How a bishop and humanist found peace in their shared childhood faith

Commentary by Janet Marugg | FāVS News

They call him Bishop now, but I knew him when he pushed his upper lip over a shelf of teeth, before someone lassoed them and fenced them together with wire. The roundup took a chunk of childhood, and trauma like that can turn a boy mean. But Parley is a real cheek turner and won’t wear a grudge. I linger on this quality as the world is eager to turn wretched with grudges.

We disappear the miles between us by computer screen, so I can’t say things are the same. I’m most challenged to remember the smell of the place. Great Basin sage walled in by sunbaked basalt, tack and engine oil comes to mind. He’s still there, and talk turns to people we know, folks with genetic job hazards and seasonal terrors but forever hoeing hope, magpie’n after shiny conspiracies and harvesting failed prophesies. The ways I left behind.

Reasons to leave a childhood religion come and go while others stick unchanged. We’ve been over it exactly once — because I owed Parley once — and he’s a solid man for keeping a boundary clearly marked: “No proselytizing.”

Thing is — with Parley — I know what he knows. We shared the same steeple, the same pew, sang the same hymns. He can’t offer anything new, no gotcha I didn’t already get. He’s got no profound reality-changer for me. There is nothing he can say to “save me,” and so he doesn’t. That is why we enjoy each other’s company. We don’t care to change each other’s mind, surefooted on that humblest piece of common ground.

These days with this internet thing, I can find it if I want it — every religious practice and belief, original doctrines, theological lectures, debates, etc. It’s all there for a curious mind to find for herself. In the age of influencers, who needs another messenger with another better one-and-only way?

When I’m targeted by strangers as a potential religious convert, I give the default, “No, thanks.” I’m pleasant knowing it was me once with the best intentions. Persistent preaching earns a stiffer, “I’m not your mission field.” True enough. Sometimes I’m forced to stab with an exclamation point, “I don’t owe you a debate!” About that time, a personal space issue nears, but I’ve never had to defend it physically. Successful proselytizer rejection is all in the commanding tone and the quick getaway.

These days I favor un-tribing into the human family, pushing for human wellbeing over the care and feeding of a religion or deity. Parley knows I’m proof things change. And there is Parley, pretending he doesn’t have a choice but be an ill-fitted patriarch making the best of it like a spear carrier in an opera. And carriers always carry on, I’ll give him that.

His children spread apart as they do these days, and Parley is a lonely man suffering the solitude of field stubble. It must be bad for him to be screening with me. He cares for the youngest girl with a disability he can’t pray away. His religious patriarchal hierarchy made him the head of things, but not the Big Head of things and the Big Head ignores the girl and Parley.

They add up, these failures of a god that become the failures of a faithful man. The promises of God’s power to the patriarch that don’t pan out or prayers for miracles that go unanswered. But faith is worthless if uncontested.

I know it’s the thinnest line that draws the border between a heart and a mind, and I’m never sure if it should be thickened or erased when we fall silent. Parley’s good at quiet learned from years of pursed lips and wired teeth.

There’s good trust that happens in quiet, but I’m the one to break it. It don’t matter. Short is forever for Parley and me — rip the DNA away, and we’re tethered by what is left intact: two people in the same uniform of human skin. Just then, at “goodbye,” I saw it — the humanity in his smile worth all the work of yesterday.

The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News. FāVS News values diverse perspectives and thoughtful analysis on matters of faith and spirituality.