The Philosophy of the Filing Cabinet

I've gotten a few more readers here and there, mainly due to NaBloWriMo, and it occurred to me that some of them might be shocked and/or horrified if they read something like, "OMFC, that was the most disgusting thing ever!", thinking that I am a practitioner of sacrilege. There is no doubt that I AM occasionally sacriligious, but in this case, I'm really being more of a heretic. Just to clear things up.

"FC" stands for "Filing Cabinet." But not any old filing cabinet standing in a corner of my office. No, we're talking a COSMIC filing cabinet here...the means by which all of my ethics and beliefs and ideas about my place in the world are organized. One might call the Filing Cabinet my deity--and I'm only kinda joking when I write that.

I can't remember the exact circumstances of the deification of that particular piece of office equipment. I know that I was teaching at Dingleberry High. I'm assuming I was teaching tenth grade, because the curriculum for tenth grade at the time was fraught with religious imagery and setting. You can't teach Antigone without talking about the gods' intervention in her family's messed up past, you can't teach Julius Caesar without discussing the significance of portants. You certainly can't teach Night without a lengthy discussion of the Kaballah and various Jewish holidays--the book is in many ways an anti-love story as Elie Wiesel falls away from his God. (The senior curriculum is much more about writing style and the despair that comes with the English people turning from nature and the old ways. Good stuff...must go read some Wordsworth.)

Anywho, I'm sure one of my little sweetpeas asked me about my religion. This happens a lot in a small Southern town where faith is as much a fashion statement as it is a connection to a higher power. They also asked about my drinking habits ("You like to drank, Mrs. NotHannah? Come to the mudbog with us and we'll tie one aaahhhhhwwwwwn." "No, thank you, Bob. Why don't you sit down and try not to waste those three brain cells you haven't killed yet?") and my sex life. Teenagers are fun.

But the religious questions were far more common. I remember one little muffin who asked--after a lecture about the significance of Jews calling Josef Mengele the Angel of Death--who I thought the Antichrist was.

After blinking rapidly, I said, "Well, honey, I think the whole point of the Antichrist is that you don't know who he or she is. 'Cause, you know, the surprise factor is pretty key."

He mulled this over for a minute and then asked, in all seriousness and with great concern, "So...you don't believe in Jesus?"

I scraped my brains off the blackboard and changed the subject, realizing that there was no way I was going to school this precious child in how belief in one entity does not preclude or guarantee belief in its opposite. Because then his last three brain cells would leap, leming-like, out of his ears and his mama would come to the school demanding to know why I was telling her son to worship Satan.

I do remember very clearly pointing to my little office nook at the back of the room at some point in time and saying, "Look, I don't care what you believe in. Believe in that Filing Cabinet if you want to. Practice Organizational Day. Whatever. Just don't make it the basis of every one of your arguments." Huh. I wonder if it was debate class?

In any case, for whatever reason, the idea stuck in my head. And here I am, several years later, referencing the Filing Cabinet when I could say The Mother or The Goddess or Jahweh or whatever deity it is that is speaking to me that particular day.

My faith is one of stops and starts, of intuition and reason, of coincidence and dream. I have identified myself as a Christian, as a Pagan, as an agnostic (I've never, ever believed that all of this comes from nothing--even if that nothing is just a tiny spark of consciousness), a would-be Buddhist, an Animist. I am, at any given time, all of those things. I identify most closely with the Divine Feminine, but I have a hard time thinking of that entity as a Mother except for in times of despair. She is a Sister to me, a sort of cosmic family member who leads me where I wouldn't go otherwise.

I also recognize the power of the Earth itself; there is magic in the turn of a leaf, in the scent of soil, in the pattern of pine straw on a dark path. From this source comes my prayers, my charms, my small rituals that help my home and life run more smoothly when I give them the attention they deserve.

And I find great Truth in the words of Jesus Christ and the lessons he taught. I don't believe they are any different than the words of any religion's godhead in terms of Truthiness, but they are the words that I've always heard and read growing up Under the Buckle, and they resonate with me to this day.

Maybe more than an individual deity for worship, I should call the Filing Cabinet an analogy for the Truth. I believe that there is one Truth in this universe, one cosmic YES that all humans are instinctively drawn to. I believe the deities that we have named or recognized or chosen to worship are pathways to this Truth--and that no pathway is more right or likely to get you to the Truth faster.

All of the Files that make up my ME--my rituals for laundry, the spiral I trace in my hand in times of stress, the perfect nativity I'm trying to find for Christmas this year--find a place in the Filing Cabinet and become part of a bigger whole.

Of course, using "OMFC" instead of "OMG" means I don't have to clarify and say "I mean Goddess." Quite frankly, it frees me of the necessity of defining my faith, of explaining myself to folks who earnestly worry about my soul OR want to tease me about my charms OR who think I'm just plain silly for having a belief system in any way, shape, or form. It can (and often does) have deeper meanings for me, but nobody has to know this. There is no doubt that it might be a bit of a cop-out.

But, you know, I'm still Organizing my Files. Still a lowly Assistant in the Great Office of Consciousness. Still trying to find the Staple Remover of Redemption. Still grinding my Pencil in the Sharpener of Awareness.

Ahem. Perhaps I need to let the analogy rest while I'm ahead.