She found God. He's bedeviled

My wife found the Lord while I was lost in the godless Outback of Australia.

Religion, for her, was not a natural fit. She grew up in China, enduring the harsh boot of the Communist Party, where belief in any kind of unearthliness is forbidden.

Talk about godless.

We’ve known each other for so many years but have rarely talked about spirituality.

As a former card-carrying Communist, she didn’t have any. I was a lapsed Catholic, a former altar boy who recited Latin at morning mass and once wanted to become a priest. I liked the sarcastic Franciscan nuns.

To me, the clergy were like rock stars.

As an adult, however, I could no longer ignore the obvious hypocrisy of the Roman Catholic Church — how men in starched white-collars insisted on telling a woman what she can and cannot do with her own body, not to mention the litany of sexual abuse claims made against priests by all those young men.

I used to tell a joke, that I was never touched by any priest while I was a young altar boy in a white-and-black cassock, back in Upstate New York. 

Didn’t I have a cute little butt?

In light of all those abuse revelations, I don’t tell that joke anymore.

(Wait, I just did!)

When I was in high school, my father insisted, through gritted teeth, that as long as I lived under his roof, I had to keep my hair cut over my ears.

And attend Sunday Mass.

The good part was that my Dad likened his priests to his favorite baseball pitchers: he wanted them to throw strikes and move the game along. He preferred Father Guyder, the no-nonsense veteran of those St. Joseph’s Church hurlers.

That’s because Guyder threw heat, with nary a baserunner, just like my father liked it. He even skipped the homily, or sermon, to get us out the door — blessing ourselves in holy water as we went — in twenty minutes or less.

Then it was home to dinner, my father frying up his signature liver and onions in the smoky kitchen, throwing nibbles to our pet dog Sam.

When I left home for college, I immediately abandoned the forced weekly church calisthenics of standing, kneeling, sitting (repeat). I grew my hair long and brandished a wiry red beard my pals called the cowcatcher.

Father Guyder said I looked like a broom.

I stayed away from the church for many years, until 2005, when I felt compelled to revisit the scene of my boyhood rituals.

Pope John Paul II had died, and I took my wife to the corner church near our home in San Francisco.

We sat in the last row of pews, like me and my Dad used to do. I felt like an imposter being back there after so long, but I had always liked the Polish Pope John Paul and wanted to pay my respects. 

Suddenly, I was overcome with emotion.

Maybe it was just being back in that quiet, reverential place, or the memories of my father and those greasy Saturday night dinners, of being young and still innocent.

My wife noticed my tears, and suggested that we start going to church. She was curious — there was nothing like it back in China. She liked the pomp and ceremony, and wanted to know more about this God character.

Life must have more meaning, she insisted, than the mere soulless pursuit of money and careers.

I stonewalled and delayed, hoping she would let it go, and she eventually did.

Then, more than a decade later, a relative in Beijing contracted fourth stage breast cancer. Against overwhelming odds, we got her admitted into the U.S. for treatment, something most Chinese can only dream of.

I prided myself for getting lucky after making a few calls. 

My wife believed there was a higher power at work.

She later told me that she had made a deal with the Lord: "Allow my relative to receive treatment in the U.S., and I'm yours."

That same summer, I headed off to Australia to tramp around the Outback. When I got home months later, my wife gave me the news: 

She had started going to church.

“What?” I said. “I go away for three months and you’ve already found God?”

As it turns out, a friend had taken her to a nondenominational Christian church where a rock band played inspirational songs and the ministers were young and hip.

She liked it, so she went back.

Then came the inevitable question:

"Would I go?"

My wife is pretty stubborn and when she makes up her mind to do something, I usually have little choice but to follow.

“Um, sure, honey, I’ll go.”

That next Sunday was unseasonably warm and, as the good Lord would have it, the church’s air-conditioner was down. The place was so sweltering inside that it felt like the Devil himself was in attendance.

When we walked in, I ducked into the last row out of habit, but my wife yanked my arm to the very front. I turned around. Clapping celebrants were everywhere.

I gulped.

The band played and I started to sweat. Rivulets of perspiration ran down my forehead. My shirt was soaked. I headed for the bathroom to splash water on my face. 

I looked into the mirror: Was I the devil in attendance? Was this my punishment for turning my back on my religion for so many years?

Back inside, I noticed a Believer there in the front row beside us, an older Asian man who raised his hands to heaven in theatrical fashion, shouting his conviction, swaying unconsciously as though witnessing the Second Coming itself.

At collection time, he passed across the wicker basket. I looked down to see that Holy Roller had deposited a crinkled and very lonely dollar bill. 

God strike me down, but I snickered to myself: That all ya got, pal?

Then I saw my wife brandishing a $20.

“Hey, hey, hey,” I said. “A fiver’s good enough.”

She ignored me.

“People contribute what they can.”

Fine, but the moment she even mentions the word “tithing” I’m taking over the finances.

When we got out to the car, my wife went into prosecutorial mode. She wouldn’t let me start the engine until I confessed:

What exactly did I believe in?

There was no easy answer, I stuttered.

I had become skeptical of all this folklore of a white God standing among billowy clouds and angels with harps. I threw in the conventional non-believer’s wisdom: Religion was merely a panacea for the masses. And not only that, most of mankind’s wars were fought over religion.

I had borrowed from a few faiths to cobble together a personal belief system: Follow your own karma. Be good to people and they, hopefully, will be good back. Don’t kill. Don’t steal. Stay the heck away from your neighbor’s wife. And help the poor.

But when you’re gone, you’re gone. 

Dust to dust.

Afterlife is being remembered by the loved ones you leave behind.

She leveled me with that look: She wasn’t buying it.

I promised I wouldn’t stop her from coming to church. Heck, I’d even come with her. But could I take a raincheck, for now, at least, on the believing part?

We had reached an uneasy truce.

I started the car.

But then I got to thinking: I didn't want to become an old fart sitting in my Barcalounger, tearing down everyone else’s ideals, especially those closest to me.

This was my wife, after all, the woman I love. She had developed a new belief system and, if I wanted to stay close to her, remain an intimate part of her life, I had little choice but to take this journey with her.

So, when she felt the urge to pray, to thank God for some bright little moment in our day, I didn’t resist. I took her hand and we both gave some words of thanks. Sure, it felt a little weird the first time I did it. 

No lightning bolts struck me down for being such a poser.

It didn’t hurt. In fact, it felt good.

One night, as we lay in bed in the darkness, talking in the way that couples talk, I told her about something I wanted very much to happen the next day.

“We should pray,” she said.

“God,” I began, lying on my back, face pointed to the heavens, peering into the abyss.

No,” my wife said. “You have to hold your hands in prayer.”

That was it. I was an actor, reciting my lines. This clasped hands bit was over the line.

“Listen,” I told her, “I’m not going to take prayer lessons from a little Communist.”

As the months wore on, I have actually taken the lead in our little impromptu prayers. I’ll take her hand and recite some words to commune with a higher being. 

Sometimes she leads; some I do.

We don’t ask for things. We mostly give thanks for what we have.

In those moments, holding my wife’s hand, I feel closer to her than I have at any other time in our long relationship. She has explored this new way to lead her life, and I have gone with her.

It doesn’t last long, but during those moments of prayer, she lets down the calcified defenses she has erected to put up with a man like me.

She’s like a child again: Innocent. Accepting.

It breaks my heart every time it happens.

I love those moments. I adore them.

So, do I believe? Am I back?

I’m still not sure. 

But my wife believes and, for now, that’s enough for me.

We can both thank God for that.