Category: religion

Easter, family, holiday, mother, religion, travel

My Year of Hopefulness – A Little Bit of the Divine

Christa Avampato

This morning I was on the Metro-North train to visit my family for Easter. Two little boys, twins, got on the train with their mom, who looked exhausted and worn out, with a couple of new toys. Another woman walked by – she was one of those classic old New York women who you know from her tone of voice have lived in this big city for the better part of their lives. I am sure she talks to everyone she meets as if she’s known them forever, and given all she’s lived through, she’s entitled to state any and all of her opinions as fact. These women also exactly what to say and when to say – their timing and level of appropriateness is impeccable.

“Where’d you get those toys?” she asked the two children. “Mom or the Easter Bunny?”

“The Easter Bunny.”

“Huh. You know Moms are much better than the Easter Bunny. You can’t trust a rabbit but you can always trust you mother.”

The mother smiled, grateful and confused. The boys looked at her with surprise.

“What if I know the rabbit?” one of the boys asked.

“And if I can’t trust a rabbit, can I trust my cat?” the other boy asked.

“Well cats are tricky, too. Even mine. And I guess you can trust a rabbit if you know him, but my money’s on your mother.”

And with that very simple statement, she was gone. When I overhear conversations like this, I sometimes wonder if I’m witnessing a divine moment. Maybe that woman is some angel who showed up right when this mother needed her most. It’s possible that I watched too many episodes of Touched by an Angel with my own mom when I was little. It’s also possible that I so much want to believe in the divine in some form that I’m willing to tell myself these elaborate stories as if they are proof.

Springtime does this to us. I’m having a hard time remembering the last winter that lasted this long and seemed this cold and unrelenting. And I like cold weather and snow, thick sweaters and boots. But this Easter, I’m really ready to wish it a fond farewell, hoping it doesn’t rear its head until December.

I’m ready to see some new life sprout up from the Earth. I’m ready for New York to transform itself with flowering trees and sidewalk cafes. I’m ready for a little bit of the divine, or even seemingly divine, to touch our lives again and bring us some hope that we are moving forward and evolving, and the most powerful vehicle for that kind of message is in watching nature take on different hues and textures. I’d like to see all this hard work we’ve been doing during this cold winter come to fruition through a rebirth of heart and mind and spirit.

books, Hachette Book Group USA, relationships, religion

The Bible Salesman by Clyde Edgerton

Christa Avampato

If you’re looking for a quirky, off-beat adventure, Clyde Edgerton’s new book, The Bible Salesman, is for you. My contacts over at Hachette Book Group sent me an advance copy to read through and at first I was skeptical. I’m not a religious person so I had a hard time imagining that I’d enjoy a book about a Bible salesman. However, I trust the insight and taste of Hachette so I gave it a shot. 

To be fair, the book gets going a bit slowly, despite the fact that it is a slim 238 pages. For much of that start we are inside the mind of Henry Dampier, the Bible salesman. It isn’t until we begin to see him interacting with the outside world that we understand how intelligent, though endearingly gullible he is. And then all of a sudden rather than trying to figure out why in the world this man appears so odd to us, we are routing for him as he gets more deeply involved with a ring of dangerous people. 
 
Edgerton does a wonderful job of weaving classic literature themes – good versus evil, love, danger, the combined hero desire and opportunity to take a life on the ride from ordinary to extraordinary – in a wholly new and entertaining way. The other piece of Edgerton’s writing that I find so brilliant in this piece is that he asks his readers to consider religion and its role in raising children by revealing how one life, the life of Henry, was forever molded and influenced by a fundamentalist upbringing. 
 
He doesn’t preach to us and he doesn’t tell us that a fundamentalist upbringing to harmful or helpful. He lays out a plot, explains Henry’s decision process and view of the world, and reveals how this character’s back story builds the main narrative of the book. With every page turn that we are uncovering a little bit more about this man who seems so simple on the surface and yet lives an enormous life underneath that sweet veneer. 
books, religion

Grace (Eventually)

Christa Avampato

Anne Lamott is one of my favorite authors – secretly I’d love to have her as a dear friend because I love her combination of wit, cynicism, and hopefulness. An ecclectic mixture with various aspects shining through depending upon the situation at hand. Most recently, I read her first book on the discovery and development of her faith, Grace (Eventually), partly because I’d read anything she writes and partly because I am in the midst of a similar journey. 


As a general rule, I am afraid of organized religion. When people ask me my religion I tell them I am a recovering Catholic. My mother, lovely though she is, still gives me grief about the fact that I purposely avoided the Pope’s recent visit to NYC, turning down her numerous attempts to get me a ticket. She still hasn’t fully come to grips with my lack of Christianity. I understand – I imagine it’s hard to have a child who blatantly refuses to follow the path you raised her on. 

For years, my faith as been based in my belief in goodness, found in the beauty of nature, and considered while on my yoga mat and in my daily meditation. I haven’t been able to bring myself to committing to a community, a church of any kind, even though I think the public announcement of faith can be very beneficial. 

I’ve flirted with the idea of joining a church several times. Most recently when I was living in D.C., I did go to a Catholic Church that I loved, even though I reject most ideas of the Catholic Church. I was lonely and sad and so unhappy with my job that I began to have panic attacks on Sunday nights. So I went to church because it calmed me down and gave me some strength for the coming week. Plus, I thought the priest was cute. Sorry. 

My friends Matthew and Alex attend a Unitarian Church in D.C. and on a recent visit I accepted their invitation to go with them. The sermon was about grace and its meaning and importance. I love that Unitarians accept everyone wherever they are whatever they believe. That kind of organized religion I can live with. Lamott’s book reflects that same kind of acceptance of people and their circumstances. And she spends a lot of time explaining that we can all find grace (eventually) on our own terms. It’s hard won but worth the effort. And she’s accepting of the fact that she’s not perfect in her faith and that she occasionally has a bad attitude. Her idea of faith is that it understands that we all make mistakes, we all veer off the path every once in a while, and the only requirement is that we commit to be gentle and patient with ourselves and with the world around us. The only thing we really must do is love, ourselves and others. 

For the first time in a long time, I feel unafraid to at least consider the idea of organized religion in my life again. And I have Matthew, Alex, and Lamott to thank for that. Maybe my grace is on the way.