Chapter 10: Church, Church, Church

ALICIA

I was watching a bizarre movie based on a webcomic known as Marry Me. In it, a bunch of women dressed as slutty nuns dance about while these lyrics are sung:

I'm sittin' on top

Of cloud number nine

Yeah, I'm going up, I'm gettin' so high

No, I'm not the same, since you came around

You're testin' my faith, I'm prayin' out loud

I feel it in my chest

I got you in my head

I'm putting on my best

Like I'm in church, church, church

I'm calling out your name

And I want to make you proud got me feeling sane

So I'm gonna say it loud it's a new day

Like I'm in church, church, church, church

You make me feel like I'm in Heaven

I'm coming out with my confession

Like church, church, church, church, church, church, church

Like church, church, church, church (yeah)

Down on my knees, I've fallen for you

You've opened my gates and showed me the truth

I'm born again, I'm feeling renewed

You showed me the way, I'm baptized in you

I feel it in my chest

I got you in my head

I'm putting on my best

Like I'm in church, church, church

You are reading story Town of Winter at novel35.com

You make me sing out hallelujah

This kind of love will do it to ya

Like church, church, church, church, church, church, church

Like church, church, church, church

Ready to say I do, making this woman true

It's the honest to God's truth

Church, church, church, church

Ready to say I do, making this woman true

It's the honest to God's truth

Church, church, church, church

Yeah baby, I'm in church

Church, church, church with you

Ooh, I'm in church with you

I'm in church with you

Hey, hey, hey

Lord, almighty

What does this have to do with anything? Well, ummmm... I grew up with a priest for a father, and although I did have a religious family, I was always more a person who went to religious functions because friends were there. To me, it didn't matter too much about the sermon or the priest as it did the people. Also, I found religion for religion's sake pretentious at best, and hypocritical at worst. My own personal religion was a mash-up of ideas from Christianity with Taoism and Buddhism, and a few of my own beliefs through in. I was more interested in making a religion that was about having people gather for company than heavy dogma or myth that must be believed as gospel.

This was true before I left for Richmond, and it was certainly true while I was in Richmond at work. Since my story is almost at present, I think it is important for context. When everything else was happening to me, I decided to attend a church. It was a hip coffee-shop style place, that was actually fundamentalist Baptist. But a lot of young people were looking for spiritual direction, and wanted something hardcore. As for me, I eventually switched to a more LGBT-friendly group, though when I moved back home, I chose mainstream churches.

It was getting weird though, like everything else. For example, I went to an anime club where we were watching Attack on Titan. In this episode, there was a Titan, but it turned out that it was more or less hollow. The sermon was about how "Sometimes our problems seem big. Enormous, really. But when we look to God, our problems in fact seem hollow." Hmmm, this was the same week and he chose that as a sermon?

At one point, I watched a film called I'm In Love With a Church Girl, and something dawned on me. All this time, I had been looking at Fox as some sort of spy. But maybe this was wrong. I thought about the master of disguise angle. Oh sure, there were fat suits and she could wear some kind of leg prosthetics for height, and be very short or something. But even if that were true, I at one point went home quickly to see if I could beat her to a location. I would have had a head start, but she would literally need to either use some kind of underground path or fold time and space while applying a disguise. Even with a team, it didn't seem possible. And while we're on the topic of a team, there were about 300 or so people that day I tried to meet Fox at the cafe, that sort of thing if it were all planned by paid people would take a gross amount of waste. It would only be feasible with a construction crew and a few people herding the rest.

But there were some weirder events. Like when I was texting to Fox while living at Chris's place, I had to go out for some chores, and she texted back, «Don't get hurt or anything!» Not ten minutes later, I cut up my leg. Short of some kind of suggestion through the phone or outright self-fulfilling prophecy, unlike watching me constantly, this one didn't make much sense. And then there was how I met Sapphire. I needed someone to talk to, and I turned around and she was right there. Or how one day when I was shopping for my sister Willow, I looked all around the store for a certain variety of chicken she wanted. My sister's words were, "I'm sorry I sent you off on a wild goose chase." The very next day when I was shelving at Gargarean, one item randomly sitting there was called A Wild Good Chase. There would have been less than twenty-four hours to stock this item on the shelf, and while I was shelving, I was looking randomly through shelves trying to find shelf space. Now there is a field called predictive analytics, but this was God-tier stuff. There was another one during my "storm warning." While I was crying in a dark corner, I saw a film called Crybaby. I was confused, nervous, and frankly overworked when I attended church that week.

The pastor said something along the lines during one sermon, "When you are searching for answers, there is a false way that leads to madness, and another way that leads to the truth." Atheists like to use Occam's Razor as though it can only apply to a secular reality, but staring at all these weird events would either require gross resources, technology beyond what I currently know of, and in some instances, a supernatural level of precognition in order to plan some of these things. At the very least, we were looking not at a spy but at a commander of hundreds of other spies. This was implausible for the very reason that I could think of nothing special about myself. Why would an entire army of spies try to work on enlisting me? I had no delusions of grandeur, I knew that I barely had money, usually had no romantic prospects, and I was a self-centered and at times crass and mean person.

But I started to look at this another way, the pastor's way. I remembered the show X-Files, and how Dana Scully declared up and down that there were no such thing as psychics, UFOs, etc. She always had the far more convoluted "rational" explanation for things, but almost always turned out to be wrong. Maybe Occam's Razor didn't always side on the rational. Maybe it was time to trust Fox (Mulder?) for a change? And so, I examined Fox's background through the lens of religion. Here was a being who had wide number of followers, but I had not noticed a rise in taxes, so none of them needed payment. Here was someone who didn't care that I would probably not succeed in my mission, but hung around me regardless. I even saw her as a "trans woman" in an LGBT club. And again as a "trans man" when I did a wedding for a friend. It was a far more explainable notion that I was simply dealing with someone supernatural. And more importantly for me, it meant that I could stop exhausting myself recording every text, trying to find out who she was in disguise. If this was someone who could shapeshift or be in several places at once, I could drop the paranoia and just go with it.

So what sort of supernatural being? A demon? Well, from my understanding, demons were just bad feelings. I had dealt with my own personal demons, and they never seemed to be embodied. Besides, this Fox never attempted to tempt me in any way, night even towards doing good actions. So probably not an angel either. I then thought of the most obvious explanation. After all, her name literally was Fox. And I had watched a show called My Girlfriend is a Gumiho (ninetailed fox). But that was absurd. If fox spirits really existed, why didn't they show themselves to furry fanboys? And so, I thought this idea was implausible. But one thing that did stick out was that I'd mysteriously found not one but two books about accepting yourself. When Panic Attacks and The Gifts of Imperfection were both about the same topic, what was essentially the secular version of grace. Being able to see that life has given undeserved gifts and that you are seen as better than you might think. Her general lack of larger mission also seemed in line with that idea. I suspected she might have a plan for me, but it was very open-ended, and largely up to me. I could think of only one being that seemed to fit this profile, and that would be Jesus. I continued going to church, needless to say.

Then there was a third memorable sermon. We were in church, and the priest talked about transfiguration, and how Jesus looked a certain way before, but now was completely changed to a more glorious form. And I thought of how Fox often looked ordinary or sometimes outright dumpy in her various forms, choosing roles that were humble and modest not fashionable or eye-catching. After the sermon, I went to a pig festival (not a barbecue festival, they had all manner of things from pork to bacon to sausage, to even things cooked in pork, and just jewelry). I bought lunch there, and a hamsa, which I think I wore until the chain broke. While there, a Brittany (not not that Britney, a country singer) was singing on the stage. I got her autograph, and she seemed very personally friendly to me, which gave me the idea that this was Fox in her most radiant.

The concert name? Changed. That was it. I was sure now that she was Jesus.

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