Scrupulousness

by Donna Schoenkopf

The heat continues.

I went outside to take my outdoor shower after an hour of watering the crispy brown lawn, the crispy brown cottonwood tree, and the few remaining sprigs of hardy weeds that grow sporadically around my house. I water every day in the early, early morning, but the heat is so intense and the air so dry and the clay so hard that everything shrinks up into nothingness. I was feeling, well, overwhelmed by the time I got to the shower. There’s so much out here at Chigger Lake going downhill, falling into disrepair, dying, because of the neverending heat, that I feel like Sisyphus pushing that boulder up the hill.

I treasure my outdoor shower. It’s one of the things I’ve done out here at Chigger Lake that has never disappointed or failed me. So I turned on the shower to stone cold cold and stood under it until I felt life coming back into my body. Then I put a dab of shampoo into my palm and POW! A crash of thunder so close and loud that the shampoo flew out of my hand.

I looked up. For crying out loud, there’s a single small black cloud overhead, I realized. That little devil must have stored up a whole lot of static electricity to let loose with a thunderclap like that. I was shaken up, wet, and under a cloud full of death.

I had to make a decision. To shampoo or not to shampoo. My hair was greasy after two days of neglect and sweat from working outside. Do I risk my life by standing under this shower of water while lightning is flashing around or do I scurry inside like a little coward?

Normally I do the adult thing. But not always. Sometimes I am a nervy risk taker for no reason at all. I was hot and tired and cranky enough to resent that cloud and its snaky nest of lightning bolts.

Shampoo it was. I flopped the shampoo onto the top of my head, gave it a rough massage, rinsed quickly, grabbed my towel and scampered into the house.

When I got inside I felt foolish about risking my life for clean hair. But sometimes one does foolish things.

More thunder. Loud. Close. Jeez. I might have been killed.

The rash of extreme weather lately has got me thinking about climate change, of course. It’s been on my mind for years and I often find myself on the verge of an antisocial outburst when I see people unconsciously living in a way that violates all my rules to keep the world healthy. Like letting your car run with the air conditioning on while your wife goes into the grocery store. Or passing up the china cup in the buffet line and taking a styrofoam one instead. My mental list of offenses and negligences is long and sophisticated. Not even I live up to it all the time.

My commitment and ardor has caused some damage to my children. My youngest son told me not too long ago that when he was younger he had an ongoing pervasive fear that the world was going to end. He believed every word of my lengthy and steamy speeches about saving the planet and all the abuse our poor Earth was continually taking from us humans. I had no idea he was that worried. He had never said a word about his fears. (I know children are like that. Often their fears are never expressed. Just deep down inside, unspoken.)

However, he didn’t try to be more ecological. I guess he thought it was a lost cause.

Sorry I traumatized you, dear John.

Both my son and my daughter have a tremendous aversion to large vehicles, especially Hummers, and they both direct angry thoughts at Hummer owners. They’ve told me of secret desires to key those monsters and John, when he’s in a particularly bad mood, will give the driver of one of those beasts the finger. Just because.

But neither of them drive hybrids or particularly gas-conscious cars. I guess they think actually making the world a better place is a lost cause.

It’s like the outdoor shower today. I am aware that I could actually get fried out there in the back yard under a stream of cold water. I imagine my dead body being discovered there a few days later. By then I would be water logged and swollen. The water would have washed away a good portion of the east hill. But does the possibility of getting killed by the “hand of God” from out of the blue stop me?

No. It doesn’t. I take my chances.

Do I believe fervently enough about the ecological disasters that face all of humanity? Am I really just a loudmouth who’s found a subject to spout off about so I can feel holier than thou?

Being raised a Catholic, and having gone to Catechism for twelve, count ’em, folks, twelve years, I am aware of the sin of scrupulousness. (I am currently the only atheist Catholic I know. Yes. It’s possible. Just ask me.)

Bet you didn’t know about the sin of scrupulousness, did you? Yeah, we Catholics can make a sin out of anything. (That’s not fair, folks. Just couldn’t let an easy joke get away.)

The sin of scrupulousness is about being punctiliously exact, meticulous. It’s about being extremely careful in doing the precisely right, proper, and correct thing in every last detail. Scrupulousness finds fault with everything that is not absolutely perfect. Scrupulousness keeps a person from seeing the beauty of creation. It sees small imperfections as huge and unforgiveable. Scrupulousness is uncharitable. Scrupulousness is harsh. Scrupulousness is unhappy and finds most everything undeserving of respect or love.

I remember Father Murphy in my twelfth grade Catechism class on the second floor of St. Benedict’s School after 9:00 mass, telling us about scrupulousness. He gave us an example:

St. Theresa is praying in the convent chapel. A nun is in the pew in front of her. She is trying to pray but the nun is rattling her rosary beads and St. Theresa is filled with fury at the thoughtlessness of her rattling. She is distracted and can’t pray. She realizes with a start that her scrupulousness is causing her to regard her friend, the nun, with such hostility that in a more uncivilized situation she would have leapt onto her and pummeled her. From that time on, whenever she heard that nun’s beads rattling, she heard beautiful music. And that’s why she’s a saint.

Yeah. Scrupulousness is a sin. For sure.

So. Maybe my taking a chance with my very life under that cold shower with lightning right over my head was my way of easing up, trusting, letting myself take that shower, getting a nice, fresh, clean head of hair on my head. Trusting. Not God or anything. Just trusting.

As I sit here writing, I touch my hair. My scrupulously clean hair. It’s soft and smells really nice.

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