Good Omens helped me come to terms with my own faith
Before Good Omens, all I had were two poems. Wild Geese by Mary Oliver and Garden of Love by William Blake were the only true literary representations I had ever found of my own faith, the only two things that really spoke to me. At different points in my life, these poems opened up and nurtured a little fissure of light within me, one I had so desperately tried to ignore.
I’ve always struggled with my faith. I’ve known for years that I believed in God, but throughout my life religion and all its trimmings has done little more than tug uncomfortably at the back of my mind. I can’t help but feel guilt at believing in something all-loving when I’m so aware of the horror in our world. Then, at the same time, I see God used publicly in the most disgusting and exploitative way - for example, Donald Trump praying that God will help the Dayton victims, not sorely needed gun laws, just this week. I always wondered, how exactly do I be a Christian in this world? What do I have to follow; the raw, vocal righteousness of the real Jesus, or the white plastic statues that have replaced his physical appearance? Do I have to shove myself into that neat, dusty old package of Good, or can I just be?
Good Omens came to me at a particularly low point in my life earlier this year. I’d been badly hurt by someone I loved, I was facing important deadlines and placed under such mental and physical stress as I’ve never known before. In my downtime, when everything was over yet emotionally didn’t feel like it, I switched on Good Omens in a bid to find something I could put on for background noise while I sat and thought about nothing. I was immediately surprised. As well as being introduced to something warm, harmless, comforting and absolutely genius, the show’s interpretations were unlike any of those I’d seen in something so Christian-centred. From the smallest things like the representation of Adam and Eve as POC to the struggles in faith and the moral greyness of it all, it struck me pretty instantly that this was exactly what I’d wanted religion to be; it was what I never realised I’d wanted to see all along.
And I felt so, utterly whole watching it. For the first time, my two poems had something I could wrap them in. As I watched the last scene, I heard a little echo of Mary Oliver’s words in my head:
“You do not have to be good. You do not have to crawl on your knees through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”
As someone who has for a long time been interested in the positions of original sin and organised religion in the 21st century, in the history and necessity of shame; as someone who has wriggled uncomfortably at the edges of my faith as I quietly disagreed with its most vocal spokespeople in the media, Good Omens offered me a new insight into my own faith that made me feel much better about the balance of God and the fast-paced, messy tornado of a world in which we live. I realised, after years of fighting with myself, that I can believe in good without fully understanding the evil, and I can indulge without being punished. I have no obligation to listen to such groups that tell me what I do is sinful. Those who side with the angels can be just as fierce and warlike and outspoken about their beliefs, even if it leads them to go against those who claim they know better.
I may not see Christianity exactly as it is portrayed in the show. But who knows? Who am I to say that some of my inexplicable yet mundane acts aren’t the work of divine persuasion by bored, chuckling immortals? Just as I don’t believe the Bible word-for-word, it’s incredibly refreshing to see such a take in the media on something very special to me.
If religion is anything at all, it’s interpretation. It’s interpretation and it’s discovery. It’s sitting at God’s messy, crowded dinner-table of outcasts. It’s angel cake and devilled eggs at the Ritz. I am a Christian, and I reject the idea of sin. I refuse to feel shame.
Like colours we can’t see, God and Her angels and everything in between are working and whispering all around us, their presence unconditional. They’re letting us do whatever we want with them; believe in them, shun them, ignore them, love them. We are all, ineffably, here for a reason, and being here is something we should do shamelessly without thinking twice about stopping to eat as much cake as we can.
baratheonpilled
2087
turnnoffyourmind
pixelskylines
romaincrisis
blakekathryn
