“you people don’t celebrate your faith, you mourn it” a line spoken by salma hayek playing a muse called serendipity in kevin smith’s film ‘dogma’ is something i reflect on often.

‘dogma’ is one of my favourite films about religion, to be honest. george carlin plays a cardinal in it. alanis morrisette plays god. alan rickman is the metatron. jay and silent bob are prophets. it’s funny. really funny. but it’s also deeply religious and reflective in a way that is honest and relatable. there are lines in the film that i find devastating and meaningful.

“i think god is dead“, bethany, the last scion, played by linda florentino says.

“the sign of a true catholic” her co-worker replies.

i went to church. i said my prayers and sang the songs and coloured jesus purple on the colouring pages in sunday school. i went to pierogi dinners that smelled like pickles and body odour in the basement of the ukrainian orthodox church. there was shiny polyester dresses and pysanky around easter, and cabbage rolls, and people speaking in the brusque harsh slavic language of my grandmother.

my grandmother wanted me to be saved, so i went to church and got books of bible stories and catechism, and i listened to the televangelists and religious radio inbetween the murmurs of cbc radio canada and episodes of ricki lake where women would talk about sexual encounters with aliens.

my grandmother told me i would go to hell, and i would cry at night, filled with anxiety about my own coming eternal damnation. i remember asking if anyone else would be in hell with me, as if i could cope better with burning for a month of sundays if someone else would suffer along with me.

i went to this catholic church with a childhood friend from ireland whose parents drank whiskey on the front porch. they made weird food for dinner and later on my mom told me the mom was really involved in the ira back in ireland and thats why she left canada. i didn’t know what that meant until i was much older. not like my family could talk or judge anyways because despite all the bible banging and church basement supper, lots of people went to jail. someone killed a police officer.

by the time i was a teenager and was kissing girls and masturbating and writing bad gothic poetry in my parents basement, i didn’t go to church anymore. jesus said we should love people into the kingdom of heaven, but it would seem some folks there didn’t get the memo. that’s life, i guess. say one thing and do another.

“these crosses all over my body, remind me of who i used to be“, ethel cain sings while she punches me in the guts. how true, how true. faith, the shadow that hangs over me, like in those cartoons where people try to portray depression to those who have never known the jaws of the black dog, and the cartoonists show a character with a little black cloud over their head following them around raining on them. relatable. my cloud is cross shaped.

i listened to black metal and sewed religious medals on my punk vest as a “fuck you”, pissing off my mother and probably the holy mother too. i grew dreads and stopped shaving my armpits and i got high and drunk and got into witchcraft. but that wasn’t a stretch, anyways, because i went to school for native kids after regular school, and we were taught about coyote and sage and raven stealing the light and creator. i always thought that creator should sit god down for a talking-to someday. or maybe god needed a good spanking from the goddess that the venus of willendorf was sculpted to represent. every boy needs a mommy after all.

i ran, though.

i told myself i wasn’t running.

but the night someone tried to kill me, i came home.

it was me and the man and the weapon. i prepared myself to die. i made a vow that if i was to die, that i was going to die in a way that when the stupid ass cops investigated the scene they could say shit like, “signs of a struggle“, “victim fought back“, “skin under her fingernails and bruises on her hands indicative of a fight to the end“, “she fought for her life“. if i was gonna be dead i wanted to sound cool and powerful and bad ass.

i swore if i was going to meet my maker, whoever it might be, that i was going to arrive covered in blood and full of fury, like a viking carried to valhalla. i would die fighting and i hoped the valkyrie that carried me to the great hall would have huge tits and a fat ass.

i prepared myself to kill, that night. and something shifted in me.

and it all came back.

“hail mary, full of grace, the lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women..” i said, the words coming back to my mouth even though i hadn’t prayed in years.

i puffed myself up and reached for the closest weapon i could find that would do the most damage.

“..and blessed is the fruit of thy womb jesus“

aim for the head. hit hard. keep hitting. kill.

“holy mary mother of god“

screaming on the phone to 911. i tried to keep my voice steady but i ended up screaming anyways.

i wanted to sound cool and collected so if it ever got played in court, i wouldn’t sound like a stupid girl. i wanted to sound as unbothered as the character i’d pretended to be for years until that night stripped me bare and laid me low.

“pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death amen“

sirens and blue and red lights.

“hail mary full of grace“

when i survived, i swore, i swore, “all survivor no guilt” just like that nicole dollanganger song. but i remained haunted. not because of the violence, but because i realized my own capacity for violence. the horror that i could be violent like that if i had to be when i was just a hippie at heart destroyed me. it took years of therapy and five years later, i’m still not the same as i was.

people didn’t get it either. they still don’t get it.

“wanna go to yoga class and get a green juice after?”

“yeah, sure man, namaste“

could they see the capacity for violence hidden inside my downward dog or shavasana?

i started wearing crosses again after that night.

i’m sure some of my old friends think i’m fucking crazy. judge not, lest ye be judged, or some other half baked horseshit, i guess.

it’s hard to explain to people the ambivalence i feel about the cross on my neck, or the crosses in my art. this love and spite in equal measure. could we ever truly know god, anyways?

maybe this is what leonard cohen was talking about, who fucking knows. i laugh about the meme saying leonard cohen has perfect songs for everyone as long as you’re horny and conflicted about god. relatable.

there’s that song i like by schur called ‘cactus’, “he could sense i was a hectic, skeptic, shithead“, and fuck if that ain’t me.

i spent all these years running and wearing upside down crosses, but maybe all this time i was just looking for someone to burn alongside me.

the metalheads i used to think were cool call me “the scary religious girl” and say things like, “i heard she has skulls in her bedroom“, but they won’t say it to my face.

i’m ok with that.