God À La Mode: Dessert For Hungry Souls

By Kathryn Eve

God Á La Mode is a collection of gritty stories and personal impressions about what we call “our own life” and what relevance God has to it. The commentaries offer my account of what it is like to be human and yet hungry for God in a less-than-perfect-world; a world that often sees God as an interruption to our happiness rather than as both creator and catalyst.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Dec 11, 2021

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God À La Mode is a collection of gritty stories and personal impressions about what we call our own life and what relevance God has to it. The commentaries offer my account of what it is like to be human and yet hungry for God in a less-than-perfect world; a world that often sees God as an interruption to our happiness rather than as both creator and catalyst.

Some people believe God has no soul but is like the archetypal big bad wolf in the 3 Little Pigs who huffs and puffs and tries to blow our self-sufficiency down. Others believe God is the life and soul of the party we call human affairs. I happen to fit into the latter crowd.

God À La Mode exposes in intimate terms private rap sessions with God around coming out within a community of conservatives while trying to stay off the booze, pray for a windfall and counsel mentally ill and drug addicted clients. These interweaving stories speak of our innate search for meaning; what odd things drive us to go curiously deeper and reach out for the MORE in life. These crazy quilted confessions expose a day in the life of a troubled God Whisperer.

GOD À LA MODE:

Dessert for Hungry Souls

By: Kathryn Eve

Copyright © 2022 Kathryn Eve

All rights reserved.

To

Fast Freddy

Table of Contents

Introduction

II. HAPPY HOUR

III. CNN LIES

IV. IF JESUS WERE A SHRINK

V. DIRTY LAUNDRY

VI. COMING OUT

VII. LONG LIST OF LUSTS

VIII. CASTAWAY

IX. THE BUSINESS OF RELIGION

Afterword

NOTES

Introduction

The idea to write a book about the spiritual life came to me after I attended a fashion show in Montréal. You are probably wondering what the connection is between faith and fads. Well, both stress ways of dressing, behaving, self-identifying. The difference as C.S. Lewis saw it, is this: Far from attacking the spiritual life, the cultured world patronizes it.1 Similarly, the self-styled spiritual ones among us often disparage the so-called secular realm. Both sides do this to elevate themselves, with dubious persuasiveness.

Since I live in both worlds – the material and the spiritual – my aim is not to patronize one or the other, but to investigate what purposes and meaning lie behind life’s apparent contradictions and paradoxes.

God Á La Mode is a collection of gritty stories and personal impressions about what we call our own life and what relevance God has to it. The commentaries offer my account of what it is like to be human and yet hungry for God in a less-than-perfect-world; a world that often sees God as an interruption to our happiness rather than as both creator and catalyst.

Some people believe God has no soul but is like the archetypal big bad wolf in the 3 Little Pigs who huffs and puffs and tries to blow our self-sufficiency down. Others see God as the life and soul of the party we call human affairs. I happen to fit into the latter crowd.

II. HAPPY HOUR

God,

I am world weary. Slit your wrists kind of weary.

It’s Monday night and I am sitting once again in front of the television set looking at life through sensory overloaded eyes. Sophisticated images flash across the screen teasing me to live outside the lines – in step with raunchy post-modernism. But my faith keeps hurtling on. This is happy fiction, a voice-over proudly announces. The Devil’s not my sugar daddy! I rebut.

Knock. Knock. Who’s there? Good and evil. Can we come in and join you by the fire? It’s cold outside. Night time is the fun time, stripped of all stained-glass pretence. Dance with me to the clinking sound of communion glasses.

Step, shuffle, step. The sound of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire tap dancing on my head. Step, shuffle, step. The sound of partygoers scurrying by. I look out the window and watch them file into the pub across the street. A neon sign placed strategically at the entrance blinks on and off: H-A-P-P-Y H-O-U-R!!! Everything is reeling. Manic!

Ah yes, alcohol, the quintessential bridge builder of the lonely hearts’ club. A cascade of emotions will flow come closing time. No need for a cameo appearance by Flannery O’Connor to a room full of belligerent drunks who are unreceptive to mystery and manners. No need to tell you how much I would love to join them. Instead, I put on my sheepskin coat and trudge through the snow to an A.A. meeting.

You won out again God. I hope you’re happy. I hope that I’m still not thirsty in an hour from now or we’ll all be in trouble.

God,

What is missing?

Perhaps this explains my difficulty with blending into conventional structures or why I turned from addiction to belief in a higher power. All addiction did for me was leave behind a trail of psychological debris.

Now, 16 years into sobriety, I have managed to clean up most of the garbage in my life. I am still teetering on the edge like a pagan baby – hungry, always hungry for substance.

Spiritual substance, creative substance, emotional substance. When these ingredients are missing, I crave chemical substance. Regardless, I don’t give in. Instead, I substitute the taste of wine for grapes; the rush of speed for sportswoman endorphins.

I walk the tightrope of sobriety.

God,

My need for human touch is not hedonism. It is starvation speaking.

Excess is for kicks – a metaphor for hunger. I’m not looking for entertainment to serve as epistemology. I’m craving something more profound – an integration of sex and prayers. The religion and sex industry seem far away from feeding lonely souls like us.

Why does my soul feel old when I’m still young? Why do I think California is the New Jerusalem come down from heaven? Palm trees and Porsches litter the streets. Yet, I am somehow unmoved by the glitter and the greed, the ‘beautiful people’ and their indifference to poverty. My heart is elsewhere, reminiscing paradise lost – a place as bright as crystal.

It’s 2:00 a.m. and I’m trying to taste a glimpse of that forsaken world at Club Dakota, California’s hippest hangout. Boom! Boom! Thump! Thump! Industrial music. A wonderful tonic for a boozy satiated den. No, this isn’t the lion’s den and I don’t see antique Daniel crushing the cosmopolitan bones of groupies on the dance floor. So, I gyrate to the music and flounder the night away with all the lost children of God.

We’re tribal people paying homage to rituals that will only lead us further away from Eden and into the early hours of the morning – alone – groping for peace and a couple of aspirins. I grope for simple living. This juggling act between the smugness of public self-denial and the grossness of private self-indulgence is like the historical wound that never heals, the wound that brings me to my knees again and again.

I thirst.

God,

Rain always reminds me of Vancouver and living out West.

I spent most of that year functioning in a fog – running from myself and from God. Who’s to blame? I had nowhere to turn on that college campus led by the noble authorities. They were all