From her stunning essay, “Revelation”:
“When I was twenty-one, I became a born-again Christian. It was a random and desperate choice; I had dropped out of high school and left home at sixteen, and while I’d had some fun, by twenty-one, thinks were looking squalid and stupid. My boyfriend had dumped me and I was living in a rooming house and selling hideous rodium jewelry on the street in Toronto, which is where the “Jesus freaks” approached me. I had been solicited by these people before and usually gave them short shrift, but on that particular evening I was at a low ebb. They told me that if I let Jesus into my heart right there, even if I just said the words, that everything would be okay. I said, all right, I’ll try it. They praised God and moved on.
Even though my conversion was pretty desultory, I decided to pray that night. I had never seriously prayed before, and all my pent-up desperation and fear made it an act of furious psychic propulsion that lasted almost an hour. It was a very private experience that I would find hard to describe; suffice to say that I felt I was being listened to.”
4 comments
Michael Cooper says:
Jun 3, 2014
By the grace of God, would that we all could be granted the freedom and self-awareness to describe our conversions as desultory.
TJ Campo says:
Jun 4, 2014
Is Mary Gaitskill’s stunning essay, “Revelation” available online?
David Zahl says:
Jun 4, 2014
Sadly, I couldn’t find it anywhere online. Only place I know for sure that it’s available is the 1997 edition of The Anchor Essay Annual, which I was able to get for super cheap on Amazon. It’s very much worth it for her entry alone. I’ll post another quote in a few weeks.
TJ Campo says:
Jun 4, 2014
Thank you, David. Please pray for me and I will pray for you.