Prayer, Spreadsheets, God and Rain
Disclaimer: Heavy CPTSD and trauma recorded below. Proceed with caution only if you have a heart of steel, or gold, gold might be better.
I have been looking for a story to write. I have been in search for another opportunity to let it out in words. I have been following some credible advice to use writing as a medium (no pun intended) for processing CPTSD. So I looked and looked and looked. I was waiting for an interaction to catch my attention, I was waiting for someone to say something that would cause me to pause and think “Aha, this person is the person I am going to write a story about.” After all, I am trying to use writing/art/creativity as a method to connect to other people’s struggle so I can gain that perspective that would help me digest/stomach my very own struggle.
And then I found out, stories don't have to always be selfless and centered around others, maybe in reflecting on myself I get to see how crazy unpredictable I am. Maybe I feel a little centered after I fry myself for a bit?
Earlier today, I was in my backyard with a contractor. He came in to take measurements on a covered deck project he is appealing to finish instead of the guy I have already hired. His whole promise is that he will do a better job of modeling the project in detailed spreadsheets than the guy I already hired.
The guy I already hired, David, is this carpenter from Central Texas. I met him through friend of mine that is also the daughter of maybe the highest authority in the Central Texas organic farming community. Lily is a charming personality. A true southern girl — She is on a federal hurricane response emergency project in Guam building dams and restructuring civil planning of the whole island in response to the changing climate over the island. She is saving life with spreadsheets and engineering sketches. That’s on paper, because the Federal government must see some spreadsheets. If you ask me my opinion, I think she is doing that by secretly leading the people of Guam. I mean you can build dams, and the next crisis the dams will fall apart, nature has its ways. Lily is teaching the Guam people how to salsa dance. She is building community. Legends like Lily are too infinite to be tabulated in spreadsheets. One day I will write a book about this woman and it won't have a single spreadsheet in it. We will document revenue and purchases of the book with full sentences and stories.
Back to the carpenter, he decided to build a roof above the deck. I hired him for a covered deck project. So yes, I wanted a roof. I wanted a professionally done roof. Somewhere along the lines, David got creative and decided to take the responsibility of building the roof in his own hands. David informed me of his decision, I feel stupid for not reading into the consequences but I also dont. In any case, with the best engineering work ever done, crises still happen. First time roofer and hundredth time roofers are on level ground against a might storm sent down from heaven. Could you disagree?
Ironically, I was sharing my philosophy with my roommate Aanandh a couple of days ago. He had just made steak for the first time. I shared my Mediterranean steak recipe (really my mom’s marinade mix for anything meat or chicken — Limes, onions, peppers and salt, she keeps it simple and its delicious so why mess around with anything else/Have you noticed how the best cooking takes specific and simple spices? Most people think more spices = more flavor. The dirty secret is flavor comes from timing the spices right. A secret only learned by experimentation. This is why I love cooking so much.) with him and he nailed it. It started off rough with letting a pan on fire. But we recovered quickly and opened the windows and he powered through the scaries of working with meat for the first time. He grew up under some influence of Hinduism where he didnt interact with meat much as a child. So the idea of meat freaks him out a bit. Any who, we made it through, and the steak was delicious, I devoured two pieces. Towards the end of the dinner conversations, Aanandh was giving me updates on the new podcast he started listening to; the story of an everyday person living through the Roman Empire. Very cool podcast concept. I have always dreamed about history from the perspective of laymen. I grew up wondering how middle class kids my age did 1000 or 2000 years ago! Unfortunately their history is not written down with as much detail as the history of the kings that deprive them of their freedoms. But hey, a little bit of imagination and extrapolation makes all the difference and adds such rich perspective to history. Makes it palatable. I will, one day, write a history book using the layman literary instrument. I might be doing it right now (you get extra points of you are on the same level of meta with me/if not, just ignore and keep on reading/you are doing great.)
Ok so I promise this tangent over tangent is about to tune back to the OG story of how my day went today. Aanandh was sharing something about the podcast that was super interesting; It appears in the Roman Empire working for someone else was so widely disrespected that free men only had slaves working for them. Ok a little mindbending here; but let me reiterate: Free men refused to work for anyone else in the Roman Empire. In other words, employees in the Roman Empire were salves. Ever wonder if modern day employment is slavery rebranded? I don’t wonder, I know it for fact. Someone had a genius idea of “let’s not confront the slaves about their slavery, let’s call them something better, maybe, maybe employees?” It is having been working wonders on all of us. Keep piling up factionary dollars into your 401K my friend. You will most likely do something with them. The idea of staying in employment forever makes me want to vomit.
But were free Romans really free? The Jews had a different opinion. Look, and I am speaking from experience here, you get enslaved in Egypt once and you become so sensitive to slavery you can smell it a mile away. Ok, so the Jews had it in Egypt and they had sworn to God they will not let it happen again. Enter the Roman Empire, where Ceasar was perceived to have some divine privilege and so taxation was a form of divine tribute. If you live on god’s land, aint you supposed to pay God some tax? What you want all that creativity for free? The Jews on the other hand saw their trip in this world as an entitlement and a gift from God! No one is ought to collect money from the children of God to Venmo it to God. The Jews had a checking account with God, and they are actively receiving his gifts and entitlement. This little Ceasar can eat all his pizza as much as he wants but we aint paying him nothing. This was a slice behind the persecution of the Jews in the Roman Empire. They were awfully persecuted! And I tell you what, if you want to experience the wrath of any empire, dont pay taxes. True in the Roman Empire, True in the American Empire, True wherever you may go.
I commented back to Aanandh (remember we are sitting at the dinner table eating delicious steak that Aanandh cooked for the first time) “That is wild! Almost indefinitely the way to mobilize Imperial wrath against minorities is when they refuse the divine symbolism or attribution that constitutes the empire. Take for instance, the Islamic world today, I am a big believer part of why Muslims face so much backlash from America is because they are too attached to their divine entitlement they can't live by the imperial law, they think they are so deep with God they don't want Mcdonalds. They always burn down Mcdonalds. They blow up Mcdonalds.” (This is how Aanandh and I speak by the way I am not exaggerating. He is such an intellectual and this language is actually too reductive and simplistic for him, but he gets my point so lets me have it.)
I believe in what the Jews believed in thousands of years ago. I believe that God is in all of us. I don't like Little Ceasar, and I don’t like Mcdonalds. I love God directly and I refuse to let anyone to get in between me and him. I go a little further in my belief that God gives us exactly what we want not what we ask for. What we want deeply comes true. You can't spiritually bypass that. God will keep giving you what you actually want. And so, I want to be safe, and I don't seek that safety in some spreadsheets or user manuals. When it comes to safety, I just pray, and I know that prayer and some muscle is enough. Anything else is delusion and fiction. If you think you are safe outside the bounds of god’s will, you will likely experience the reality of why that wasn't true one day. Surrender my friend and take it easy.
I wanted to explain my philosophy to Aanandh. As I looked for an example, I found one right under my nose, or like close enough to my nose. I looked outside and I saw the covered deck project that David is working on (told you we were going to come back to this. See what happens when you trust the process? It always comes back full circle.) I said to Aanandh “Ok so look at this covered deck, I know that David is taking a bit of risk building his first roof on his own. And I know he might not be following a meticulous engineering process, but I have my trust in God. I literally just pray for God to protect the roof. And you know what, if I hired an engineer to do the same job and they had thousand drawings and sketches to count for every possible disaster, I would still sit in my room and pray that the roof above my head stays where it is. I mean, hey, just consider this for a second, a single storm, not even a hurricane, a single storm, will take away the finest engineering structure at god’s will.”
Ok a little background on why this is so deeply ingrained in my belief system, Arabs came up with Islam, you probably know that already. It is yet another monotheistic religion. So, one God and kill everyone that worships anything else because our god is better than yours! The one God in Islam didnt just pop out of thin air. Before Muhammed (the prophet of Islam — such an interesting character I am going to have to write about him some more) decided Allah is the one and only god after he stumbled upon some Israeli text that said the same about Yeshua, before Muhammed did that, Arabs were polytheistic. They were nomadic tribes that busied themselves with trading slaves between Rome and Persia. And Allah was one of their gods. Allah was the god of rain. You can think of him like Zeus. Some verses of the Quraan make it very clear that since Allah is in charge of the rain, then he must be in charge of everything else because what are you an idiot? Rain creates life and life is made out of water and also rain takes away life and can destroy entire civilizations with storms, hurricanes, winds, and climate change! Modern civilization check! Allah is still in action baby!
Aanandh laughed and acknowledged my simple frame of mind. He started the dishwasher and went to bed early. I went back to my room and prayed some. I then fell asleep. I woke up to the sound of roaring thunder. One of the reasons I chose to live in Texas is however many storms we get. I feel closer to Allah witnessing his wrath and gift in a storm. I stretched out of bed and walked outside to feel the rain on my skin because no-one else can do it for me (or so advised Natasha Bedingfield.) The roof was leaking. Water coming down from all sides. I cut my breathing off and started a PTSD episode. Feels silly to admit, but episodes always feel like I am doing it to myself. I am actually doing it to myself. I just don't know how to stop doing it to myself. You know what else PTSD people do to themselves and they don't know how to stop? Suicide.
I sat at my doorstep, and I looked around, the smell of rain brought me back to the present. I prayed, this time from my heart more than the last time, I whispered “Allah, stop messing with me, I still trust you. And you know what, if you must take this roof, then take it! I will still believe you took it regardless of its fallible structure. David will finish the roof and I am in surrender mode to the consequences of my decision.
My favorite thing about this piece is it will sit here as a documentation of me choosing prayer over meticulous action. We will be watching this roof every day and wondering if it will collapse at god’s will one day or if it will stand the test of time. And the best part, is no matter what happens, my philosophy would stand the test of time. You just can't do anything about it. What's destined to happen will happen, no matter how many spreadsheets you build around it. Alas, I have a weird image in my head of the entire house down to the ground, with the roof standing up resisting the collapse after some natural or not so natural disaster.
