1.

The old priests used to say that around here even the cows are Catholic. Bars are the only thing we have more of than churches, and in general the same people attend both religiously. St. Pat’s was the first church and the biggest, which I guess makes sense. The Irish were sorta runnin everything, tellin their crude jokes about the “dumb Pollocks” and relegating the Italians (who unlike the Poles didn’t have their own church) to two cramped rows in the back where it was all drafty. Course we all know pride comes before fall: that old church burned down twice in sixty years, though never completely. But maybe the lemma was wrong after all, since the only fatality in either fire was a seven-year-old boy who fell from the choir loft. His name became a rallying cry for money and labor to rebuild St. Pat’s, and the ones who uttered it with the most authority conveniently neglected the truth that the little Italian had snuck up to the loft in the first place because the back pews were all full, he wasn’t allowed up front and his lame leg wouldn’t support him standin all through Mass. History was written to permanently paint over the truth. Culture and tradition, which keep copying each other, are all that preserves it. And so the old people created a story to remind us that something about history was crooked; the legends survive to this day about the boy ghost of the bell tower even as ethnic animosity melts away. How you hear limping footsteps in the loft, hands and feet banging on the organ, bells ringing at 8:12 (the time the fire started) and see his toy ball tumble down the steps or drop from the loft itself. Older siblings threaten to lock little ones in the belltower with the ghost; grandparents talk about people who knew him claiming to hear him praying with them at Mass. We remember the truth.

2.

There were a lot more family farms around here 90 years ago. The families struggled to hang onto them. The one family, I remember they made sure to have enough kids so that even after the dad died young there were plenty of people left to work it for years and years. But the kids didn’t want to stay in that same place and be farmers; their ancestors had spent their lives seducing an amorous yield from the land, and though the land was willing and fertile after hundreds of years of monogamy their hands had lost the lust for it. So one sister became a hatter, another a seamstress, one brother fell for a Carolina woman, one moved out West and disappeared because he had secretly wed a former slave and wanted to avoid scandal, one learned carpentry and worked on the railroad most of his life, and so on. After a few years away from home, the railroad man met a hardworking factory girl and announced to his friends that same day that he was going to marry her. “She’s already got a boyfriend,” they said. “What’s that got to do with me?” he replied. He was stubborn, tough and full of bravado; so was she. They argued most of the time, but the constant challenge kept them sharp and passionate. So they did get married. Now, the railroad man had come from a Catholic home and his new wife was Methodist. They barely argued about religion though, because honestly he couldn’t care less. He was only Catholic in his mother’s house, and he had moved on to a new woman who gave him the excuse he wanted to not be religious at all. He was still moral and upright, as good to his family as society expected him to be, and his wife raised their rapidly growing family as devout, Scripture learning Protestants. But the time came when his good Catholic mother ran out of kids and was too old and arthritic to run the farm herself. How she made the decision he would never know, but he received a letter saying she was going to sell the farm and would be moving into his house within two weeks. She noted at the end that she looked forward to meeting his pastor and attending Mass with her grandchildren. He knew that she knew his wife was Methodist, and so he recognized the command implicit in the letter. He cursed and fumed to himself, but although the religious rites hadn’t taken root in him, the commandments had. “Honor thy father and thy mother,” he muttered, but there was no commandment to honor thy wife or thy children. So after a day or so he had calmed down enough to do the necessary lying through his teeth, and he went to his wife and said, “I had a revelation and now I believe in God.” “With all that cursing I thought sure you was passing a stone.” “I swear to God if you don’t shut-“ “Oh it’s a miracle, I can hear Jesus in you already.” “Look, you an the kids are going to get baptized-“ “Right except me and the kids are already baptized and go to church every week. I though you were the one who jus converted-“ “Yeah but I already been baptized and you ain’t.” “Guess that depends on what you mean by baptized huh?” Then a big argument began in which the man sounded like an idiot because he didn’t know anything about religion, but it didn’t really matter because all his wife could threaten to do was leave him and she couldn’t leave the kids or take care of them on her own. I wish I could tell you they compromised but at this point in time husbands and wives didn’t compromise in matters that mattered, husbands made decisions and wives got used to the decisions. So after they calmed down a little the husband shrugged and said “I think we’ve come to an agreement. Oh and also, my mother is moving in next week,” and then the argument began all over again because of course the wife saw that this was the reason for his whole conversion lie. Finally she got a little bit of a compromise out of him: the children would have to be Catholic but she could stay Methodist. This was almost a worse bargain because she had to watch her little ones innocently and fully convert to a religion her husband didn’t even believe, and she had to deal with her mother-in-law constantly commenting that it was lucky she wasn’t insisting on dragging the kids to hell with her. In the end it didn’t matter. Her mother-in-law died, and the children as grown ups became Methodist, Catholic or agnostic just like their parents. And they were all upright and moral, so whether any went to hell remains to be seen. All I know for sure is none of them became farmers.

3.

Some people see God all the time. On their toast, for example. In the outline of a cigarette burn. When they hit their head. As the toilet inherits their breakfast due to the flu, pregnancy, six Iron Citys. I know for a fact you can buy an angel at the dollar store and get a t-shirt with Jesus’ face on it. Let’s cut out the middleman, get the look for less. But what is the value of expense? Cost isn’t always the same thing as money. The preacher’s sermon is an infomercial and his epiphany is a pyramid scheme. I will protect myself from swindlers by never having enough money to buy in.

4.

Some kids are raised religious and some aren’t. If they stay one way or the other when they’re grown up they must have gotten some value from it. Some of them evolve. They start out all “Jesus loves me because I can’t read and don’t know shit,” move on to “I sing in the choir, like Sundays because dinner is good and we don’t have chores, and Christmas is my favorite holiday,” which becomes “If you say anything bad about Jesus I’ll punch you, I don’t necessarily talk about it a lot (although I might, depending on who my friends are) but I seriously believe everything my religion, whichever one it is, says,” and some people stay in this phase while others move into “religion is bullshit and I only ever say anything good about it in front of my mom.” There is a later evolutionary stage however –not a final one, because evolution never stops- that can be rare in the young. This one happens when you haven’t really been going to church and it isn’t really a big deal, but then your mom dies. You and your brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews and kids are going through her things, looking at old pictures, scribbled notes in her notorious handwriting, those damn recipes that are never for the food she actually made because the good ones were all in her head, when you stumble across something. Something really simple, like her little cross necklace, her personal Bible with unclear notes and pictures and prayer cards stuck in it randomly, a plate she used all the time that says “Give us this day our daily bread,” a picture of her with friends at church. Anything like that is enough to do it, to launch this late-stage fervor. It doesn’t work for everyone. But for some it is a way of saying “this is how I honor my (mom, grandpa, dead daughter).” It is small, private and comforting. It doesn’t always last, but it is a way to remember.