Let me pronounce it loud and clear right at the outset, for any who didn’t read the book and won’t wait for the movie:  I am not religious.

Though raised Roman Catholic, I found from an early age that nothing about that faith appealed to me.  My rejection of Catholicism began when I got in trouble for refusing to say the “Our Father” in fourth grade.  The nun who had noticed my stubborn silence sent me to the office, where I did get a chance to explain.

I already have one father; I really don’t want another one.  The poor woman either didn’t know the hell in which my siblings and I lived, or didn’t think our suffering should be blamed on God.  She banished me to my knees in the hallway.  I didn’t say my penance.  My resolve firmed.

Other, worse events deepened the chasm between me and the Vatican, lamentable events that perhaps the current pope might mourn.  By early adulthood, I had begun searching out other sects, still determined to give the earthly worship of a divine deity the chance as long as I could pick my venue.

I ran the gambit, save perhaps spending a Saturday or two at temple.  I never found anywhere that felt like home, which might be the curse of cradle Catholicism.  Eventually, God, the angels, and I made a kind of peace among ourselves.  I resolved to do the best that I could by them, and they continued to demonstrate their eternal vigilance over me.  I’m still standing, so we do know that one end of that bargain has been kept.

My lack of religion has not prevented my aiming for spiritual evolution.  “Salvation” doesn’t necessarily resonate with me.  The part of Catholic mass which most irritates me is the eternal chanting of our unworthiness.  I don’t buy it.  If humans formed in the image of God, then we are worthy by definition.  “God Don’t Make No Junk”  seemed right to me the first time I heard it.  I recognize human fallibility, though; so I wake each day asking whatever lies inside my heart how I can improve the way I relate to the world.  My feet hit the floor with determination, albeit sometimes a little clumsily.

I’ve seen the answering call from something spiritual.  Call it indigestion, hallucination, or revelation, but an angel often whispers in my ear.  When I’ve been most desolate, something  nudges me and keeps me moving forward.  My atheist friend (and I have a dear one) would give me all the credit.  She might be right.  But my gut suggests the existence of some form of eternal being, perhaps a single entity, perhaps a cosmic collection.  Call it “God”.  Call it whatever you like.  I’m here to tell you:  That entity works in mysterious ways.

Eight months ago, I traveled to Chillicothe to meet an appointed client in the stark visitors room of the prison where she lives. I carried a Consent to Termination of Parental Rights in my sad little lawyer’s folio.  I could go to trial to try to prevent the loss of her son.  But I have been doing this long enough to know that she would lose, and to understand what that would mean both legally and emotionally.

At that point, I had been watching television programs about tiny houses and wishing that I could downsize for about a year.  When the laser ink froze on a print-out of my signed divorce decree in April of 2015, I began to look for ways to jumpstart the rest of a life that I had not believed I would ever lead.  Alone, truly alone, for the first time since my son entered the world laughing, I faced the daunting reality that my mother had been right about my eventual spinsterhood, assuming that a thrice-married and divorced woman can be thusly called.

I had heard that a couple east of Cameron had a little compound of cabins and that the man might be persuaded to build a tiny house for me.  My desire to divest  myself of 90% of what I owned drove me to believe that living in 300 square feet might be my style.  En route to the prison, I spied Country Cabin Village, and told  myself that I would stop there on the way back.  If nothing else, I’d get a cup of coffee for the drive home.

The rest, as they say, is history.  When asked how i picked my builder, I let it be known that I did so on the basis of the enormous charm and gentleness of his wife.  She welcomed me to her shop, held my arm as we picked across the gravel to tour the little house on wheels sitting beside her bakery, and told me that her husband could, and would, build one for me.

As I beheld my new home, nearing completion in a field beside my builder’s house in Lathrop, Missouri, I recalled that first day when I took the fork in my road towards this next chapter of my life.  My steps have not always been sure.  I stumble; I scrape my shin against the cliffs.  I clutch at insubstantial handholds.  This journey has not been easy, nor has it been certain.  But one thing I can say with absolute conviction:  Kevin Kitsmuller has built me exactly what I strained in feeble words to describe at our first meeting, on Holy Saturday, at the Perkins in Liberty, with his smiling wife Kim sitting beside him.  If you don’t take that as proof that God exists, allow me to try to describe something inchoate some time, to convince you.

I don’t know what lies around the next bend in the river.  But I know that when I lay my head down to sleep, to refurbish myself for each next day, I will do it surrounded by the angels and every lovely contour of a true master’s work.

It’s the ninth day of the forty-sixth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.