Sequestered behind a heavy wooden door, I perched attentively in ruffles and smiles. I was willing to believe anything to please my captors, but I couldn’t understand why the Lord God Almighty never bothered to say hello or introduce Himself. If He knows me better than my own parents do, as my bright-eyed Sunday school teacher declared, then why did He never appear for dinner or bring me a gift on my birthday?
Rumors were He was busy saving the world. It was obvious He was famous. There was even a book about Him: you’ve probably heard the story about how He nearly drowned everyone on earth and how He made the Red Sea leap up and stand on it’s toes. He had style! He liked to dress up in a towering pillar of fire and chat with Moses, while Moses took careful notes on a slab of stone. The man could strike people blind, deaf, or just plain dead but what made Him a Rockstar was His instantaneous healings, double-edged sermons, and rousing work with the cold and stiff.
Although I heard He could walk on water, He didn’t ever walk down the halls at church (but after I heard what happened to the money changers in the temple I decided maybe it was better that way). I was definitely afraid of Him; He was powerful and unpredictable. As far as I could figure, He was a lot like my dad, so I set to work to get on His good side.
Sundays reluctantly inched by, lines of people shuffling into one cold square room and out of another. The dusty chalkboard did double duty, being half-loyal to the Lord and half to Joseph Smith who spied God the Father in His robe in the forest. None of us were acquainted with Joseph personally but we knew people who knew other people who were related to people who used to know him, so it was kind of the same thing.
I can’t claim I ever had a two-sided conversation with God, but I knew He understood my deepest thoughts and even His silence could be reassuring—sometimes I just longed for someone to listen.
It was the grownups job to relay His thoughts and wishes though: the proper length to wear my shorts, how much money to give to the bishop on Sunday, how to maintain my purity. Because of Him I never whispered on the phone to boys, never flipped on the radio while I did my homework, and never slid into a pair of short-shorts. And even though I didn’t ever catch a glimpse of His robe trailing by, I knew He was there, sort of like a houseguest who never came out of his room, and He couldn’t have been more real if He’d dropped his dinner dishes outside in the hall for my mother to collect.
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More than twenty years blew by when one morning I stood up out of bed and three full decades of indoctrination crashed to the ground—God shattered at my feet.
I watched the sun pull itself up into the sky and I gazed at the world with new eyes. I was alone for the first time in my life: no stories of creation or recounting of the sins of Eve swirling in my mind. Riveted by new and unfamiliar shapes I allowed the tapestries of my faith to clatter to the floor in a rumpled pile.
I felt uneasy thinking of the faithful saints who would declare my doubts of God the Father to be wrong, naïve, and foolish: the well-meaning friends who would encourage me to put my trust in my faithful church leaders, my faith in my courageous forefathers, and my courage in the testimonies of my family and friends. They would beg me to trust my feelings—those deceptive little brain monsters who encourage impulsive purchases, pernicious rumors, and investments in pyramid schemes—but I’ve already experienced the magic show my feelings can design and I don’t want to see magic anymore! I crave the truth.
In a spur-of-the-moment sacrilegious act I have wrenched open the guest room door of my childhood—the once sacred abode of God the almighty houseguest. There I stand knee-deep in shattered promises carelessly stuffed into wrinkled shoe boxes, convenient lies propped on tilting easels, and stained facades pinned haphazardly to peeling walls. I don’t know who God is or if he exists, but he doesn’t live here.
No more will I trudge from dawn to dark, enduring to some unknown end, trusting God to make the next dawn a better day, the afterlife a better life; I want to live this life.
Let someone else serve with a song in her heart, never waking, never looking, never doubting, never asking. Let someone else volunteer to hand out sparkling costumes for the righteous penitent and gold-leafed books for the seekers of heavenly treasures. Let The Church of The Invisible Houseguest roll on without me. I am going to take a walk.