God

Posted March 18th, 2004 by Sean Williams

I was in the shower two days ago, and (for those of you who know me, this will come as no shock) not since, and I was thinking about the upcoming Law & Order auditions that Jordana and I were asked to attend. I think I said, out loud, “If only one of us can get it, let Jordana get it.” I didn’t say it to write it in this blog, and I didn’t say it so that she would hear, I was just hoping for a piece of awesomeness to happen to her, and I realized that I was willing to forego a piece of awesomeness for myself.

In 1997, I had just moved to Los Angeles for WhoTheFuckKnowsWhy, and I had an audition for Rent. I had tried praying when I was 15 or 16, one of those times that an evangelical had grabbed hold of me and asked me to read and seek and all that crap. When I prayed, by myself without anyone’s interference, I heard that icy chill of nothingness in response, that dead hollow open-door-on-Tundra sound that comes from movies.

But in 1997, after giving up the beginnings of promising momentum in New York, I decided to pray about the Rent audition. I don’t know how I did it, but I took it very seriously. The next day, during my audition, it was the only time I have had a casting director roll his eyes while I was performing. At the end as I was leaving he was actually *not* stifling a yawn. He was yawning as I said thank you and he actually handed my headshot and resume back to me. He didn’t even want to throw it away.

For the last few years, I’ve done various wardrobe changes during basketball games to improve the luck of the team I’m rooting for, it’s done nothing. When I sent out resumes, I did a little deep breathing as I mailed them, trying to send positive energy with them, and for the last 16 months it’s done nothing. I used to have a little thrill by muttering “Macbeth” in the theater during or before shows, but I’ve actually forgotten to do it lately. I didn’t do it during the last show, which didn’t change the outcome at all.

Look, I know God isn’t about answering your prayers. I know that God is an omnipotent whatever that works in mysterious ways and that asking for anything from the cosmos when you’ve given nothing to it is missing the point. I don’t need your cards and letters telling me I don’t understand what God is for, I do.

But I can’t feel it. I have never felt any sort of metaphysical power come over me at any time or for any reason. I know that when I said out loud “Let Jordana have this one” that it was for my own pathetic edification, the fact that she did get cast and I didn’t had nothing to do with me, or at least it was only because she was what they were looking for and, for this one instance, I wasn’t.

I have a basketball in my house. I don’t have two. It isn’t a belief that I don’t have two, I don’t actually have two, I have only one. If someone walked in to my house and said, “I believe you have two basketballs, but the second one can’t be seen, smelled, heard or touched. It functions as a basketball, in fact is a basketball that will go where you want it to go as long as you believe in it. No-one else can see it either, but you will know when it has gone through the hoop, you will know when your crossover breaks ankles, because your faith will guide you.” then I would look at that someone and say, “I don’t have to offer proof that there is no basketball, you have to offer proof that there is. When you do, I’ll play with your magic ball, but until then, all there is is the real ball and me.”

I’m willing to go one step further. “You only say there is a basketball because you can’t deal with a world where athletic talent is uneven. You can’t accept a world where trying to succeed doesn’t guarantee success. You are so afraid of living in a world where the only basketball there is is the real basketball that you have to invent a pretend magic ball that will give the world some order.

“But, the fact is, people die from falling ice, people don’t love the people who love them, dogs get hit by cars and monkeys fall out of trees. The world is breath-staggeringly random, there is no order, there’s not even the remotest possibility of order. A certain number of people die every year when they fall in a parking lot, just slip and smash their brains open. And it is horrible to live in the actual world, I know. It’s lonely and inconsequential, and in your life, your brief stretches of joy and happiness are going to be mathematically corrected by periods of suffering and pain, though most of it will be filled by eating, sleeping, shitting, fucking and ennui. It’s horrible, but that’s the truth.”

So, if anyone’s got God’s number, have him give me a call, okay? I don’t know what it would change in me, but I’d love a little burning bush to give me some direction.