The Lamenting Virgin

Sunday I took two buses to get to church early and meet with my priest to talk about getting a job, but I ended up telling her how lonely I am instead. She was unbelievably helpful: a good listener, but to the point, and talked to me about Meyers-Briggs, which I love. In the end she helped me to realize that maybe I'm not crazy for feeling trapped in the grocery store. Maybe I just really do need a job that's less immediate, tactile, and more goal-oriented/intuitive. So I guess that's where I'm headed next; I'm going to reconfigure my resume.

On the way back to the front of the church, I ran into a friend I've only met once before whose wife is home sleeping off an over-night shift at the hospital. He told me hello and that there's a Russian festival in Capitol Hill later and do Pat and I want to go? Which, of course we do, but he's not with me at the moment to ask. I took his card and promised to call.

You see, Pat wasn't with me that morning because he went to the Free-Methodist church instead, the one right by his new house on his new side of town by a new school, a clear sign to me that our relationship is on its way out. And even though we still have plans get married next year, I now find it almost inevitable that we'll also never go to church together, fundamentally disinterest and disappoint each other, and end up estranged and miserable. So after my talk with Mother M. I decided to skip church, and walk through Queen Anne to meet him.

It was a beautiful walk, almost breathtakingly quiet, and the streets were shrubby and quaint, and the sun was shy on my face as I climbed the hill. I thought about how what M. said is true, that finding a job is another full time job and that I just can't waste my energy imagining how and why exactly each job doesn't want me professionally. It's probably nothing personal. (Or else maybe it is. It is possible that I'm stunningly incompetent and write soppy, worthless cover letters. But either way, I guess it makes no difference whether I dwell on it, and I really have no choice but to press on.) Then and there, or else on the way, I somehow stumbled upon the will to go to the grocery store Monday morning with my head held high. And I have to say, the past few days of work have been cheery, even content, something I haven't felt since January.

When I got to the church dizzy and flushed with fresh air, I asked Pat if he would leave me if I become agnostic. He sort of patted my shoulder awkwardly, staring at me with that befuddled look of exasperation and pity I know so well, then said, “Kristin, meet J, my classmate and pastor here at the Free-Methodist church.” I shook her hand and she told me how much she loves Patrick and how smart he is, which I told her I already knew. Later on the bus to Capitol Hill while I was trying to call S, squinting at his business card, I saw Pat shake his head out of the corner of my eye, grinning. “Agnostic,” he said, almost whispering, and put his arm around me.

We both found icons at the Russian festival: Pat's is St. Simeon. Mine is the lamenting virgin. I've only ever seen it in a book before, and I think it is incredible. It is a picture Mary, obviously, and as is typical in an Orthodox painting, she's robed and beautiful with big almond eyes and invisible hair. Her arms are outstretched as if holding the tiny Christ-Man, but in this particular version, he's not there. Mary simply holds out her hands, her head and body leaning to one side, the corner of her eyes turned down in an unmistakable expression of piercing sorrow. She is supposed to represent the words spoken to her by Simeon the first time he sees Jesus, “And a sword shall pierce your heart also.”

I fell in love with it the moment I saw it in Pat's icon book. To me it is a heart-breaking foreshadowing of what humanity faces forever after the death and disappearance of God. This empty longing, this wishing for something we don't even know how to name. The desire not just for a scrap of truth or hope or morality to cling to, but for a body, a piece of flesh, a reIncarnation of the divine.

I couldn't help it. The icon made me think about my job. There is a pitifully similar elusiveness in the longing I feel: I want something I don't even know right now. Not just an idea to carry me through the next eight hour shift, but something I can lay my hands on: something mundane and made of flesh.

The icon is as long as my pinky finger and twice as wide. I tucked it into my pocket and S and his wife convinced us to come along to a friends house, where we were not really sure we were invited. We stopped on the way to buy flavored Triskets and Tillamook cheddar cheese to offer as an apology for crashing their party and headed on over. At first it was strange and awkward and nobody offered us a chair. I was horrified that we'd ruined their evening, and then suddenly everything changed. In an unforeseen turn of events, I wound up in a conversation with the hostess and suddenly we were talking about jobs and religion and our families. And when she and Patrick debate the issue of going to a church where you fit in vs. going to a church where you feel doctrinal tension, I found myself seeing Pat in a new way. I've always just wanted to find a place where I feel known, and where the questions that bother me the most aren't ignored, and I can finally stop appearing cynical and pushy and just relax. But Pat doesn't feel that way at all. Those are his questions you know? And he wants to sit with them through his tangly Methodist roots. And even though I'm still not sure I'll go to church with him ever, I still think he's smart and good.

The conversation turned and the hostess vaguely mentioned that she is in the process of adoption. “Wow!” I said, “That's exciting.” And she nodded, and I found myself a little unsure of what to say next. For some reason I couldn't remember what questions are rude, and which are allowed. “Is it a... long process?” I tried. And she launched easily into an explanation of her agency and how they're not choosing a baby, but waiting to be chosen by parents looking for help. “Oh,” I said, surprised. They're just waiting? There's no timeline? “So... when...?” I asked gingerly, and she smiled sadly and shook her head. “Any day.” She glanced at her husband across the picnic table laughing in the midst of another conversation. “We're just waiting for the phone to ring.”

My head swam with sudden empathy. I knew just how it felt to stare at the phone, willing it to ring. The emptiness, the helplessness. And then my stomach blossomed with shame that I could ever compare our situations at all.

“Its been seven months,” she said quietly. I thougth ruefully of my month of melodrama. “We just have to stop thinking about it every moment,” she went on, smiling, “And enjoy sleeping in while we still can!” We laughed, relieved. A few minutes later it got too dark to see and we exchanged numbers and shook hands and Pat, S, J and I walked to the car. On the way home I unburied my icon of Mary and stared at her arms reaching, the sad tilt of her shoulders, the heaviness reflected in her bright eyes.

On Monday I got up at five fifteen AM and walked to work in the dark with my thumb on her face, clenched tight in my pocket and hoped that the phone would ring.