I have spent four decades trying to get back to basics.
Yes, St. Paul: when I was a child, I thought as a child, and I have put away many childish things. I no longer have nightmares of the Large Marge scene in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. I do not take a nibble of every new ChapStick to see what it tastes like. I have awakened to the splendor of Brussels sprouts.
But the Angie of 1987 was a far more sophisticated theologian than I am today.
The mother who read me “Prufrock” and the father who sang Proclaimers songs in the kitchen made it natural to believe in a joyful, generous God. I accepted the concept of cherishment. I assumed my Father delighted in me as much as the Grandpa who called me Princess.
I would have been gobsmacked by the word “unlovable.”
It never occurred to me that anyone was anything other than God’s little bird.
At times, this trust has landed in my palm again, its eyes furtively meeting my own. I offer it almonds, and it grows stronger. I offer it my mistakes, and it does not depart.
But then I start to worry that I’m offering it too much, bloating it with indulgence. Do I fly like a tetherball from self-loathing to self-swaddling, bypassing the narrow way? Do I finger-paint a Grandfather God, scissoring out the cost of discipleship? I slink back to self-consciousness. I am the chief of sinners. I am unworthy to be called God’s daughter.
But the daughter of the poet and the Proclaimer knew more nuance. Her lithe hands, which flapped like a sparrow when excited, could hold two thoughts at the same time.
Just as I trusted God’s love, I understood that we were in a heap of trouble and needed help. We were all helpless, even parents. Sin made sense. The world sagged with a Big Sad.
I saw it in myself. I said something mean to Lenny Greenwald, and I peeked under the bed to see my birthday present, and I didn’t thank my uncle for the M & M’s.
I was not perfect. I was loved. I could do better. I could not be loved more.
I was an exceptionally sophisticated theologian.
This side of adolescence, I stare too long at my own feathers. Either I am too languid and lazy, or I wail for affirmation. If I let myself eat the second chocolate, or read a novel instead of crocheting blankets for the poor, am I not taking for granted the love that will not let me go?
Perhaps I can’t let go of the scowly books I read in college, pyres of paragraphs smoldering and scolding and scalding me with confirmation of my own fears. They condemned self-gentleness, warning me against wasting my retirement collecting seashells, much less my youth on a “yes” to myself.
Knotted into “no,” I lurched upon Luther, the Reformation’s flatulent, flawed genius gloating in grace. Fifteenth-century treatises and woodcuts made my soul party like it was 1987.
Flawed and cherished. Striving but safe. In process but in the everlasting arms.
Still, I’m a wriggly bird, impossibly uncomfortable with peace.
If one thing can awaken the war drums again, it’s my own sense of serenity. Like regularly scheduled tests of the emergency scrupulosity system, my angst flares every time I like my own life too much.
Could I really be called to write PR for a cat sanctuary instead of bandaging lepers? Could I really eat fudgesicles in my pajamas? Could I really have all this love and friendship and happiness and not make God angry?
Would 1987 Angie have ever asked such a question?
I look back at that little sparrow, blithe to be loved and brave in her blemishes. She chewed the ChapStick and glued herself to God’s side. She felt bad for her outbursts and loved her life. She was Princess and scamp, stardust and mud-pie, loved and little.
She was a master theologian.
Angela Townsend is Development Director at Tabby’s Place: a Cat Sanctuary, where she bears witness to mercy for all beings. She graduated from Princeton Seminary and Vassar College. Her work appears in Braided Way, Dappled Things, Fathom Magazine, The Mudroom, The Razor, and Red Tent Living, among others. She has lived with Type 1 diabetes for 33 years, laughs with her poet mother every morning, and loves life affectionately. She lives just outside Philadelphia with two shaggy comets disguised as cats.
