Today I was cleaning out the white nightstand I've had since fifth grade, when my parents redid my room in green, pink, and white with a Laura Ashley pink flowered wallpaper. Virginal, girly, plain, and traditional -- just what every little New England girl should be. The walls have since been painted a deep, not-quite-brothel red and the black and white toille curtains are the only concession to my mother's taste. Finally, I have a bookshelf instead of a dollhouse, and my American Girl dolls are safely stored away in the closet for kids who will never be born. I have purged most of the room in the year I've been home, but the nightstand has gone untouched inside. In the top drawer, I found a small pendant. On the back, it says "PRAY FOR US." On the front is a picture of St. Ann. It was a confirmation gift from the minister at my old Congregational church. It reminded me of something I wrote about a year ago and had not yet finished.

Knowledge is Cheap

Our ninth-grade confirmation class met in the old music minister's office, the music minister who left the church when I was in sixth grade after telling a mentally disabled woman he loved her, just as God loved her. Politics trump God's love; a deacon and rival heard of the exchange and launched a full-blown sex scandal investigation. The music minister worked with children. The sides were too entrenched and bitter. What else could he do but resign?
When it was his office, the office where small groups of those of us in the church choir would meet for extra practice, the walls were covered with animal puppets: stuffed snakes winding around the pillars like the serpent in the Garden of Eden, giant plush purple dragon heads mounted on the wall, and lady bug puppets you wore like a glove sitting on the side tables next to our overstuffed armchairs. But now it was Pastor Lee's office and the walls were bare except for his diplomas. We sat in fold out chairs in a circle holding copies of the Bible. I was borrowing a Bible from the bookshelf in the corner. Each week, I told Pastor Lee that I forgot my copy as I sheepishly grabbed one off the shelf. Truth was, I didn't own a Bible.
Congregationalists, the theological descendants of the Puritans, don't like ritual and pomp, and they certainly don't pay much attention to the Catholic obsession with saints. So it came as a surprise when Lee told our class about his latest idea to make confirmation more exciting -- each of us were to be assigned a saint, based on his assessment of our spiritual needs and personalities, and we were to research that saint and find a spiritual connection to their story. We each got a pendant in a white cardboard box, and the Lee explained to each of us -- and the rest of the circle -- his decisions.
Mine was Saint Anne, Grandmother of Jesus, the patron saint of housewives, women in labor, miners and poverty. The pastor said he saw Saint Anne as part of my nature, the part that made me exceptionally strong-willed. I thought, "Is this a joke? housewives, poverty, and labor? I'm going to be a doctor, a pathologist. I'll be neither poor nor pregnant." I just assumed that the "miners" thing was an insulting reference to my Welsh heritage. It was nothing new.
On the pendant, Anne held a book. She wasn't looking at the book. She was staring up to the sky, to God. But somehow, I developed a need to embrace my saint, and that book in her hands became the key. I believed in signs and symbolism, but not a God. This saint was meant for me somehow but the joke would be on Pastor Lee. I'd find an interpretation he hadn't thought of, and I'd go outside of 2,000 years of Catholic tradition to find it. I decided Anne was studious, well-read, and wise. She was the grandmother of Jesus, the holder of precious knowledge beyond her time. Instead of an especially pious carrying vessel, I imagined Anne reading the Book her grandson would pass to the world two generations early. I thought of her as a happily silent prophet, who would treat those close to her with odd bits of information, and revel in their misunderstanding and confusion. Instead of tragically misunderstood Cassandra, Anne was content to be the only one who knew the full meaning behind her eccentricities. Like most artists, I thought, she'd be best understood once she was long dead and the rest of the world caught up.
I, smug in my knowledge, attended class the minimum number of times allowed. I was going through the process at the insistence of my father, who in turn felt pressure from my grandparents, but I already had lost my faith. There is nothing new about a loss of faith. For me the tougher part was lying about it, because I still had a conscience. But St. Anne, praise her, helped me take pleasure in my secret knowledge.
But in the end, a silent prophet was an ill-suited model for being. Anne became tragic, a waste of a great mind. How dare she idle while the world around her turned to shit? How dare she live relatively silently, and use her precious knowledge for nothing beyond manipulation and amusement? I turned away from my saint.