Religious Experience
When I was in middle school I used to listen to Avril Lavigne’s song, “Skater Boy” and I admit I still know every word to it today. So when I saw that after a long period of time, Avril came out with a new album, my curiosity was struck and I had to listen to it. When I heard the lyrics, “God keep my head above water” my first instinct was wondering if Avril had had some type of religious experience. I kept listening, “I’ll meet you there at the alter, as I fall down to my knees.” Okay it was clear, either she wants to reach a wider audience or she had had a real encounter with God. Either way, this song ended up on Christian radios and became a song of hope for a lot of people.
Avril faced a hard time in her life when she fell ill because of Lyme disease. For months she was bedridden and naturally started to feel discouraged. She said that while she laid in bed one night, convinced that she was going to die, the lyrics of this song came to her. She had hit a low and her instinct was to ask God for help. She simply just wanted to survive. We all are capable of dealing with hardship seasons, but they are suppose to be that, a season, not a permanent type of lifestyle, and when a season becomes too long, we become drained and exhausted and it feels like we are just trying to “keep our head above water.” In the Tortilla Curtain, Candido and America hit rock bottom many times, and in a sense were constantly drowning. Nothing was going right. Many times I thought, “Can it get any worse?” And of course it did. They simply wanted to keep their head above water and survive both figuratively and literally in the last chapter. As they floated in the mudslide, Candido realized he lost his child and grief over took him. The book ended, but I think in a moment like this, there is nothing else to do except ask for God’s help.
|
"Head Above Water" - Avril Lavigne |
Head Below Water in The Tortilla Curtain - T.C. Boyle |
| I don’t want less, I don’t want more | In a month, maybe two, they could go up the canyon and into the city she barely knew. There was an apartment waiting for them, nothing fancy, not for now. A single room with a hot shower, and a toilet, some trees on the street and a market, some place she could buy a dress. (Ch. 8, 13:33 - 13:47) |
|
My life is what I am fighting for |
The beans were gone, the tortilla, the lard, the last few grains of rice, and what were they going to eat? Grass like the cows? That was the question she put to Candido when he tried to prevent her from going up the hill to the labor exchange for the fifth weary day in a row… (Ch. 6 00:01- 00:20) Her stomach turned inside out, it gnawed at her. She was hungry, ravenous, and though the store intimidated her, the hunger drove her through the doors with her money and she bought another tin of sardines… (Ch. 8 35:55 - 36:08) |
|
I can't seem to keep it all together |
I won’t stay here not one more day! Oh what stinking luck he had, it was beyond irony, beyond questions of sin and cop-ability, beyond superstition, he couldn’t live in his own country, and he couldn’t live in this one either, he was a failure, a fool, a hick who put his trust in a coyote… (Pt. 3 Ch. 6 1:38-1:55) "I want you to buy me a bus ticket with that money," she said. I want to go home, and I don’t care whether you’re coming with me or not. I’ve had it. I’m finished. If you think I am going to raise my daughter like a wild animal with no clothes, no family, no proper baptism even, you’re crazy. (Pt. 3. Ch. 6 4:29-4:45) |