Unexpected Twists and...Christianity Internalized?

We thought we were all set. The condo was sold, we had found a house we loved, A was finally home from the military and we were all like "Let it rock, baby!"

But then there were issues with his job status that were going to keep us from getting a mortgage. And we thought we were fucked because of the contract on the condo - we were going to have to move in November no matter what. We had nowhere else to live and about a million things were up in the air - could we get the house? Were we totally unable to get the house? Was he going to get this new job that he really wants or wasn't he? WTF were we THINKING, anyway??

We were about ready to kill each other from the overload of stress. I formed a habit of hiding out in a bubble bath for as long as possible as soon as I got home from work. He spaced out in front of a marathon of Supernatural episodes. We drank too much, smoked too much, and argued too much.

And then today, we got word that the condo didn't appraise as high as we needed it to. We could take an additional loss and continue to sell it to our current buyer. We could let the buyer go and reduce the asking price to fit the appraisal. My husband texted me these options while I was on the road, and I responded:

"Take it off the market. And thank god for small favors."

What we needed more than anything else was time. The condo wasn't supposed to sell in 3 weeks. We weren't supposed to need to close on it before A found a new job. We needed time just to find the ducks, let alone get them in a row.

And time is what was granted to us today - in a form that most home-sellers would consider a major setback.

So thank you, Universal Chaos, for working in our favor this time. I raise my margarita glass to you in salute.

On another note, I had a very strange and unexpected reaction to a plot line in one of A's episodes of Supernatural. Now I don't actually watch this show. I was reading a book about Chicago hookers at the turn of the century and the information from the episode came to me peripherally.

Basically, the archangels of Christianity were coming down to earth searching for human "vessels" so they could fight a war against Lucifer and bring about the apocalypse. But they were total assholes - giving one of the brothers stomach cancer as a torture method to get their way, being more concerned with relieving themselves of the responsibility of running heaven than with the suffering and death they were about to bring to the humans on earth, etc.

Michael, Raphael, Gabriel - they were all part of this plot. And they were all dicks.

And this really, deeply, bothered me.

Might I remind you, I am an Atheist. A Catholic-born one, but an Atheist nonetheless. So the fact that it bothered me, bothered me even more.

But my reaction to it was "WTF? The archangels are the protectors of mankind. They are supposed to be the embodiment of kindness, perfect love, and compassion! What the hell kind of bullshit are these writers trying to spin??"

And then I gagged in my mouth a little for even having that reaction.

My grandmother, when I was growing up, was very into the stories of the angels. She claimed to have seen them, and spun fantastical tales of the presence of angels on earth. When I was 4 or 5 years old, I spent every night praying feverishly, asking for an angel to come to me. Obviously, no one ever showed up. I was very upset that my grandmother could see angels and I couldn't. Really, this was probably the first domino to drop in my long and twisting path to Atheism.

The best explanation that I can come up with is that my feelings were aroused in the same way that they are when a beloved fairytale or novel is bastardized for television or the movies. It's not that I believe in angels, but goddammit, you're going to characterize them in the way they were meant to be and has always been told! As in, Michael is supposed to be the most beautiful, most powerful, and most loving angel that ever existed - not some douchebag that smites people for not conforming to his will.

But still. Strange, huh?