No shit.

While visiting my pal Ann last week in Iowa City, I picked up Friday’s paper. We had just finished snarfing down eggs and bacon at marginally famous Hamburg Inn and while waiting for Ann to emerge from the restaurant, a front page Iowa-Citizen newspaper picture caught my eye. The high school math teacher was wearing a wizard hat, hugging a student in a cat-in-the-hat uh…hat (there’s no good way around that phrasing) after victory at Regionals. Cute story.

While scanning the rest of the front page, the REAL news appeared in the top left column: a local man (John) had discovered Jesus - you got it - in the crinkles of a plastic bag holding groceries. Below are a few excerpts.

“…Two days later, when he (John) was resting on the couch, he said he looked over at the bag and saw the religious figures. The sunlight coming through the open blinds in the room helped create the image, he said.”

“He said he believes there is a head-to-toe image of the Virgin Mary on the right side of the bag and the face of Jesus on the left.”

Apparently John captured the image on his cell phone camera and has been eagerly showing it around town. People gaped in wonder and awe. Over 300 have now seen it. But he can no longer show anyone the original bags anymore. Why not, you ask?

“I guess my friend or I must have picked it up or thrown it away,” John said.

This miraculous appearance led Ann and I to speculate on several important issues:

* Why were groceries he purchased from Walmart sitting on the table for two days? Were there perishables? What if there was cottage cheese or milk involved in this purchase?

* Why did he - after discovering the miraculous nature of these items - throw away the bags? Or maybe “his friend” did it. Uh…John. Take ownership, buddy. C’mon.

* Why didn’t the newspaper include a picture of the miraculous Walmart bags? It seems odd to run a story devoted to and centered around potential proof of God (or his family) and then not show the photo of said images.

* Seriously, what was in the bag that made him say, “I guess I should unpack these groceries now.” Oreos? Were they Double-Stuff? Because maybe they were put there by the devil.

In the car ride back to Ann’s place, we howled with laughter.

Poor Virgin Mary - little did she know that this mother-of-god gig would require her to make appearances in various oil slicks under Ford Escorts and also in pecan rolls outside Knoxville, Tennessee. I wonder if the Angel who gave Mary the “Blessed art thou amongst all women…” speech made full disclosure? It would have to be something like, “Oh yeah…and centuries after you’re presumed dead you’ll be appearing in parking lots and on Walmart bags.”

Mary must have hesitated for just a moment and then asked, “What’s a parking lot?”

I found this whole article supremely hilarious until I got home, visited my own website, and noticed that I had devoted a whole mess-o-words to a $1.79 bag of ice sent by mystical loving powers of the universe.

Huh.

Suddenly making fun of John’s Walmart bags wasn’t so amusing.

I wonder why it’s so hard for me to believe someone else’s faith experience. I sure struggle with that. I can believe some curious coincidences in my life have deeper significance. Of course they do! Even if they are not exactly physical representations of dieties, I often ponder if this is the “universe communicating” through physical objects, through people I love, through angry drivers trying to make illegal turns at red lights. I have no problem wondering about THAT.

And yet…someone else shares their experience of God or Goddess, of Buddha or their own Mohammad…and I’m rolling my eyes thinking, ‘Ah, here comes the big delusion.’

Why am I so stingy in this regard?

Faith does not always come easy for me. I stomped on it for many years, believing it to be an antiquated shackle left over from humanity’s collective fear of death. And after turning my back on the ‘hard sell’ of life-after-death mythology, what need had I of faith?

What a surprise, years later, to find in me a babbling brook of eager, happy faith, flowing towards a destination I did not see nor understand. What the hell was I supposed to do with THAT? I remember being surprised and confused that this faith didn’t require me feeling like I am a shitty person or a convoluted belief system taxing me to believe I’m going to hell for various impossible reasons. This faith was…refreshing. Literally, refreshing. Invigorating. It filled me with gentle power and humility, instead of over-blown righteousness and obsequious submission.

Well, clearly I’m still working on ‘righteousness.’

And I still don’t have the answers. I don’t really expect to get them in this lifetime. I’m cool with that. Really. Who knew that I could have faith without knowing its final destination? Besides, I wouldn’t trust anyone trying to sell me life-after-death religious insurance. Yet why is it so hard for me to trust someone else’s experience of divine intervention just because it was not the exact same as mine?

I hope I can use this Iowa City newspaper to remember that the universe probably doesn’t work through everyone the exact same way. John, if you’re reading this (and being that the universe and the Virgin Mary collaborate in mysterious ways, perhaps you are) I’m sorry I doubted your experience of the Walmart bags.

If I were still in Iowa City, I would invite you to the Hamburg Inn and you could show me the pics on your cell phone. Over eggs, perhaps I could ask you questions about your faith. And really, you should try the biscuits and gravy. They’re quite good.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 27th, 2008 at 4:15 pm and is filed under Warrior. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.