Maggie Rowe - Sin Bravely: A Memoir of Spiritual Disobedience

Copyright 2017 by Maggie Rowe

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Rowe, Maggie Wallem, author.

Title: Sin bravely: a memoir of spiritual disobedience / Maggie Rowe.

Description: Berkeley: Soft Skull Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016040120 | ISBN 9781593766597 (alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Rowe, Maggie Wallem. | Christian biography. | Mental illness--Religious aspects--Christianity. | Psychiatry and religion.

Classification: LCC BR1725.R683 A3 2017 | DDC 270.092 [B] --dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016040120

Cover design by Michael Fusco Straub

Interior design by Tabitha Lahr

SOFT SKULL PRESS

An imprint of Counterpoint

2560 Ninth Street, Suite 318

Berkeley, CA 94710

www.softskull.com

Distributed by Publishers Group West

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ebook ISBN 9781593766665

To my parents, who never departed.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

JESUSS EYES SEEM KIND , but I will not let myself be fooled. I will not be taken in by the graceful features, by the healthy conditioned hair spilling over soft shoulders, by the gentle protection He seems to offer His flock of wide-eyed sheep, who bury themselves into the folds of his robe.

I know better.

I know that the Jesus in this painting, just like the real Jesus, could turn on me at any moment; that He is kind until He is not, that He is absolute love until He is absolute vengeance. I know He could effortlessly toss me into hell for all eternity before turning back to nuzzle his beloved sheepall without messing up His Pantene hair.

I am in jeopardy and I will not let myself forget it.

The waiting room presents itself dimly, in hushed tones, as if being careful not to further disturb its disturbed visitors. I am one of those visitors, sitting on a hard high-backed couch that seems designed to reprimand slouches. My mother sits next to me, her jaw tight, crossing and uncrossing her slender fingers, as if focus on this simple gesture could resolve the complicated mess Ive gotten us into. My mother doesnt deserve this. She deserves a daughter she can be proud of. Not the quivering skeletal mess who returned from college after her sophomore year begging for help. My mom and I should be waiting together for me to be admitted to an honor society, not a psychiatric ward. But here we are.

I remind myself that I am lucky my parents found this place. I remind myself that the doctors at any other hospital wouldnt understand my issues. Here, however, at Grace Point, as they proclaim on all of their marketing materials, the Bible comes first. And to prove it, the t in Grace Point is formed into a cross, and that cross has a teeny-weeny little Jesus hanging from it.

I am here for one reason, which is elegant in its simplicity, or ludicrous: I am scared of going to hell.

Its not that I think Im definitely going to hell. Its just that I cant prove to myself that Im nota distinction I will attempt to clarify to therapists many times in the months to come. This elegant ludicrous reason is why Im terrified and why Im sitting on this uncomfortable couch, staring at this painting of Jesus.

The first time I heard about hell was when my Sunday school teacher Miss Trimly warned my class not to be afraid of those who will kill your body, but rather fear God who can kill your soul in hell. Before that moment, I hadnt been all that worried about people killing my body. But now there was an even-greater danger to comprehend.

Miss Trimly was a pinched, thin-lipped woman whose bun pulled at her face with a force I suspect must have given her a chronic headache. She told our group of squirmy six-year-olds that if we denied Jesus, we would be condemned to an eternity in hell; that God would say to unbelievers on Judgment Day, Depart from me. I do not know you, and then toss them into a fiery pit, where there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth forevermore (gnashing being a word far too frightening to inquire into its exact meaning).

Miss Trimly, her face ever taut and pained, held out a felt storyboard and began telling us the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man. She trotted a fuzzy figure of a leper up to a big fat man in a fancy coat and began the tale.

Lazarus goes every night to the Rich Mans mansion, begging for scraps of food, scraps that even the dogs reject. Time and again, the Rich Man turns Lazarus away. Later, when the two men die, Lazarus is sent to heaven and the Rich Man goes to hell. The Rich Man in his agony cries out to Jesus, Have pity on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in the water and cool my tongue because it is burning and I am agony. Miss Trimly swooped a pearly white figure of Jesus down onto the board and said, Jesus looks at the Rich Man and says, No, not for you. You have made your decision and now it is too late.

Too late? The words knotted my stomach.

Miss Trimly said we needed to be prepared because Jesus could come back at any moment to judge the world. No one knew the hour of His return, only that He would come like a thief in the night, in the twinkling of an eye, and when He did, if we were one of the unbelievers, no onenot even our parentscould help us. I imagined my parents being pulled up into the sky as I was being sucked down below.

Down and down. Like the doomed astronaut from The Twilight Zone.

I had recently seen the episode where an astronaut is repairing a hole on a spacecrafts hull when he accidentally cuts his own tether. He tries to grab onto the mother ship and pull himself in to safety, but the surface is slick and metallic with nothing to hold, so his grasping only ends up pushing him further out. The astronaut floats away into never-ending space, his limbs thrashing in futile protest of his fate. The severed rope, I remembered, dangles uselessly behind.

Miss Trimly, satisfied that she had sufficiently spooked her charges, assured our trembling group we didnt need to be afraid because God had also given us an unconditional gift. A gift called grace. The only string was we had to accept it by saying the Sinners Prayer: Dear Jesus, I believe in You and accept You into my heart as my personal savior. Please forgive my sins and cleanse me from all unrighteousness.

I said the prayer. Of course I did.

But what if I didnt really mean it?

So I concentrated and said it again.

And again.

But my mind wouldnt rest. Maybe Id gotten it wrong. Id been wrong before. Plenty of times. Like in math class, when I was sure that five minus four was nine so I wrote down nine on the test. But I was wrong. I had confused subtraction with addition. What if the same type of thing was happening now?

The following Sunday Miss Trimly elaborated on the good news, informing us that true repentance meant committing to sin no more, reciting, Not everyone who cries to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom, but only those who do the will of the Father.

Wait, what? I thought the whole idea was that you just had to cry, Lord, Lord