My First Truce with God

Sometimes I stop and realize that I didn’t do very well in life by the speed of which I make my changes. While one moment I am for my feet, at the same time I am at my head. And if this expression doesn’t exist yet, now it does.

Thus it was with religion. Born catholic, I repelled confession and to take communion. I was taught that I had to tell everything to the priest, everything from stealing fruit and eggs from the neighbor’s yard, fighting with my brothers, envy of my friends and of enemies, anger with or without reason, being cross or cantankerous as the old folks would say, mistreating animals, getting upset, teasing, uncaring for my elders, disrespect to my parents, lying, pride; which one? The bad one, because there is one that they say we have to keep, covets, greed, injury, false testimony and many others more or less voted. It’s a good thing that in those days no one spoke of a lack of ecological and environmental awareness.

Dragging myself to write, I began to relate my venial, capital sins and in no time, for fear of my writings to fall in improper hands, I threw the paper into the kitchen furnace. My parents didn’t insist too much for me to go to my first communion. My mother was catholic and my father an asserted atheist. In a general way I fit the requirements of a good son: honest, diligent and, at least at that time, God fearing.

I went along living my life in peace without God demanding me the sacrament of communion either until one day in middle school the teacher brought news: who hadn’t yet had their first communion would have to frequent one hour of religious lessons every Monday and Wednesday after recess. Half heartedly for having to miss the subject material that was given in the curriculum, there I went into the science classroom, what a contradiction! I listened to the old madam teacher blather on, who had long since been kept from the blackboard, spit and chalk.

During one hour, Madam Zizinha, as we called the catechism or religious teacher, as was planned, spoke on and on until she foamed at the mouth about God and the Devil. God made good for everybody and the Devil only lived to avenge the bad ones. Boys who didn’t have their first communion would always live with the devil on their tail.

Then one fine day, as the master Olavo Romano once said, I was sitting there listening intently to the religious lesson, when one of those pretty colorful science or geography posters, I don’t remember which, caught my attention and took me spiritually away from my catechism class. Ah, what got into me to make me look? I went from being a good little boy, poor and well mannered, to a rascal, neglectful and irresponsible.

The teacher spent the next few minutes “giving me the soap” and citing me as an example of a person who doesn’t apply to Godly things. My face turned bright red and I almost keeled over from embarrassment, until Madam Zizinha eventually regained her mad religious bearings. The devil it seemed would always win. We had to do much more on God’s side in order to defeat the monster of hell. I left that religious class determined to never come back to that auditorium, but how?

I went home and told my mother everything and she advised me to confess and to take communion. I ran back through the center of the city where the Parish of Our Lady of the Conception was, told the Priest that I wanted to confess and bright and early the next morning and to have communion. Shot and fall. I told some acceptable lies and I don’t even know if the old priest was listening on the other side of the confession booth. Early Tuesday morning, I went to communion worried about not biting on the bread that is the true body of our Lord Jesus Christ. I went home and did all the same everyday routine as always and now in peace with my conscience, happy to not miss any more of the arithmetic and the tales that my teacher always told at that schedule.

That Wednesday, right after recess came the schoolmate, of an atheistic family as a matter of fact, that made rounds from classroom to classroom calling for the latecomers of the sacred communion. The teacher and my little schoolmates all looked at me noticing that I hadn’t shown any sign that I would stand up to go. In my class, I was the only participant of religious class.

I took a deep breath, stuffed my chest and had my first victory in this lifetime, a kind of Pyrrhic victory:

– I don’t go anymore, I already had my first communion yesterday morning.

That day, I listened to another one of those tales and looked at the nature posters of a goose farm that I’ll never forget, even though I never had up until then seen a real life goose before. I was celebrating my first truce with God.