Why Religion?

By Miriam Martin, 23 / Franklin, Tennessee

Oh Lord, I have cried out unto thee.
Hear thou me. Give ear to the voice of my supplication.
When I cry out unto thee.
Hear thou me, oh Lord.

Let my prayer be set forth before thee, as the incense.
And the lifting up of my hands, as the evening sacrifice.
Hear thou me, oh Lord.

Why religion?

It's a hard question. One that has many answers, and most of them are different for everyone. Here's my answer. You can take it, or leave it, or read over it print it out and burn it. It doesn't really matter except that you have an answer. Any answer. One that you can give out to your mom, your grandpa, your parish priest or the guitar strumming vagabond on division street.

We all cry out for something, anything. Sometimes it is for recognition or sympathy; sometimes it is in anger. But always, the most heartfelt of those cries are when we have reached the end of our rope. When we are too heartsick or exhausted to do anything but lie on the cold tile and gulp in oxygen. This is the cry of an honest man. And it begs for only one thing. Love. "Love me" we cry, "Hear my prayer." God is love. And people, in order to be more godlike, pursue love in all of its forms and disguises. And sometimes we are able to love freely and openly, to give ourselves completely. And sometimes, aided by the pure relentless cry of brokenness, we receive that pure love that is of God.

Oh, how you made my April shine.

It was cold. Wind in the face, under the collar, through the scarf, behind the metal buttons to grab your shivering flesh until the spring thaw. It's cold in the city and it has never been this cold and everyone wonders what it is like to feel warmth. A boy and a girl walk along the cobblestones of the city streets, wandering in and out of the alleyways of the nouveau riche in their million dollar heated apartments. They discover a pile of slatted driftwood and pretend to build a fire in the entryway of the Dior House. He pulls one particularly long stick out from the bundle and challenges her to a duel. They fight and then the night watchman comes and chases them away. It is two am and no one cares that they are dying.

It's cold. Two sweaters and a scarf cold. Talking on the phone in the middle of the night, feet propped on the radiator, soup for all meals kind of cold. It's cold in her apartment but she's never been this warm before in her life. Warm with an infusion of green tea and conversation and a love to light her entire existence. His name is important because it was the name of an angel. But it only matters to her. You already know his name though; look around, I'm sure you know his name.

She entered the city when the trees were in their last stages of life. Leaves were withering and grass was nonexistent and she was alone. It was good though, to be alone after a lifetime of company. A few months went by and she learned to live with loneliness, then she became accustomed to it, then she resented the intrusions of the masses. She wandered the city and documented its life in little snippets. Electric pink and gold sunsets illuminating her bedroom. Manicured lawns with manicured poodles and sprawling itinerants carelessly clutching a bottle. Neon parties and beautiful people and flowing red wine. And always the isolation. Until one night, when she went to just such a neon party and met him. And they fell into such a deep pervasive love that only god himself could understand.

They met accidentally one bright April afternoon when the shadows were long over the city street. She looked up from the iron tables of the café with a pen in her mouth and met his gaze as he marched past. He was suicidal in a long pale trench coat, and she was enchanting in the blue air keeping her feelings to herself and smiling to the city. He wanted to go home and sit alone with his thoughts, converse with the April demons brought on by a none too distant spring, but she engulfed him in joyful stillness and persuaded him to sit in a café at Ecole Militaire. They talked about love and she showed him what it was to live in joy. They talked about despair and he showed her what it was to live with genius. She ordered a café for herself and a beer for him because he had not yet learned how to speak French. He watched her while she adjusted her sweater and wanted to reach across the lonely table and take her hand. But she was too young, and he could destroy her with a touch.

They walked home from a lovely melancholy party, full of good wine and heavy conversation, and she found the world open and honest against his arm. She fell in love when they crossed the river, a toiling rolling black mess of liquid, thick as tar and heavy as her heart in April. She leaned over the cold stone bridge and stared down into the murky swirling water of the Seine. Three balloons raced past, riding the black water like a carnival carousel-red, yellow, and blue. He told her to turn her body towards him and then he backed away, camera in hand. "Let me remember you." She felt beautiful and loved and then she looked in the river again. Three balloons, red, yellow and blue, swirling around in the black tar of the river struggling to stay afloat. The Seine never looked so lovely as it did that night, full of life and love and color.

She was his savior and he was her archangel and they lived in a constant state of blissful anxiety. They walked through the darkened city one late evening and found themselves leaning against the cold marble of Trocadero waiting for the lights of the Tower to go out. He was smoking a Galois and she was watching a group of boys roll a joint. He threw the cigarette over the railing and told her that he couldn't see the color yellow. He couldn't see the sun. She looked at him and he watched the lights click off the tower, one section at a time. Two thirty-six is as good a time as any.

They parted soon after that night. She left for the States and he traveled around the world, searching for something he had found once and then forgotten. Their lives changed over the years but still she remembered. She remembered the starless nights and the choking airless mornings and that gorgeously horrible river that carried away her heart. She remembered that April that started out bone chilling and arctic and transformed her life forever.

She made him a picture and everywhere he went he carried it with him. It was a
picture of a sun, rising or setting, perhaps of Morning Glory? That way she was
always with him. He went to Cabo San Lucas in Al Garve, Portugal, to
Treriksröset, as far north in Sweden as one can get, where the countries of
Sweden, Norway and Finland meet, to Prag and Copenhagen, to Bia in Calabria and
back to where they met. I wonder if she heard the ocean, found her peace at the
strait of Gibraltar, the mountains, the canals and the vineyards, I wonder if
she will ever see that metal tower again, stretching for heaven in an inhuman
but oh so human way? Yeah, she was always with him...

Oh Lord, I have cried out unto thee.
Hear thou me…

(all content Copyright National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the United States, 2000-2003, do not use without permission)