AN ALTAR COULD BE ANYWHERE

The place the color has rubbed off the picture could be a star in the making. The orange in the bowl could be a planet around which others orbit. The ant’s a centaur in his dragon world, wrote Ezra Pound who was kind of a genius and definitely an anti-Semitic fascist. I’m so tired of terrible men. I’m all for the flawed, the failing, the worthy attempt – show me the perfect person and I’ll show you a skyscraper of vapor next to a bridge of loose sand. Nobody’s perfect, but the difference between accepting our flaws and striving to be better and letting loose our demons on the world fueled by privilege and the sneaky or overt desire to maintain a position of power over others is a gulf wide enough to swallow whole nations.

There’s a sign in this little nondenominational chapel, wooden with hand-painted lettering. It says “God is love.” Which is a saying I like to repeat in its inverse: “Love is God.” It reminds me of one of the best flawed men I’ve ever known, who would end every one of his sermons by saying “Remember, God loves you.” He was the associate pastor at the First Congregational Church in Des Plaines, in charge of the youth group that first taught me about making space for weirdos to bloom. We were the Breakfast Club without detention, a voluntary congeries of jocks, theater geeks, regular geeks, and categories between. Assembled by Rev.L. (Reverend David P. Laaser if you’re formal), who moved through the world with the bone-level belief that God loves us no matter what. We hung out in the ugly basement of a beautiful church at least one night a week and I don’t remember ever talking about the Bible or feeling at all holy – but it was holy. It was held. We were loved. Rev. Let me torture him about his RC Cola and cigarette habit as his weight fluctuated year to year to year. He told me I should think about becoming a minister. He took us to Florida and to Canada and designed the most elaborate scavenger hunts and showed us Texas Chainsaw Massacre on an overnight lock-in because it was “a classic” and reminded us that God loves us in every sermon and every time we said goodbye.

I was living in New York when he died. His heart stopped in the church lobby and the receptionist ran to get my mom who was teaching preschool downstairs. He was 43. Mom did CPR until the ambulance arrived but he never came to. I didn’t go home for the funeral. I never came out to him. I didn’t know how far his love reached. Now I think I do.

This morning I pulled The Chariot as my card for the day. I also pulled it yesterday. This happens a lot, certain cards showing up in a streak until they’re done with me. There was a two-month period where with maddening consistency I drew every day either the 3 of Pentacles or the King of Pentacles, which meant (respectively) get to work and stop complaining, or remember you made this life and are in charge of it, so get to work and stop complaining.

My friend Rebecca who introduced me to the tarot was taught by her father. Her father always said of The Chariot that you have to remember that it’s “The Chariot,” not “The Charioteer.” Meaning you have a role to play here, you are steering and balancing, but the focus is what’s carrying you forward, the vehicle. In looking at the card I’m reminded of what kind of balance is needed to succeed with so anachronistic a mode of transport – pull the reins too tight and you’ll tip. Let the reins go slack and you won’t get anywhere. The metaphor is obvious, yes? I started writing today with no intention of talking about Rev.L., but the vehicle of memory carried me here. When my wife and I met, neither of us was seeking a spouse. My friend Michelle whom I met through Rebecca had been my wife’s good friend in New York in the years after I left. And one day, Michelle was on Facebook and realized that two people she loved were in the same city (Lindsey having moved back to Chicago by then) and perhaps they should meet. So we did. And a few months later were in love.

The orange in the bowl could be full of gold. The place the color has rubbed off the picture could be a portal to the land of lost socks or a dimension where ants are the keepers of religion, constructing tiny icons out of bits of glass and sand so everyone is always watching because an altar could be anywhere.