Keeping Evil Away

 

Knees on the floor, hands held together, elbows pressed into the mattress for support. It’s the fifties, and that’s me kneeling bedside with my two sisters whispering nighttime prayers. Mom, with the soul of a poet, inspired us to memorize​

Night is falling, dear Mother, the long day is o’er,

And before your loved image, we are kneeling once more,

to thank you for keeping us safe through the day

and to ask you this night to keep evil away...

So, yeah, my relationship with prayer goes way back. In third grade, one particular prayer changed how I thought about God. I guess I was ready for paradox.

​It started one Friday after lunch, after some throwaway lesson led us third-graders into the week’s most beloved hour: Art. In Catholic school, that meant swapping our flimsy scratch paper from Arithmetic for heavy drawing paper. Whoo-hoo, time to go wild with our crayons! Sister had one rule. Each week she’d stand up, point her witchlike finger at us, and warn: NO CRAYONS IN THE PENCIL SHARPENER.

​Well, sure, Sister, all well and good, but about seven and a half minutes later, when the rounded stub of my purple crayon failed to serve my Friday masterpiece, I forgot. I snuck a few looks around the room, noted the empty space behind the sharpener, darted over, shoved that purple nub in, and nearly died at the sharp snap of it breaking. To make things worse, a line had formed behind me.

​I’m quick on my feet - was even quicker then, and before you can say, YOU ARE GOING TO HELL, I was back in my seat. Knowing me, I’m sure my eyes were blank, and I was completely dissociated. Actually, I wasn’t completely cut off from reality, because the next thing that happened was I heard some kid say, in a loud voice: SISTER, SOMEONE PUT A CRAYON INTO THE PENCIL SHARPENER. Even now, as I tell it, I sink into the horror of the moment,

​My life has been good. So good, I sometimes think I was born under a lucky star. Parochial schools back then were booming, and I’m sure there were 50-odd kids in that third-grade classroom. This played in my favor. The kid had no idea who had done the deed. Unfortunately, Sister Margaret Agnes was dead set on finding out.

Fri-yay fun dissolved into Fri-nay misery. I know now walls don't swirl, and desks don't sail toward the ceiling, but on that day, they seemed to. Sister began to pace in front of the classroom, fingering the oversized rosary cinching her waist, and demanded the culprit confess. I sat frozen in my seat - a dead fly in a plastic ice cube.

When no one spoke up, Sister tightened her cincture and announced, "We are going to go around the room." I want each single one of you to stand up, look up at the crucifix, and say, Dear Lord, I didn’t do it.

If fear had choked off reality before, the sound of this charge tipped me into a complete fugue. Row by row, I watched my classmates dutifully stand and repeat the prayer. By the time it was my turn, I followed suit. God already knew I did it. I couldn’t possibly descend to a deeper depth of hell and say it was me.  

By the time each of the fifty-odd third-graders denied wrongdoing, Sister’s wrath had ignited a crippling homework assignment. I may skirt rules, and class-size anonymity may have sheltered me, but I’ve always been a people lover. I couldn’t bear the thought of bringing such a punishing edict against my classmates.

I stood up, made my way through the prickly current running through the room, and stood in front of my teacher's squat, stolid bulk. I trembled as I yanked on her gathered skirt, and blurted out the bald, simple truth: Sister, I put the crayon in the pencil sharpener. I was a tiny shrimp of a thing. I’m sure it came out in a whisper.

Oh, dear, little Ginny,” she said, and immediately drew me in close. No anger. No disappointment. No prayer. No performance. I felt the roughness of her black habit when she hugged me, but  I remember mostly the surprising warmth of her affection.

Maybe she expected the culprit to be one of the bad boys. On a Friday afternoon, I’m sure she was tired. What mattered most was not the criminal found, but the grace of the moment: Held in Sister’s arms, I met a God closer to the one I’d hoped for all along. 

Keeping evil away often takes a circuitous route.