The Year of My Imminent Death (a.k.a. 2-inch Jesus)

When I was a small child I had several interesting theological notions. Most of them resulted from my determined attempts to wrap my brain around concepts that were (and are, I confess) beyond my comprehension.

I remember my solution to the problem of omnipresence. Though the whole was admittedly admittedly heretical, I got the omni part right. In order to get there, I had to postulate several billion little Jesus-figures, each about 2-inches high, that, if I were able to see with spiritual eyes, would have been stacked in millions of rows, creating a sort of floating 3-dimensional Jesus "wallpaper" (my word for it at the time) that invisibly surrounded the earth. I never got a glimpse of the myriad 2-inch Jesus figures for obvious reasons, but I would sometimes sit with my eyes closed and envision him there... replicated as many times as needed in order to be absolutely everywhere all at once.

I also remember trying to imagine what it must be like for God to really listen to everyone's prayers. I believe that I counted it genius that His vision for the world meant that a respectable number of us were asleep at any given time. That certainly must have made matters easier. Still, I would sit and wonder if God really did see me and hear me -- uniquely me -- in the thunder of human voices. I hadn't yet grown into the idea that somehow my little prayers for the trivial circumstances of my young life couldn't possibly matter to a God who had a whole world of disaster, sin and suffering to contend with. That particular mistake would come later.

I recall having a whole lot of faith, as well. I regularly prayed for things I wanted with the full expectation that they would happen. Most of these prayers were selfish -- that I would win the silver dollar to be awarded to only one child in my class, that it would rain, that our stalled car would start, that (in spite of my parents' insistence to the contrary) I would get a dog -- and they very often came to pass. Each of those examples is specific, and for each one I have a memory of a prayer and the circumstances that I took to be God's "yes." Perhaps this was an indication that I had the "cosmic vending machine" idea of God. Perhaps, instead, I was onto something.

I seemed to understand love in a more primitive way. There is a cassette tape that surfaced in my late teens. I have since lost it, but I remember some of the contents. It was a just-over-5-year-old me singing songs I had composed. The lyrics to one of them included these words: "I love God and He loves me. Just thinking about the love of God to me. That's my song of Jesus." Another was just the words "I love you" repeated over and over again in different note and rhythm patterns. Love was instinctive somehow. It was just a natural part of my experience, and then, as now, I expressed my experience in song.

The strangest theological blunder, if one can call it that, may have been my conviction that my parents would die at 33 years of age. Adding to my fear was that I knew their birthdays were days apart, so I was likely to suffer their loss one after the other. This particular conviction arose out of a logic similar, I think, to that displayed by a Korean student I tutored in English when Daniel and I lived in Mission Viejo. She sat at our dining table, above which was hung an icon of a bearded, long-haired Christ. Daniel walked into the room -- her first glimpse of my bearded, long-haired husband. Her eyes grew wide as he walked quietly to the other room. When he had closed the door behind him, she whispered to me with some urgency: "He must really love Jesus a lot." Why?" I asked. "Because he looks just like him!"

If my parents loved Jesus, they would certainly die at 33 as he did, through probably by means other than crucifixion. I don't think the fact that generations of Jesus-loving people had lived to ripe old ages (or died tragically younger) made any difference. So, until they turned 34 and I was forced to allow that I had been mistaken, I held my breath for a year.

My fear was irrational... then again, so were my faith and love.

Now I have, myself, turned 33. Perhaps this is the year God has ordained for my death. I don't know. All I know is that I have now turned the age that I thought was so magical so many years ago and that my views on God and life are incredibly different from those I held during that year of breath-holding.

Of course, my childhood notions of truth were flawed. It is growth to have left my 2-inch Jesus figures and superstitious notions about age behind. Still, I would like to think the logic of my Korean friend is within reach. Loving Christ really ought to make me look different. It ought to make me different.

In some ways, I think I would be better off reverting to the convictions I held as a child, when my simple lack of the adult virtues of logic and reason and reasonable doubt made Christ as present to me as the wallpaper in my bedroom, prayer unquestionably efficacious and love for Christ powerful enough to determine even the moment of death. Sometimes I wonder where the faith I had then has gone. There are moments when I send up some selfish, trivial prayer and still feel, for an instant, the urgency of that child in the words. Sometimes those silly prayers are all I can find in myself to pray.

My prayers for this year? That I learn to love again. That I learn that logic and reason do not spell the end of faith. That Christ will be bigger to me than fear and doubt. That the God of the universe will hear my selfish, trivial prayers in the midst of the millions of voices and love me -- uniquely me -- in spite of the size of my doubts and fears and my reliance on a logic that would crowd Him out. That my heart will spontaneously sing of that love, however many years He may give me to live.