My friend Carol has been spending a lot of time lately thinking of her childhood as a good Irish Catholic girl on Chicago’s South Side. It’s not that she’s questioning her faith or anything, or worrying if her soul’s ledger will end up in the debit or credit column. She’ll be fine in that regard.
No, it’s that when she talks to her 16-year-old granddaughter, she’s astounded at how Ella’s modern-day Catholic upbringing is so different from her own old-school Catholic upbringing.
And because Carol is a writer, she’s been pounding out page after page of her memories of growing up Catholic in 1950s Chicago, often in the form of a conversation with her granddaughter over theological issues.
“You should have Ella read ‘Studs Lonigan,’ by James T. Farrell,” I suggested. “Studs was an Irish Catholic kid on the South Side, although a couple decades earlier than when you were a kid. It’s steeped in Catholic teachings of the time. They even made a movie of it in the 60’s, and also a TV miniseries in the 70s.”
Carol hadn’t read it yet, so she called it up on her Kindle, and she is now finally closing in on the ending of the long trilogy of novels that has been ranked among the top 100 English-language novels of the 20th century — but also banned in many places.
Along the way, Carol has often stopped in her reading to quote a passage or two to me, shaking her head at the marvelous absurdity of some of the teachings the Catholic church pounded into the heads of kids like young Studs in the 1930s. And into her head in the 1950s, for that matter.
And when she does, I slide down the words to the marvelous absurdity of my own childhood beliefs.
I was raised a Methodist, but my best friend Larry was Catholic, and after Sunday services we often stood in the alley and vigorously tried to correct each other’s theological misconceptions.
Take the notion of eternity that the priest taught Larry, for example.
“Imagine if a sparrow brushed one wing against Merchandise Mart, then flew up around the sun,” Larry explained. “Then he flew back to Earth and brushed his wing against it again, and flew back around the sun again, and kept doing that over and over. Eternity is how long it would take for the sparrow to wear down Merchandise Mart to nothing.”
I tried to wrap my head around the concept. Merchandise Mart was the biggest building in the world at the time, by volume. Other buildings were taller, but none could match it for sheer stony size and rocky mass.
But a sparrow was — well, a sparrow was just a sparrow.
“That’s stupid,” I said. “The sparrow’s wing would wear away first.” Methodist logic at its finest.
“No, you’re stupid,” said Larry. “Maybe… maybe this is an angel sparrow. His wings would never wear away. Not ever.” Catholic certainty at its finest.
“That’s stupid,” I said. “If he’s an angel sparrow, then his wings would probably be super wings, harder than stone. He’d wear down the Merchandise Mart in no time.”
“No, stupid,” Larry said. “An angel sparrow’s wings are way softer than an Earth sparrow’s wings. Nothing is softer than an angel sparrow’s wings.”
“Yeah, well, even if that’s true,” I said, “an angel sparrow can probably fly with super speed. He’d be able to go around the sun in like two seconds. It would take an Earth sparrow like six weeks. An angel sparrow could wing-brush Merchandise Mart like a million times a day.”
And then, just to punctuate my point, I added: “Stupid.”
On and on we went, battling over important theological details, like how much longer eternity might take if the sparrow had to stop for lunch each day, or whether angel sparrows ever needed to eat at all.
I think of all that when Carol reads astounding passages of “Studs Lonigan” to me, or talks about how much of it strikes a chord when she compares it to her own Catholic upbringing, or when she reads passages to me from her own writing about Ella’s modern-day Catholic teachings.
But I just listen when she does that. I haven’t told her about my angel sparrow wrecking-ball arguments with Larry all those years ago, when I sorted out all the deepest theological mysteries once and for all.
No, sometimes it’s best just to bite your tongue and let others figure it out for themselves.
TR Kerth is the author of the book “Revenge of the Sardines.” Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com.
