Weiner - Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine

N obody likes hospitals, but I like them less than most. I think its because my father was a doctor, an oncologist, and when I was young hed drag me along while he did his rounds. Hed park me in the cafeteria, a fluorescent purgatory that reeked of burnt coffee and fear, then go see his patients. Be back in twenty minutes, hed say. An hour or two later hed show up, apologetic. One of his patients had died. They always died. And they always died in hospitals. So, my eight-year-old brain concluded, if I just avoided hospitals I would never die. It was airtight logic. And aside from a broken leg at age seventeen, thats what I managed to do.

Until one warm August evening, not that long ago, when I found myself in the emergency room. My friend Michael had driven me there as I sat in the passenger seat, doubled over in pain. At first, Id dismissed it as indigestion, but this was unlike any indigestion I had experienced before. They took some X-rays and CT scans, and a few long minutes later the ER doctor walked into the examination room, grim-faced. Something was wrong, though exactly what kind of wrong he couldnt say. The lines of worry on his face sent a spike of panic through me. A surgeon was en route. They had to interrupt his dinner party, he said, thus layering my terror with a film of guilt. Just wait here, he instructed, as if I were going anywhere with an IV dangling from one arm and a hospital gown wrapped around me, though wrapped was an overstatement and, for that matter, so was gown. Little separated me from the chilly, sterile air of the examination room.

I was shivering, partly from the cold, mostly from fear. Is it cancer? Something worse? What, I wondered, is worse than cancer? There must be something worse than cancer. I was pondering what this might be when a nurse walked in. She was about my age and, judging from the accent, originally from the Caribbean, or maybe West Africa. She leaned over to draw blood and must have smelled my fear because she paused, maneuvered close to my ear, and said, slowly and clearly, words I will never forget: Have you found your God yet?

It was one of those moments when your mind takes a long time, much longer than usual, to catch up with your ears. Have I found my God yet? Why? I asked, once I could breathe again. Will I be meeting Him soon? Have you seen my CT scan? Do you know something? She didnt answer. Just gave me this wise, knowing look, and left me there alone with my careening thoughts and inadequate paper towel of a gown. I knew her question was not exactly standard operating procedure, even at a hospital called Holy Cross, but there was nothing malevolent or accusatory about it. She said it matter-of-factly, not exactly like Have you found your car keys yet? but close. Her words also conveyed a maternal concern, and the quiet certainty of someone who has already found her God.

The hours in the ER turned into a few days at the hospital. Tests were performed, blood drawn. I did not have cancer or that thing that is worse than cancer (I never could figure out what it is) but rather an unusually severe and prolonged case ofgas. Yes, gas. Apparently, my colon did not take kindly to the stress inflicted on it as I met an insane deadline imposed by a tyrannical editor. I was, in hospital parlance, discharged.

Within a week or two, I had fully recovered physically, but the nurses words stayed with me, like an image burned onto a TV screen thats been left on too long. Have you found your God yet? Those were her exact words. Not have you found a god or the god or just plain God, but your God, as if there were one out there just for me, waiting.

For a while, I tried to forget about the incident. There is nothing to know, I told myself, no God to find, or at least not one I am capable of finding. Just drop it. Go back to your books and your single malt. Go back to the world of dust, as the Chinese call our everyday existence. This worked. For a while.

Then the nurses words returned, burrowing into my brain like a groundhog in early winter. Who, or what, is my God? I was born Jewish. Thats certainly my religious heritage, but not necessarily my God, which is another matter altogether. The truth is: I have many doubts about Gods existence. Yet calling myself an atheist doesnt feel right either. Too coolly confident. Im not certain about anything. Im not certain about argyle socks. Im not certain about soy milk. How can I be certain that God does not exist?

Agnostic? The word means literally one without knowledge, and that certainly describes me when it comes to matters of faith. Agnostics, though, strike me as atheists without the conviction. Agnostics are covering their religious bases, just in case there is an all-powerful Creator capable of granting eternal bliss. (See, Lord, it says right there: agnostic. Can I have my eternal bliss now please?) Also, implicit in the agnostics creed is not only I dont know if God exists but I dont particularly care. That steady drip, drip, drip of doubt can pool into a kind of wish fulfillment. Doubt Gods existence long enough and He doesnt.

Perhaps I fall into that most elastic of categories, the spiritual-but-not-religious. These seekers align themselves with the worlds wisdom traditions while distancing themselves from anything that smacks of doctrine or, God forbid, an actual belief system. The spiritual-but-not-religious like their yoga without Hinduism, their meditation sans Buddhism, and their Judaism God-free. This approach is tempting. It strikes me as easy, and who, after all, doesnt like easy? Alas, the problem with the spiritual-but-not-religious is that it is too easy, too convenient. Also, too herbal, and I am, if anything, a fully caffeinated being.

Since no off-the-shelf spiritual category seems to fit me, I find I must invent one: Confusionist. As the name implies, we Confusionists are confuseddeeply and profoundlywhen it comes to questions of God and religion. Wait a second, youre probably thinking, isnt Confusionist just another word for agnostic? No, we Confusionists lack the smug uncertainty of the agnostic; we are, in a way, pre-agnostic, or maybe meta-agnostic. Were not even clear exactly what it is were not clear about. We Confusionists throw our arms skyward and shout: We have absolutely no idea what our religious views are. Were not even sure we have any, but were open to the unexpected, and believeno, hopethere is more to life than meets the eye. Beyond that we are simply and utterly confused.

I blame my confusion, as I do most things, on my parents. I was raised in a secular household where Gods name was uttered only when someone stubbed their toe (God damn it who put that chair there?) or ate something especially delicious (Oh my God this is to die for). We were gastronomical Jews. Bagels and lox, of course, but also rugelach, whitefish salad, challah, latkes, hamantaschen. If we could eat it then it was Jewish and, by extension, had something to do with God. As far as I was concerned, God resided not in Heaven or the Great Void but in the Frigidaire, somewhere between the cream cheese and the salad dressing. We believed in an edible deity, and that was about the extent of our spiritual life.

Oh, once a week, I did attend Hebrew school (my parents enrolling me owing to that other Jewish tradition we maintained: guilt), but I found it much less relevant to my life than, say, breakfast. I couldnt understand what these ancient peoples, who werent even smart enough to invent indoor plumbing, could possibly teach me about life. My family attended synagogue once a year, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It wasnt a lot of fun. I had to wear this blue polyester suit and clip-on tie, and all the adults were crabby, owing to the fasting, no doubt. The fasting bit really confused me because, as I said, I equated God with food so I couldnt figure out why on this, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, people werent eating.