I was watering the bourbon bottles in the company’s office bar. I WASN’T singing or painting. This was a pattern—working as a support for the people doing the creative work I didn’t believe in myself enough to do myself.

I was miserable.

Not long after, I shattered my wrist drunk and eventually went to AA, the time that “stuck” for a couple decades. I refused to say the Our Father. I was a sober atheist. Music was my higher power, and it worked for me.

One of many higher powers that no longer work. At least, not in that way.

In AA they talk a lot about “God-shaped holes” and how we fill them.

So I’ve finally fallen through my God-shaped hole and out the other side. These are things I am doing willingly, without any assignments, without any “spiritual advisor” I’m reporting back to, and without hesitation or balking:

I’m praying the Rosary daily with a little book that helps with the “big bead” meditations;

I’m watching something called “Pray with the Pope” nightly, a monthly video series where you see Pope Leo sitting in a little chapel and you hear him (and say along with him if you want) a 4-5 minute prayer with accompanying music. Last month, we prayed that all might have food; this month, we’re praying for the joy that can be found in sports. Leo is a Cubs fan, after all.

I’m reading Pope Leo’s encyclical on A.I.

In my bathroom is Thomas Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain.

I’m listening to a podcast by Fr. James Martin; he interviewed Anne Lamott, Jim Gaffigan, and Stephen Colbert, among other famous Catholics.

I’m doing a little course on contemplative practice at a website called Center for Action and Contemplation.

I’m tithing—a little to St. Paul, a little to the Diocese of Lexington, a little to the Fortunate Families LGBTQ+ ministry, and a little to the Diocese of Gallup, NM—their priest visited us and they’re struggling.

I’m going to Mass every. dang. weekend. And singing in the choir loft. And bringing my Mother.

I’m talking to a nun. Frequently.

And I’m reading the New Testament, slowly, with a highlighter, picking out the phrases that have meaning for me or confirm MY idea of who Jesus is, but also the ones that the megachurches and prosperity gospel weirdos have picked out to justify their beliefs… just so I know what I’m dealing with. I’m on John now. I’m sure he’ll be my favorite—he was the mystic of the Gospels.

These are things I look forward to doing. I’m INTO them. I’m curious and when curiosity has me in its grips, there’s no stopping me until The Next Thing.

But I hope there isn’t a Next Thing, or at least that this, like learning Spanish, becomes a part of me with staying power.

Believe me, it’s difficult to type every single word in these posts. I read myself and I can’t believe it. Another thing I’m doing is listening to one of Anne Lamott’s memoirs on Audible, because she writes about becoming Catholic as an adult and her discomfort with the changes in her (also a former Godless 12-stepper) and her curiosity about what they mean. And she continues to advocate for women’s rights in and out of the Church and reproductive choice, dammit, as will I.

So yeah. This is happening. Fervently. I don’t really know what to say about it except that the fact that I don’t find any of it excessive alarms me, and that the things I’m learning from Anne Lamott and that CAC class in contemplative practices will probably keep me from getting too sure of my own shit. This may never be comfortable, and at the same time, it feels utterly right, like ripping off a festering, 45-year-old band-aid that was keeping me from recognizing that...

…drumroll please...

…that I am loved. That’s huge. Or at least, I recognize it theoretically. I really never knew it or felt it (sorry, men and women I have failed to love because I didn’t believe you could really love me), and I’m not sure I do yet, really. I’m trying to concentrate on the “Holy Spirit” conundrum because it seems like the clearest path inward to dismantle those interior walls that keep me from accepting that I’m loved, and keep me from engaging in loving back.

So yeah, I don’t fully trust me, or it, or the universe, or "God (in Three Persons)." But I’m working on it.