When the saints come marching back

“Saints are the Sinners who keep on trying.”

--Robert Louis Stevenson


Fig.1 St. Louis Cathedral, Jackson Square, New Orleans

The summer of 2004, I was in Gainesville taking my last required summer course so I could graduate one semester early in December. It was a fun class on one of my favorite subjects—Ancient Egyptian history—but there’s only so much hieroglyphics a girl can take, especially if it’s the only class you have with nothing else to do but sit around in your tiny closet of a dorm room the rest of the time. It was a particularly lonely summer.

Luckily, my buddy in nerdiness Elissa came to the rescue. At the time, she lived with her father not far from the campus and she’d break the boredom every so often, but one hot sticky July weekend, she outdid herself and spirited me off to New Orleans.

Her mother lived in Crestview in the Florida panhandle, so we stopped and slept there the first night, then woke up before dawn to make the three-hour car ride to Louisiana. Driving that stretch in her little blue Geo Metro, switching the air conditioning off just to give the little car enough juice to get over each hill, in the Vulcan heat of July in the American South… it was our obligatory college road trip, and we loved every moment.

We spent the daylight hours doing the tourist rounds in the French Quarter, with naught but iced café au laits the color of the Mississippi River and Styrofoam cups of cold beer to cool us down during our tour. It was a long walk filled with trinket stores, voodoo shops, Mardi Gras mask boutiques, the steamboat Natchez, gumbo-serving restaurants, and the St. Louis Cathedral—undoubtedly the most beautiful church I had ever stepped into in my life. Elissa, who had made the Crestview-to-New Orleans visit before with her mom, taught me the wonders of this new world that wasn’t so very far away.

Fig.2 Everyone loves a Boondock Saint

Over a year later, I was in Orlando for a nerd convention—this one the “ElfCon” of 2005, specifically catering to Lord of the Rings fans. Connie, Katrina and I stayed the night before the big day in the hotel, hanging out by the jacuzzi and sipping drinks from the poolside bar. It was to be our last big get together before Katrina moved out to Los Angeles to pursue her career in the TV biz, and we were having the time of our lives.

The morning of the day we were to get our photos taken with Elijah Wood—a massively spiritual event for us—we watched the news in the hotel room. The day before, a hurricane blew through the Keys, and we were worried it would turn north and cancel the convention. Instead, it headed into the Gulf of Mexico, and overnight, it exploded into a massive storm. Luckily, Florida was no longer in its path.

I remember knocking on the bathroom door as my friend was taking a shower and saying, “Hey, Katrina, you’re a Cat Five!”

“What?!” she said, her voice still noticeably shaky despite being muffled by the sound of running water.

“You’re a Cat Five!” I repeated.

She came out of the room and said, “I thought you said my cat died!”

Katrina was a Category Five. And as we walked from the room to the main convention hall of the hotel, the sky was overcast and drizzly, the clouds shaped like faded but distinct bands of a hurricane. It was so big that the weak outer bands covered Orlando even though it was headed straight for Louisiana.

Fig.3 Never again... we hope

June 2008, my sister and her husband invited me to help them move to Killeen, Texas, home of Fort Hood, where he would be stationed. We were to drive out over a few days, stopping in New Orleans for a break halfway through. I was to be their French Quarter tour guide.

Not only were we to grab our beignets and stroll Bourbon Street, we were on a mission—a mission to find saints.

A few weeks before this great road trip was to take place, I was listening to the Saintcast by podcaster Paul Camarata on my computer. He had an interview with Father James Martin about his book and being on TV. I just had to hear him discuss his impression of Stephen Colbert, and I got a little thrill from the interview. Having finished that very fascinating episode, I started in on another one, just to get a better sense of the podcast, whose goal it is to discuss the stories of a few saints in each episode and even go on trips to some of the pilgrimage sites associated with the saints. Some episodes consist of the audio “soundseeing” tour of the places Paul went.

In one episode, Paul interviewed the founder of SaintsforSinners.com—Rob Clemenz’s homespun operation to tell stories of the saints and sell hand-painted saints medals. It was a fairly successful little business based in New Orleans. When Katrina hit, all the medals were washed away, and he was resigned to give up on doing the website and practice law instead. But then he heard some stories from hurricane survivors who pulled up their bootstraps and didn’t give up on their homes and jobs and Rob changed his mind.

Fig.4 Our Lady of Perpetual Help

Today, a Saints for Sinners medal can be found around Bruce Springsteen’s neck, as well as The Tudors’ star Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. Even Paula Deen, the Butter Queen, has a medal. They seemed the perfect souvenir from New Orleans, and I told my sister we had to find them.

Addresses of medal-selling boutiques in hand, we set out for New Orleans. Of course, we were headed for the part of town least affected by Katrina, but I couldn’t help but see the big difference as we drove through the city, even compared to my memories from four years before.

Like a red welt left behind after getting slapped in the face, the damage from Katrina still lingered. It seemed that half the buildings and homes and roads I saw were still damaged and dilapidated, while the other half were brand new from being very recently rebuilt. Our arrival at the Superdome and Canal Street was like coming out of a half-baked virtual reality into an isolated sector of a fully-realized Second Life island. The French Quarter felt untouched. Standing on the boardwalk nearby Jackson Square, one would never know anything resembling the finger of God had ravaged the city to a degree that many people couldn’t imagine it ever being rebuilt and repopulated.

Fig.5 We are New Orleans

In the years following Katrina, I had seen much new coverage and documentaries on the storm’s effect on New Orleans, and contrasting those horrific images with the beautiful ones in my memory of the place was heartbreaking. Adding to that ache, the subject came up in a conversation at my work one day and someone casually tossed off a comment that the place was “sinful” anyway, that if any place deserved it, it was New Orleans.

Astonished at such callousness coming from an observant Christian woman, I tried to disabuse her of the ignorance behind that statement, enlightening her to the profound history and beauty of the city, of the God-fearing people who lived there, of the breathtaking St. Louis Cathedral where many worshiped. I had only seen one part of the city, but I saw enough to know that the world would be a lesser place to lose any part of New Orleans, a city built on its complexity of human experience.

Turns out it’s not hard to find saints in New Orleans. Sure, we had a few hitches in locating our medals in some boutique stores and we did eventually get some, but the real saints of New Orleans are the people who came back. Walking around the Quarter and seeing how many small businesses made the tough decision to start all over for the sake of their lives, for the sake of their hearts and souls, for the sake of their faith that they would resurrect their home so America could still count this jewel of a place in its vast collection… it became clear the real saints had never truly left.

There was no more appropriate souvenir to take home from NOLA than a Rob Clemenz medal. Mine may have a colorful depiction of St. Francis of Assisi on it, but it’s essentially a St. Clemenz medal, Patron Saint of Survivors.

Fig.6 We are the Saints

The Church of The X-Files

“A dream is an answer to a question we haven’t learned how to ask.”
--Fox Mulder

Fig. 1 My lifelong mantra

Aliens and monsters and science fiction don’t strike most people as religious subjects, which is unfortunate, since science fiction has provided human culture (especially American culture) with a modernized means of exploring the intangible, the improbable, and especially the spiritual. The essential foundation of all science fiction is a profound sense of the unknown, paired with an insatiable craving to explore it. Whether it’s Star Trek, Star Wars, Dune, or Doctor Who… the world of Sci-Fi has copious denominations to follow, and while I dabble in many, The X-Files was my first and foremost.

When I started considering my new path, it had been years since The X-Files had ended. David Duchovny left the show and I denounced seasons eight and nine as extra-canonical and ultimately apostate. Seeing people on the internet hail the Mulderless episodes as “way better than the old ones” was a sign of the "a-pop-calypse" (copyright Stephen Colbert). The few times I tuned in those last two years I was met with disappointment or depression. When they killed off the Lone Gunmen—those lovable conspiracy theorists—I felt the way I did when I accidentally killed Mulder in the X-Files computer game: absolute horror. I held a funeral service for them in my heart. When I heard the last episode ever was going to air, I watched out of pure morbid curiosity, and my heart sank like never before. It was a death in the family.

In the darkness of all this, I missed the comfort I had from being an "X-Phile:" the knowledge that a bajillion other people were happy to be just as enthralled as I was. I wanted back that absolute knowledge of “we are not alone,” and that the Lone Gunmen weren’t truly dead and somehow lived on in spirit. I needed that same coziness again.

The Mega-Cons in Orlando gave me an annual rejuvenation. Thousands of people answering the call to share their love for all things sci-fi, mingling with followers of various fandoms, and getting a bit of trade done while they’re at it—it’s a classic Meccan Hajj-like experience. I’ve attended with my friends and my cousin over the years, and I cannot deny the warm fuzzy sense of brotherhood and sisterhood I feel each time. It is as thick as the stagnant aroma of the unbathed shoving and dodging through narrow aisles as they search and haggle for discontinued Dungeons & Dragons gear. Spiritual connection through the exchange of trading cards, movie props and action figures. After going there, the Jedis’ wish to be recognized as an official religion doesn’t strike you as all that crazy.


Fig. 2 Nerd Hajj

Turns out, because of The X-Files, I had a lot more to go on than I thought.

In retrospect, The X-Files informed my spiritual framework more than anything else. I was always most enamored with the heady intuitive philosophies Mulder would spout every week. Partnered with Scully’s wonderfully rational scientific perspective, the FBI agents schooled me on open-minded, multi-faceted exploration. Mulder’s belief in the paranormal and Scully’s Christian faith informed their investigations, along with Mulder’s search for proof and Scully’s scientific analysis. Superimposed, Mulder and Scully are not opposing forces, but the archetype of Seeker—one who searches for Wisdom and Truth wherever it is to be found.

I had that going for me, but no tried-and-true method of applying it to my life. I desired a salve that preferably lasted beyond the restrictions of studio contracts, Nielsen ratings, and myopic idiots who call themselves “fans.”

Luckily, I still had Comedy Central-style fake news. Through this trying period of my spiritual life, I could still depend on Jon and Stephen for insight.

Fig. 3 The God Machine

On February 22, 2006, the acclaimed American author and spiritual teacher Lama Surya Das visited The Colbert Report. Stephen always conducts interviews while in his overzealous and stentorian right-wing character, and these encounters are infamously awkward, no matter whom he wrestles into the chair across from him. But not that day.

Lama Das so politely shilled his new book—Awakening The Buddha Within—that I made up my mind right then that I had to read it. He also managed to match every one of Stephen’s verbal thrusts, as silly and reactionary as they were. Not once did the Lama drop his good-humored smile. I later learned that this was the smile of the Buddha.

Buying used books off of Amazon was my Olympic sport, so it wasn’t long before I was devouring these new pages. I loved Lama Das’ simple, genteel tone and how he didn’t proselytize anything but being happy. His little tips on meditations and everyday language had me entertained while I learned some basic Buddhist teachings.

Fig. 4 Life's alarm clock

The improbable happened: I was jazzed about a universally acknowledged religious subject, and it was no coincidence that it was Buddhism. The Buddha, before he was The Buddha, embarked on a historic and legendary path that challenged his perceptions, introduced him to the unfamiliar, which ultimately enlightened him. He took the classic path of Seeker.

Mulder and Scully were the first Buddhists in my life.

When I found out that His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama believed it possible for there to be extraterrestrials in the universe, I was on board.

Fig. 5 Take me to your Buddha

Following the Buddha’s “come and see for yourself” attitude toward education, I soon wanted to know the holidays, the rituals, the cultural details and the thousands of years of human stories behind all religions. I had stepped in the path of the automatic sliding door at the Sam’s Club of World Theology and I suddenly had unlimited credit and countless aisles to peruse. I took the Buddha’s open-armed welcome into the stream of consciousness as an invitation to research everything and to understand—not just tolerate—all the religions on Earth. Or at least as many as people could post on the internet and put into TV and movies.

This mechanism for seeking put my feet upon a ginormous Möbius strip, a path that twists and exists in a constant state of interdependence. The further you go, the more it folds back on itself, revealing new connections along the way, without ever meeting an edge of separation. This is and always has been my path, but I finally recognized its origin as a legitimate one.

The light in my life had been shining on me always… from a screen.

Multimedia is the Brahma, the Vishnu, and the Shiva of my education. It birthed it, nurtures it, and will ultimately end it whenever my spirit merges into the Universe. The Universe, or "The Vibe" as a friend of mine likes to call it, is synonymous with "God" in my vocabulary now, as something so all-encompassing I could never imagine being outside of it. I want to spread my fingers towards the very perimeter of ignorance, and then reach past it.


Fig. 6 Hubble "saw" 10,000 galaxies in a portion of the sky 1/50th the size of the full moon

In that spirit, I invoke Ganesh's blessings, for he removes all obstacles. And I recall the words of Rumi, the Sufi poet, so I can begin this little forum with an open mind and heart:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing or rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.