A recent Bachelorette contestant had an interesting altercation with god in the shower. Yes, I watch the Bachelorette. My wife watches it and now it has grown on me, I must admit I even like it a bit. The amount of shame I feel about it is not the subject of this post, we will not spend time there. Instead, I want to look at something else.
I don’t have much knowledge of the show’s past history, but I do know that last season on The Bachelor the contestant was a virgin. It was the popular storyline of the season and the man, Colton. Yet, there seemed to be something more to the story. Colton never said that he was a virgin for a reason, he actually made it a point to make it clear that wasn’t the reason. He claimed he was extremely busy with sports and it just never happened…I’m not sure this makes the most sense, but I guess it could be plausible. But as the season finished up, Colton had a tattoo of a cross on his wrist that I and my hadn’t noticed. He also was extremely drawn to a girl who attended Biola, a Christian University and the same school I actually attended. He pursued her to the point where she had to tell him she wasn’t interested and even dipped out on two other contestants. Once again, he was extremely drawn to her. They hadn’t really connected much and yet, he continued to chase after her. Anyways, I was convinced he there was some sort of religious information that was being withheld. Maybe he was embarrassed or maybe he didn’t want to turn other girls away who would be turned off by his religious background. Not really important. What is important is another contest who is now The Bachelorette.
I believe she was a final contestant as well because she was deep into her faith. On the first episode of the season, she was pacing around the pool praying before she went in to meet her suitors. There was also a clip of her yelling “I’ve slept with people and Jesus still loves me!” This is all to get to the point of another contestant, Luke. Luke’s introduction was a clip of him talking about a moment he had with god… in the shower.
Now I don’t want to talk down for a couple of reasons. One, I love showers and find it an almost “spiritual” or calming place to be. So I could see the shower being a place for something like this to occur for someone, even if it comes off weird. Secondly, in my more wannabe pious days, I found myself praying in the shower as well. But I never heard from god. What he heard from god is what I really want to focus in on.
He said had a moment with god and realized he isn’t the man he wants to be. I can hear my brother telling me I’m being too critical in my head, and maybe he’s right. But I think this reveals something about the way we view god in our culture, god and religion. Whether Luke really had this moment or is doing it to prove to the Bachelorette that he fits this religious mold is debatable considering the history I’ve covered above. It seems maybe people are seeing this “religious” thing could work in their favor. Either way, it shows that we view god in a way that he is shaking his head at us.
We combine the concept of god and being a good person together all the time. Being religious is synonymous with someone who is trying to be a goody good or better their life through this system of beliefs and church attendance. They often come off self-righteous and judgmental, but still the idea of god is related to him somehow not being satisfied with us. He isn’t happy and now we are working on being better.
All that to say, I really hope it isn’t that way. I hope god doesn’t look down on us to tell us we aren’t good enough but rather we are loved exactly how we are. Sure, we can always get better but that is for us to figure out. Maybe God just tells us he loves along the way, while everything else makes us in this guilt ridden world makes us feel inadequate. Hopefully.