St. Joe, Where’d You Go?
By Julia Van Develder
Nov11
My St. Joseph statue has gone missing. Exactly how long he’s been gone, I’m not sure. Weeks, I suspect. The last I remember, he was wearing his cream-colored plastic robes (as always), his beard neatly trimmed, staring blankly out at the world from the middle shelf of the bookcase. True, he did look a bit uncomfortable sandwiched between the stacks of DVDs and boxes of Nicorette. But I imagined he was happy to be there, happy at least not to have been left behind at my old house, buried upside down in the front yard.
I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that that was the fate of my previous St. Josephs. One is buried in front of the pink house in Lagrangeville, the other in front of the house in Pleasant Valley—or un-Pleasant Valley, as my daughters used to call it. It was my intention to dig them up and bring them with me, but in both cases, I couldn’t remember exactly where I’d buried them.
So, yes—I used them, if that’s what you’re thinking. I enlisted their aid to help me sell those houses, and once they did their part, I abandoned them. The best they can hope for at this point is that some archeologist centuries from now will dig them up and make wild conjectures about the belief systems of the peoples who once thickly populated this fertile valley.
But this time, I had two witnesses to the burial, one of whom paced off the distance to the burial spot from the front walk, so I knew where to dig the day before the closing. It took a bit of poking around with the shovel, but I found him, all right--washed the mud off of him and brought him to my temporary abode with the intention of planting him right side up, facing in, in the front yard of my new house, when and if I succeed in purchasing it.
You never heard of this bizarre ritual? When you want to sell your house, you’re supposed to bury a St. Joseph statue upside down, facing away from your house. If you want St. Joe to watch over your house and protect you and your family, you bury him right side up, facing toward the house.
Mind you—I don’t really believe any of this. I’m not a Catholic and never was. I’m not even a Christian, although I was raised as one. In fact, my parents were missionaries when I was a little kid. And then, when I was a bigger kid, we moved back to the States and my father went back to school and got his doctorate and became a teacher of preachers. For a while, in my teens, I tormented my parents by declaring myself an atheist. In college, I switched to agnosticism, and after college, Judaism. Twenty years later, after my divorce, I almost became a Quaker. I like the Quakers a lot and attended silent meetings for a couple of years. I quit, though, when they asked me to sign up for real. I’m just not much of a joiner. Plus the committee work was killing me. So now, I’m a Buddhist. Real Buddhists probably wouldn’t consider me one, but whatever. This story isn’t about my spiritual journey; it’s about my St. Joseph statue.
In case you’re wondering why I engaged in this practice if I didn’t actually believe in the power of an inanimate object to influence the outcome of my real estate transactions: I just thought—couldn’t hurt. And in point of fact, it seems to have helped. The first time, I sold my house to the first people who came to look at it. The second time, I can’t remember how many people looked at the house, but not many. It sold within three weeks. And this time? In a terrible market? The house was only on the market for a week—sold to the second person who came to look. If that doesn’t make a case for St. Joseph, I don’t know what does. And clearly, St. Joseph doesn’t care what you believe. He’s an equal opportunity saint.
I can’t remember who told me about St. Joseph, but I do remember feeling a little nervous about buying one of these statues. I purchased the first one long before the advent of Ebay, when people still bought things in stores. Near where I worked, there was a strip mall that had a store devoted exclusively to selling Christian paraphernalia. I went in—the shelves were a little bare. The proprietor, a middle-aged man who might best be described as “beige” sat on a stool behind the counter, reading a dog-eared copy of The Thorn Birds. “Can I help you?” he asked.
“Just looking,” I lied. I was pretty sure he would disapprove of what I intended to do with this statue, so I didn’t want to just come right out and asked for it. I checked out the Jesuses and the Virgin Marys. There were a couple of dusty plastic crèches that I pretended to find fascinating. I didn’t see any St. Josephs, but I didn’t really know what he looked like.
“If you don’t see what you’re looking for, I can order it,” said the proprietor.
“Actually—have you got a St. Joseph?” I asked.
“Selling your house?” he answered.
On the shelf behind him was his stash of St. Josephs, about a dozen little boxes neatly stacked. He gave me one and rang me up. It was less than $5, I think.
Since he didn’t seem to be offended, I thought I might as well pick his brain while I was at it. I asked him how deep I was supposed to bury him: “Oh, a couple of inches ought to do it.” I asked him whether I was supposed to say “Hail Joseph!” or anything like that: “Hail Joseph?” I asked him if it worked for non-Catholics: “I suppose it might work better if you’re Catholic,” he said, “but I don’t really know. I don’t really believe in it.” I must have looked crestfallen because he hastened to add: “But some people swear by it. I sell a lot of these.”
I can’t remember where I got the second St. Joseph, but the most recent one I purchased on Ebay. He came with instructions advising the purchaser to get his/her house ready for market before planting the statue—in other words, not to put the whole burden on a piece of plastic. The instructions ended with this endearing multicultural slogan: “Trust in Allah, but tie up your camels.”
I was quite proud of myself for having dug up St. Joseph and brought him with me. It assuaged my guilt for having abandoned his predecessors. And I started to build a little narrative about the future around him. Maybe now I could stay put. I’d plant him right side up in my new home and live happily ever after.
The immediate problem was that I didn’t have a new home to move into. The house sold so quickly that I hadn’t figured out yet what to do next—rent? buy? move away? stay here? get a job? jump off the Mid-Hudson Bridge? So many choices!
Luckily for me, I have some good friends who offered to let me and my two labradoodles live in their basement while I figured out my next move. “Basement” doesn’t really do the space justice. It is in the basement, but it has high ceilings and big windows looking out on their pond. They said they’d been planning all along to make it into an apartment, and as soon as I said “Yes!” they built me a patio and put in a kitchenette. “And you really should have your own entrance,” they said. Yes—very good friends. So they ordered a lovely Pella patio door and arranged for their carpenter to install it.
Let me tell you—this guy is no ordinary carpenter. He was in the process of converting their garage into a “man cave” for the husband when I moved into the basement. John is his first name, and his last name is Italian. Not “John Italian,” but John with an Italian last name that I can’t remember at the moment.
If you want to know how terrific a carpenter John is, just ask him. Actually, you don’t even need to ask. All you need to do is spend about five minutes with him and he’ll volunteer that information. He’s won awards for his work, both in this country and the “home country”—Costruttore dell’Ano, which is Italian for “Builder of the Year.” Plus? He’s a published author. In case you didn’t know, he’s written many, many short stories that have been published in the New Yorker and similarly prestigious magazines. “I should apologize for how good I am,” he told me with a straight face.
I offered to help paint the man cave to get it ready for a visit from the building inspector, which is how I came to spend an afternoon with John the Magnificent. I’d been in his holiness’s presence for about 15 minutes when he complimented me on my painting skills and said that this was why we needed a woman president and that we’d be a lot better off with someone like Sarah Palin in the White House.
I was confused for a moment. So that she could paint it? What, what?
When I realized that he was serious, I figured I’d better keep my mouth shut. He sermonized for about half an hour straight. Told me that he lived in an apartment in Poughkeepsie and that people couldn’t believe that he, with his brains and talent and good looks, didn’t own his own house. But he’d made some bad decisions in his youth—alcohol was mentioned briefly. Fortunately, God had saved him. And that was why (he said) he was a creationist—because, how could so perfect an invention as the human being have been anything other than a divine creation, set down on this earth fully formed in God’s own image?
My head was spinning by now—maybe it was the paint fumes. But. I just couldn’t let that go, even though I knew I should. “Have you been to the Grand Canyon?” I asked innocently.
“Oh, yes!” he said, coping on immediately to my drift. “That’s why I am a creationist and an evolutionist.” He proceeded to explain that he believes in evolution when it comes to rocks and stuff, but he believes that humans—specifically, Adam and Eve--were was created by God in more or less their current perfect form and plunked down on a planet that had been evolving for a few billion years. I may have gotten a few of the details wrong, but that is the gist.
I didn’t say anything else, I swear, except “Uh-huh,” and “Interesting!” But I’m pretty sure he knew I thought he was a nincompoop.
Which is probably why he stole St. Joseph.
That—or maybe my bumper stickers drove him to it. After the rapture, can I have your car?
He’s the only person, other than my gracious hosts, who had access to my room in the basement. The lovely Pella patio door he installed is right next to the bookcase where St. Joseph stood, waiting patiently to be taken to his new home.
Which day did God make all the fossils? That one probably really got his goat. Or maybe it was Halliburton got your Medicare.
I can’t prove it, of course. Nor do I want to. But it is kind of ironic, isn’t it? That a so-called Christian would break one of the Ten Commandments? For what? To rescue a plastic statue from a heathen?
Since Catholicism is one of the few religions I haven’t tried, I’m not sure what the Catholics would have to say about this matter. I do, unfortunately, know what the Buddhists would say: It’s my fault.
And not because I thought derogatory thoughts about John. I’ll get to pay for that one eventually, but this one—the theft of my St. Joseph—has to be the consequence of a similar act on my part: taking something that didn’t belong to me.
According to the Buddhist way of thinking, nothing can arise in your experience that you haven’t created by your own word, thought, or deed. In other words, nothing can happen to you that you haven’t done to somebody else sometime or another.
So let me see…have I ever stolen somebody else’s St. Joseph statue? Ummm—no? I would never do that. And if you think I’m going to list all the things I did steal, think again. The last time I checked, confession was strictly a Catholic thing.
Besides, digging up daylilies from the side of the road and transplanting them to other places that need a spot of color—your yard, for instance—is not stealing. It’s spreading beauty, which is a good thing, a mitzvah.
As for my St. Joseph, I hope he’s in a good place, and I sincerely hope that John will someday have a home of his own to bury him in front of. Frankly? I’m just relieved that he didn’t take the iMac.