#42: Timing is everything.

Easter time has come and, by the typing of these keys, gone, and I’m relatively left unimpressed. Reader, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a religious person, but as my wife and I celebrated our first Easter season with our daughter, I kept thinking, at almost every turn, just how much the holiday pales in comparison to Christmas time. 

The Christmas mythology, the idea of giving to others, is universal, and in my eyes was never really attached to the religious significance behind the holiday. As a non-religious person, I never could get into the Easter season. I mean, how do bunnies and egg hunts relate to the meaning of the day? Today, I am way more accepting of what others believe, and any negative thoughts on religion, I shrug off or keep them to myself. This, however, wasn’t always the case. 

My own genesis from atheist to agnostic was catalyzed by the right story at the right time, and I was reminded of this after watching clips of this year’s award shows. 

Reader, by this point, you might be saying to yourself, “Oh no. Chris, please do not add to the plethora of commentary on the ‘Will Smith Slap’ incident. Please no!” Don’t worry; I’m not. There are better people than I already filling your feeds with that. “The Slap,” took most of the award show oxygen this year, but Reader, I wanted to turn your attention to something else that happened at an award show this year; something way more profound. 

A week after the film industry celebrated the Oscars, the music industry had their turn at the Grammys. Musical artist Jon Baptiste took home the night’s grand prize of “Album of the Year,” and Reader, I’ll be honest with you, I had no idea who this artist is nor his music. I still don’t. Upon winning, Mr. Baptiste took the stage and calmly addressed the audience, “I believe this to my core: there is no best musician, best artist, best dancer, best actor. The creative arts are subjective, and they reach people at a point in their lives when they need it most.” As the crowd begins to cheer, Mr. Baptiste continues, “It’s like a song is made and it almost has a radar to find the person when they need it the most.” Jon Baptist is right about two things here: one, all art is subjective, and two, stories, songs, and other forms of art have a way of finding you when you need it most. 

Stories, and by extension all art, have many different functions and purposes. Some are made to be mindless entertainment and give you a break from reality while others are there to teach you something when you are ready to hear it. In the Winter of 2011, I experienced the latter as I downloaded the Kindle version of Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Life of Pi is not a book that I often talk about nor is it one of my favorite books either. However, Life of Pi taught me a valuable lesson: timing is everything. As Jon Baptiste proclaimed, this story had its sights set on me. 

In my late teens and early twenties, I became very open about my lack of belief in the Christian faith. While I grew up Catholic and participated in some of the religion’s customs and traditions, I was never a big follower nor a believer in it. In my early twenties, I became almost confrontational about it with other people, and at that time, I couldn’t understand how anyone believed in anything. I read books like Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion and Christopher Hitchens’s God Is Not Great that ultimately confirmed my position. Before reading Martel’s story, I wasn’t ready to give anyone an inch on the topic. After reading, though, I began to soften. 

Life of Pi takes its main character Pi on an impossible journey of survival where he’s stuck in a lifeboat with Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger. Throughout the novel, Pi interacts with the many different faiths here on earth, and by novel’s end, Pi makes a great case for belief in the unbelievable. 

While Life of Pi did not make me run back to church, its message prompted me to be more empathetic towards religious people and to begin my own journey in belief. If I were to read Life of Pi just a few years earlier, when I was fresh in my descent, it might not have had the same effect on me.

You might say, Martel’s words were waiting for just the right moment to make an impact. I’m happy that they did; I’m a better person for it. 

Thanks for reading.