Tiny Utterances

I got lost in the city once. All I wanted to do was walk down the street to see some shops and come back to my dorm within an hour.

Hilarious.

By the time an hour had passed I was so beautifully enveloped by the seductive tendrils of New York that each turn was like walking into a new dimension.  Don’t get me wrong, it was great to experience the city days before Christmas for the first time, but I was tired. I had walked over ten miles, I was hungry, thirsty, had been out two hours longer than anticipated, and my phone GPS was glitching. As I meandered along—looking a bit like a pissed off cat—I wanted to stop walking…but then I saw her.

There she was, glistening even on such a cloudy day. Thank God. She was the ray of hope that let me know I was home. She is the USS Maine National Monument—or as I call her, The Golden Lady—of Columbus Circle. Although I was still way down the street, she stood high above everyone else and was my guiding light. In times of feeling lost—be it day or night—when I see her, I know I am close to home. Her glistening, golden armor fills me with a twinkle of hope that no other monument makes me feel. I wonder how many people feel this way about this statue. Whether people are coming from work or travel, and just think ‘thank God’ when they see her.

And now, two years later, it makes me think of the words of William James saying how religion is personal, and the experiences of Jarena Lee.

Spirituality, for me in that moment, was personal. I was an individual experiencing a tiny moment of ‘Thank God’. It wasn’t an outward expression, but it was a twinkle of light in my underbelly that evoked a small prayer to be uttered in my mind. I—one of the least likely people to want to pray—was forced to pray…and it was completely involuntarily voluntary. Okay, yes; tiny utterances of ‘thank God’ aren’t considered to be especially significant because they tend to be an off-the-cuff comment, but it does make one consider the weight of the words. It sounds a bit like I’m ticking off boxes for how to experience spirituality and religion through the mundane works of art within the city, but honestly, think about it:

What moves an individual to call on God?

In that moment when one says, “Thank God,” or “Oh my God,” as a reaction to art…is that the Lord’s name being taken in vain—as the third commandment says? Or is it a religious experience? Jarena Lee, who would be at the brink of wanting to give in to the sweet thought of a peaceful death from a demeaning, fretful life, but would suddenly—like the flood from the age of Noah—have the influence of Satan washed out of her life by the light of God, experienced religion ecstatically. When modern day people see this Golden Lady, do they feel such religiosity on a lesser level? Who defines a religious experience, and the validity of a religious experience, if not for the person who has experienced it?

Well, my answers to these questions would be, no the Lord’s name is not being taken in vain, because if art moves a person to subconsciously call on God, hasn’t it successfully pulled that person towards a personal form of religion? Additionally, because it is a subconscious and vaguely removed proclamation, it can be considered a religious experience. Jarena Lee’s version of religious experience is not the only one that exists. It can be anything that moves you to feel…saved, I suppose. The Golden Lady, for a fact, reminds several people of home, and if they get excited about being able to rest after a long day, or be with their families, and think, thank God, that is a *tiny* form of salvation, in my eyes. William James expressed that religious experience can only be defined by the person who has it. So the hope and happiness I feel when I see The Golden Lady—that probably, many people feel—which makes me call on God, is a very valid personal religious experience.

Frankly, I can’t tell you how others might interpret this statue to be religious because defining the abstract religiosity of another is quite…difficult. But, if anyone on this overcrowded island happens to look at this monument and ponder similar thoughts, I suppose I have succeeded in explaining a singular interpretation of how the USS Maine Golden Lady could be seen as religious.