I recently took a look at the first three chapters of Kylie Bisutti's I'm no Angel: From Victoria's Secret Model to Role Model. My wife has read the whole book, and she assures me my pre-emptive impressions are the correct ones.
The short version: Bisutti went into modeling, despite having no real interest in it, because people kept telling her how pretty she was. After a certain degree of success, she wound up winning an event through Victoria's Secret; not actually signing a contract with the company as the title of the book would lead you to believe. But after her unsupportive husband kept bursting into extroverted prayer enough times whenever the modeling industry shockingly revealed itself to be intertwined with sex, Bisutti nobly chose to become a role model for young Christian girls; presumably pretty ones who might be in danger of pursuing the career that they want.
Do I sound bitter? Angry even? Let me explain. I'm a Christian. It's how I was raised, and after a period of serious soul searching I realized I agree with the teachings of Christ. Curiously, I tend to disagree with a lot of Christians, so much that at one chapter of my life I tried disavowing my faith altogether. In the end, I came to a reconciliation: God isn't the church, people are. And people have a knack for sucking at the wrong times.
Bisutti's book has tapped into something with me that I can't quite shake off, and I think I can best explain it as a metaphor.
Imagine a wave pool, like at a waterpark. Now this is a huge wave pool, to the point that it may as well be a beach, because the deep end of the pool stretches so far away that it disappears over the horizon. Where is the deep end exactly? I don't know. It's too far away. We're not allowed to bring boats to this wave pool. The only way to check is to swim out there, and you'll probably die before you ever reach the end.
In fact, the curious thing about this wave pool is that it's where our dead go. The waves carry the deceased into these mysterious depths. So what happens? Are they eaten? Do they find Atlantis? Do they just drift indefinitely? Does it even matter? The simple fact is, we don't know. We haven't died yet. We can get in the water and swim around a little bit, or a lot, but we can't KNOW until it's too late to be a part of the living.
So let's focus on what we can know, the ground leading up to the shallow end. Now the problem when you first approach the edge of the wave pool is how many billions of people are standing around speculating what the wave pool is about. Most of them tend to be very pleasant, minding their own business or congregating in small groups discussing possibilities.
But then there are the assholes, and they have megaphones. As loudly as they speak, you'd think they KNOW everything there is to know about the wave pool. Some of them decide that the water is irrelevant and there's no point in even acknowledging it's existence. While others demand that EVERYBODY has to accept a definitive explanation for what the end of the wave pool is, or they'll not be able to take the post death journey. Both of these types of people do absolutely no good, and they have the most potential to start a fight at the water park.
Pushing past them, there is now a barricade of people splashing around the shallow waters of the wave pool. This is where Bisutti is lounging and prattling on about how wonderful the water is. And to a degree, she's right. It does feel good, rolling back and forth against your ankles. Children are put in the water where they chant song lyrics about the waves that they accept without questioning. And why not? They're children. It's as much of an understanding of the wave pool as they're capable of having.
Unfortunately, there's this mass of adults who confuse wading in the shallow end with swimming. They insist that feeling the water is all they need, and all there is. I can accept that they're half right. When you're a shallow person, the shallow waters may very well be all you need. But it's not all there is.
So what do I care? There are Kylie Bisuttis everywhere. Most of them go to church and throw around phrases like "God has a plan" and "we should pray for this person who we're passively judging" (I'm paraphrasing). My wife had a friend who used to write such diverse inspirational/country songs like "God is Great", "God, You're so Great", "Can Everybody See How Great I'm Saying God Is?", and "Thank You God For Your Wonderfully Low Expectations"; and I'm certain they didn't all sound exactly the same to her.
Is there ultimately any direct harm from this? Sure, it's annoying as all hell. I tend to respond negatively to people who treat their faith as 'deep' when it's only coming up to their ankles, and maybe the social energy potentially lures some people away from actually learning how to swim. But is it anything more than a nuisance?
Well...
Here's the trick: the Kylie Bisuttis are usually privileged. The strength of their faith typically goes untested. They experience pain like everyone, but they don't know what hopelessness feels like. And perhaps in this life they'll never need to. But then again, they may get hit by that wave and that undertow. That's a bad time to start learning how to swim.
Now at this point in the metaphor I could shrug my shoulders and say, "Well, people who can't swim, drown. That's first draft Darwin." But maybe for me there's something else at play. I think it was the way I was raised Christian. I grew up in a good youth group where we challenged each other and debated and disagreed, and we always came away feeling like we'd shared an experience even though we didn't come to a middle ground compromise. In fact, one of my most active church friends was openly atheist. What could be more Methodist than that?
I went to a college with a strong religious representation that continued exploring the struggles from my youth group. I may have graduated feeling spiritually broken, but that was never the fault of the institution. That just happened to be the age I was. Unfortunately, after college I never found that spiritual community again. I found too many people with 'answers' that they were convinced of, and I was wasting my time trying to reach through their barriers. They didn't want to be challenged. They wanted to feel comfortable.
The bottom line is, we don't have answers. We don't know what's on the other side of death. We can read tomes on the subject and listen to professionals or celebrity voices, but we only have our own experiences to go on. We accept what makes the most sense. To us. As individuals. There's nothing wrong with that.
But my issue with shallow faith is that it creates an illusion of answers. With answers come the sense of correct and incorrect, and arguments, and exclusivity. It drives us further apart in an already isolated world. I continue to hope for a spiritual awakening of our species, but it's going to require an admission that self proclaimed role-models like Kylie Bisutti honestly know jack shit.
Addendum:
It's been brought to my attention that I may have written this blog from a place from a place other than love, and I'm inclined to agree. I may have come across as spiteful. While I still stand by my opinions, I have to admit there is a real pain in me regards to religion that I hadn't even realized was bubbling up.
My relationship with God is one of distance. It's not that I keep God away from me, I actually strive to become closer. But I sense the distance, and it hurts.
Edgar Allen Poe once described the power of music as being able to accomplish in a single chord interval what it took him thousands of words to convey. And he suggests that when you're moved to tears by a piece of music, it's not because you experience so much joy that it can't be contained. Instead, it's because a deeply rooted pain of separation from the divine (one that we ordinarily are able to repress) has been awakened.
I believe in God, and I believe some part of us will join the Divine when we die. And by that sensibility, I believe this same part of us was already connected at one time to Divinity. But here on this earth, it is disconnected, for whatever reason. Maybe to grow in a way not possible otherwise? I don't really know. But even though that piece of us has no cognitive recollection of being connected, it remembers the feeling.
Think about what drives you. Do you look for groups of people based on a common theme (sports fans, taste in anime, political affiliation) because something compels you to seek out a 'collective' larger than yourself? Are you drawn to images of babies (no) or puppies (awww) because they remind you of a world somehow more beautiful than the one you live in? Have you ever fallen in love with the wrong person because they seemed Divinity incarnate, or put a substance in your body to experience something that might allow you to feel connected, or hurt somebody because you thought it would get you closer to the feeling you wanted?
So, yeah, I think the compulsion exists in all of us, and I think being separated from the Divinity that Christians name 'God' is why. It's already a painful topic for me, and I guess lately I've been feeling a bit more emotionally charged about it. There are wonderful things about faith, and when one is able to find a community to hurt with, often it doesn't hurt as much. But I'm not finding that community anymore. Instead I'm finding Joel Osteen, who is the epitome of 'store your treasures on earth'.
I know there are a lot of amazing, insightful people of faith out there, but I don't seem to find them in churches much. And I suppose that's why Kylie Bisutti's book hit such a nerve with me. I'm not seeing a book about faith, I'm seeing one about success. She had success as a model, and when that started wane she found success selling out the modeling industry, and she's calling that faith.
Faith is about humility. I'm not seeing that from her.
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