WHAT ABOUT GOD

WHAT ABOUT GOD

My story with God begins with a dog. My relationship with God is very ordinary, it’s personal, it’s full of questions, and it has no rules.

I was a boy, my family was busy most of the time, the Soviet Union just collapsed and my mother, a former ballet dancer, had to make a living by giving dance lessons to kids who were living in a small village twenty kilometers outside of my home town. — I needed a friend.
I remember this sunny Sunday, when I got my barking dream in my hands, it was magical. Soon after a friend got sick, I had to clean his not so magical puke, I had no Idea what did I do wrong, I blamed myself. — I needed a friend who can help my other friend.

I had some small cash in my pocket and I knew how to get to the church on the other side of town, so I ran, took a bus and got myself into a church, a place I have never been before. Nothing really impressed me, gold, people, smells, all was very foreign to me. Scary in the best word to describe it.
I made a decision to buy a small postcard with St. Nicolay on it. It seemed to me that Jesus was too young and almost dead, he couldn’t help. Virgin Mary was a woman, she had a baby on her hands, and I guessed that she had her own problems. So I found an old guy, with a very strong look on his face, I believed he knew what to do.
I came home and mounted St. Nicolai on my bookshelf, I looked at him, he looked at me and I asked if he can help my dog, like real friends would do. Sometimes at night I would take a flashlight and point a beam of light at St. Nicolai, so to know he is there, between books.
Surely, soon after with a decent amount of antibiotics, good food and St. Nikolai my black tailed friend got well, barking louder than ever. I was happy. I really knew God was there, I had all evidences I needed. I though it’s even better I had two friends on my side now. Life was good.

Time passed, I moved to a different continent, put myself in school, got a job and lost my friend…
Years mounted, places changed, people I loved moved out of my heart permanently. What have stayed, besides my family? Almost nothing. Life grinded all things I have tried to keep close to myself. I’ve been in the church many times, weddings, baptizing, some holidays, cultural explorations, you name it. I never looked at the God as I looked at him while being a boy. I looked at it as an exercise, something Yoga like, stand here, put a candle here, band, starch, look up.

When my almost ex-wife lost her brother in a car crash I remember standing near her by the coffin, holding her hand and telling her to be strong, this was my way to help her and to help myself. I believed I had to be a friend, to be near, to be strong, and to be helpful. I admit, I pretended to be a “Bulletproof Tony”, I hold my tears and cried only in a bathroom, alone. Parents were ready to jump into a grave… Fucking hard stuff as I look back.
I also knew my wife will never be the same, I knew this will damage her permanently and I will have to live with this person, and her time to time surging depressions. I have accepted it. Three years later, I went through my wedding in a church, was it important thing to do? Yes. All though I felt disconnected for some time, while being in church I looked at her face and her white dress, thinking maybe if it is not a journey it may be a destination…

— Have I seen God? No. — Did I ask God to help us, no.
I was too ashamed to ask. It seemed to me it is not right to ask a friend to help only when you need help, after all I forgot he was there for so many years, why now? I am ashamed that I tried to convince others that there is no God, going into a full blast conversations, finding rational ways to explain why, even deep inside I had a dimed imaged of something I can’t explain. So how do I could ask if my ignorance have voiced against it? I felt I had no rights to ask, I felt as I turned my back.

I was in the church in times of a great pain and days of a great happiness… This cannot be erased or forgotten, this is always going to be there, no matter what.

Life appears to be without a rhyme or a reason, just a number of events fractured in an arrow of time. Often I ask myself, «What planet the fuck are you from dude?”. I haven’t read the Bible in its entirety, and I do not look for a Visa to heaven, that makes me a bad Christian I suppose. In fact I find the whole Idea of Heaven and Hell is a bit odd, we have our lives here and now, where both elements are present already, I agree with a French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre we are responsible for what we do, nobody else is to blame. It is up to us to create a Kingdome within our lives.

I have problems understanding people who are constantly begging God for things. Some people I knew had Ten Commandments written on the refrigerator, and still manage to fuck others over and over. Others had five Icons in the house, they light candles and cross themselves every five minutes, but they wouldn’t give a call to a person they called “Son” to ask if he had recovered after his father's death. I am not laughing anymore. I am not even really judging them. Just observing.
I am also in constant misunderstanding with the Orthodox Church, all this gold, all this ritual, they are just overwhelming for me, they take my mind away and make me forget why did I come in the first place. I have made conscious decisions, and I tend to go more often to Lutheran “Кирха”. I do not wear a cross on my chest, neither I kneel. I do understand some people need all this in the church, and I do not judge them. Whatever floats their boats.

What do I do about God today, well… I’m just trying to keep a conversation going in the simplest way, as I did once being a boy. I am trying to learn to accept his ways and believe without of a promise of anything in return… At the very end if God exists or not, some of us may never know, but I feel I have to live my life as he is near, existing.