The Many Loves of Lyttie Poe, Episode Two

I was raised atheist; in fact we were fundamentalist atheists. (Our bumper sticker would have read: “There Is No God, Only Ignorant, Superstitious People Believe In Him, And That Settles It.”)

If I had any notion of a Higher Power, it was picked up from neighborhood kids who were always saying, “God’ll get you for that.”

I pictured God, if he existed, as a mean old man up in the sky watching me all the time with a very angry expression on his face: “Hmmm she lied to her mother.” “Hmm she didn’t brush her teeth.” If knew when I committed enough “sins”--Pow! Right straight to hell. Scared me to death. Who’d want to believe in something like that?

Years later when I got into Al-Anon, I could see that the people who were making positive changes believed in some kind of god, even if it was only the power of the group.

They said I could come up with any higher power I liked. So I started experimenting. The problem was I really had no concept beyond that SOB in the sky. Who was my higher power anyway?

Then I read about a lady whose higher power, a kindly old grandmother, came to her in a dream. I started telling myself, “Tonight I dream about my H.P.” over and over just before falling asleep. After three days, I was rewarded:

I dreamed I was walking through a vacant house. Suddenly I knew that my Higher Power was about to pass outside the window. Oh boy! I ran to look and who should pass by but….

Popeye the Sailor?!

Oh for heaven sakes! What kind of higher power is that?

But some days later I realized, Wait a minute. What does Popeye say?

“I yam what I yam.”

The more I considered it, the more I realized the profundity of it all.

At age five, I was in love with Popeye and wanted to marry him. Although terrible jealous of Olive Oyl, I was a lot like her--gawky and skinny and kinda dumb, always getting in some kind of trouble. I’d love to have been able to yell, “Help, Popeye, heeelp!” and have him eat his spinach, his muscles get huge like pyramids, and then POW! he socks the bad guy all around the earth and into a pig pen. I throw my arms around My Hero as he sings and goes poop poop on his pipe.

Now I won’t tell you I belong to some kind of Popeye-worshipping cult (though I do love spinach). That dream helped me develop a Higher Power who is, like Popeye, strong to the finich, ready to come to my rescue, and, if he is watching me, it’s only because he thinks gawky, stupid me is the most beautiful thing in the world.