Christiana

My father’s brother was the favored child. It is a longish story, exposing all the frailties of humanity, or at least how hard parenting must be. Because I’m an observer, not a novelist, I will leap over the early and middle chapters to say that these brothers are now and have always been mature, well-adjusted, loving, and wise, with fulfilling lives and wonderful families to show for all the years and plot twists. When it came time to marry, my uncle chose an educated woman with high cheekbones whose parents and tastes run to the formal, sophisticated, British end of things. I remember watching the Boys Choir of Westminster Abbey with them at Christmas and eating foods I’d never had elsewhere, some on toast and some in pudding form. And here’s the kicker. Their children, all four if I remember correctly, played the bagpipes. They are a warm, well-mannered, creative bunch with fascinating hobbies and charms, mostly educators, ministers, and healthy mixes of both, and I wish I knew them all a little better.

Christiana's Boat, Oil on Panel, 5" x 7"

They named their oldest child Christiana. We’ve never talked about this, my cousin and I. I wonder how life plays out with a name so closely tied to a particular brand of faith. I wonder how many assumptions are made about what she believes and how she should act, and how often her name is mispronounced and misspelled. It’s Christian with an A at the end, but it’s pronounced Christy-AHN-a. I wonder how many times she’s said this. It’s a beautiful name I think, and she’s a beautiful lady. She has her mother’s high cheekbones and a gift for travel and friendship. She has devoted her life to education so far. We all have so many lives in us, and she’s young, so there may be a few more devotions to come. I hope photography is among them. She took this picture that I finally turned into a painting, and in this and other images she captures artfully the poignant, the peaceful, the passing of time, the natural and the intricate beauty of all things God and man have made.

The more I listen, the more I hear about faith – both the brands and the lack(s?) of it. I’m reading a book about the difference between faith and religion right now. I’ve read it before and I like the guy’s voice, his way of telling stories, his certainty that you can love and feel loved by a God, a Jesus friend, without liking what all those people out there are doing under the guise of religion. I think we could be friends, this guy and I, because he’s not trying to convince anyone of anything, he’s just saying he is kind of a messy human and he likes this guy named God. The chapter I read before I went to sleep last night was about how to go to church without feeling angry. I wish I could call him and ask how to watch the news and talk politics without confusing God with all the wrong that is done in His name, and what he thinks about giving credit for beauty and grace and the pattern of a starfish to chance.

When we are on the sailboat, anchored up in Lake Worth, participating in the economy of one of the richest zip codes in the United States, we are the other half. The wrong side of the tracks. The bus riders and the transients. The people who dump their garbage in public trash cans. We, Pat and I, don’t want to be lecherous and we don’t want to make our choice of independent sailboat living a problem for other people. HOWEVER. There are those living in this anchorage who bathe  in the Publix restroom, leave their garbage on the side of the road, hold hostage the employees of local business for lack of friends and real conversation, and generally make nuisances and spectacles of themselves. Pat lamented yesterday that the few scumbags ruin it for the rest of us, giving all sailing types a bad reputation and a whole lot of stink eye.

And that is how I feel about Christianity. A few bad apples, trying to tell everyone else what to do and that God hates gay people, ruin it for anyone else just trying to do right and live peacefully with other messy humans and a God who I happen to think likes me a lot. And if my name were forever linked with these pushy, televangelizing weirdos, I think I would resent them even more than I do. I get to choose what I say and when, to whom and with what motives, when it comes to talking about my private, quiet, personal beliefs, but what if my name were Episcopaula or Baptista? Maybe it would remind me to be a little sweeter, to be a better specimen, but I’m afraid it would make me defensive instead, on show, and judgemental and angry at all the people giving me and my name a bad reputation.

I guess this is just on my mind right now. Sailors seem, on the whole, to believe in weather patterns and booze more than any given set of religious tenets. I don’t need to have a prayer meeting or anything, but something in me wants to say thank you for the pattern of a starfish and for helping us safely across the miraculous Gulf Stream. Whether Christiana and her name represent something religious or not, and whether I hear the same thing other sailors do when the church bells ring across the harbor, I think my father and his brother have this in common: they raised my cousin and I to have faith – in humanity, in family, in service, in education, in ourselves, and in God. We admire each other more than we actually know each other, and always talk about how we should spend time getting closer. We would both like that I think. Until then, thank you Christiana for this picture, for this painting, for your beauty, grace, gifts, and help.

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