“Capital G” by Asha Galindo
Grama has been trying to get me to listen to the Christian radio station K-Love for at least the length of time I have lived away from California. Away from the majority of my family. Away from her. In our conversations I’ve talked about loneliness and the sometimes hard transition to living alone.
A born Catholic and a lifelong Christian who now attends a born-again denomination, Grama is fairly devout. I know she worries about me. I am not very religious. I avoid having to discuss it with anyone. Just makes life easier. I say “I don’t know” or that I’m unsure but I’m not actually very unsure. I am certain that religion—all of it—is a very human endeavor. That is, it’s full of as much evil as the rest of the world contains. They’re not better or right, they’re just organized, and oppression and greed go hand in hand. That is, they all actively harm people to varying degrees and I don’t want any part. I want to think it’s good for some people some of the time, but I am certain that it’s bad for most of us most of the time, bad for me. I am less certain in the non-existence of capital-G God, but I think I’m okay with that question. Nor do I believe that question has anything to do with organized religion. Not really.
I just feel like your connection to what’s infinite, what’s god, or whatever, really truly is a personal thing. It happens inside. When you still. When you’re quiet. In prayer or meditation. You must know what I mean. Alone with yourself. Out in nature. The sound of rain. There is a pull, a jolt. A truth that settles on your conscience. That peace of living things. Your breath, the way it feels in your nose and down. The way birds chirping hits your ears or the sensation of the clothes on your body, a second skin. That instance of cognition. When you read a sentence that must be underlined, annotated, remembered. A melody that just feels right. That ‘right’ feel. I think that’s probably the closest thing to god.
Stephen Chbosky wrote about this in Perks of Being a Wallflower. When the main character, Charlie, feels infinite flying through the night air against the bed of a truck, savoring the freedom of youth and the comfort of true friendship. “Yeah,” I said, if not aloud loud in between my ears. “Yeah, Infinite! I know that feeling. That’s god.”
When Lauryn Hill sings about God on The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill I know what that Infinite feels like for her. She sings, “Tell him I love him. Tell him I need him.” I wished to feel that way for Him. I wanted to be a devout Catholic because it sounded like something you wanted to be. I wanted to believe the way L-Boogie did. The way Mary J. Blige does singing harmony on “I Used to Love Him,” another track about the Father who will forgive. I listened and sang along hoping I could match their gospel passion because I felt their conviction. Not enough to believe as they did, but enough to want to feel that way. If I matched pitch and tone and imitated spirited church choirs I knew only through film, could I understand the feeling of knowing God? Feeling God? Needing to tell Him?
It took me 20 years of religiously listening to Miseducation Of to understand it wasn’t religion I was hearing. It wasn’t proof of God in that capital-G sense. It was Infinite. The truth I heard when Lauryn begged to “Tell Him,” the heartbreak I understood in “Ex-Factor,” the way I identified with that ghetto pride in “Every Ghetto, Every City,” the pure love in “To Zion.” Those thousands of moments of truth of emotion on that record—that’s the closest to god I’ve ever felt. But it wasn’t the Christian God. The god of Grama’s K-Love or Lauryn’s songs. It was Infinite.
Maybe I’m being naive. Maybe I’m talking about the same thing. Grama feels God when she prays the rosary, I feel god when I listen to my favorite songs. Grama believes Jesus is not only her savior but ours. I believe that ourselves are whom we need saving from. And I don’t know if Jesus is real, or was real? (I’m not sure of the tense.) Grama says she wants me to listen to K-Love so I don’t feel alone. And I want to bask in the sun because it makes me feel like thegrass photosynthesizing beside me. I think about lying to her, lying for her, but I wouldn’t ever. I cannot lie to Grama.
Maybe Grama knows something I don’t. “I’ve been around a long time,” she tells me often. Maybe it’s about time I give up and just try it. Maybe I will feel less alone. Maybe I will feel god, or God, or whatever. Feel Infinite.
Or maybe I should tell her how I feel god when the sun shines after clouds or my friends make me laugh. How I don’t think I need K-Love, and I know I don’t need God. And I cannot lie to my Grama, but I won’t break her heart either.
Besides I am not alone, I am infinite.
Asha Galindo is a storyteller and essayist who makes a playlist for almost every occasion. She earned her MFA from University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program. Her writing as appeared in OxMag, Toyon, City Works, and made Sweet 16 in the 2024 Marchxness (March Danceness) essay bracket. Find her on social media @ashiepants
