Wearing the Cross

on Symbols

You might be familiar with the use of a fish as a symbol of Christianity. In the first 300 years after Jesus’ death, the religion was highly persecuted by the Roman Empire and thus small, and secretive. In Greek, the word for fish is ICHTHYS, and in Greek that word is an acronymn for Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior- Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter (note: I found various versions of the Greek word for Son including Yios, Uios and Huios. I think this is due to the difference in alphabets). There is plentiful fish and water symbolism in the New Testament as well: Jesus feeding a large crowd with a small portion of loaves and fishes, some of the disciples being called to leave their literal fishing nets and become Fishers of Men, not to mention the sacrament of Baptism. Early Christians used a simple fish sigil to mark meeting places and possibly even to identify each other in public. Today it is a symbol still used by Christians.

A few months ago, I was at a local artesian spring (how fitting for this subject!) filling up 5 gallon jugs of water. A car backed into the parking space directly in front of me, and on the trunk was the outline of a fish, with the word Jesus inside. A middle-aged white man got out of the car. He was wearing a gold crucifix on a chain around his neck.

I just so happened to be wearing a crucifix around my neck that day, as well. It is quite large, 2” long and made of solid sterling silver. It portrays Jesus hanging on the cross, a rosebud at his feet, head and hands. On the back is engraved ‘KME 1.1.21’, the date of the vision that changed my life.

This crucifix usually lives at the end of my rosary. Every day I wear a pendant around my neck portraying the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary together. Sometimes I switch it up for a Miraculous Medal, but I never wear a cross or crucifix. I felt called to wear it in the days leading up to my confirmation as a Catholic, for reasons having nothing to do with identifying myself publicly as a Christian (I was wearing it because of a line from a ceremony that moved me deeply, which you can read about here). As the man with the Jesus fish and the gold crucifix got out of his car I wondered if my crucifix was visible, if he’d see it, and if he’d talk to me. Rather than feeling excitement or relief at the possibility of connecting with a Brother in Christ- the way I imagine the early Christians would have felt, seeing that fish symbol- I felt wary.

In 2022, before I started attending a Catholic Church and before entering into RCIA, when I was still actively in a bisexual, polyamorous relationship, I went to an evening prayer service at the nearby Episcopalian Church. I went with a friend, also an outsider to the Christian tradition, and my very Presbyterian aunt and uncle. After the service my aunt and uncle mingled and chatted with the other attendees, perfect strangers to them prior to that evening, while my friend and I lurked against the back wall. I felt afraid of the people in the church. Afraid they would be judgmental, bigoted, cruel. As I’d experienced Christians to be, so often. My friend felt a similar trepidation. When I expressed this to my aunt she said, “But they’re Christians! Christians are always nice.”

I was shocked by her easy assumption. Nice to her, I thought, as a fellow Christian, a heterosexual monogamous white women of the middle class. As a queer person and a formerly practicing witch I have gotten a very large mouthful of meanness from Christians in my time.

I was reading tarot cards at a farmers market in rural New Hampshire a few years ago when the cheese seller took a peculiar interest in me, hovering around my table when I didn’t have customers, asking questions. After awhile he made it clear that he was there to save my soul, and when I asked him to leave me alone he would not, following me to my car at the end of the day and shouting things about saving my soul and ‘planting a seed in me’.

Once when I was escorting my dear friend into the abortion clinic to end a pregnancy, we had to run the gauntlet of shouting Christians waving signs with photos of dead fetuses. My friend, already devastated by the difficult decision she had made, turned very pale and put her head down. Did they think their behavior was changing her mind or helping the situation, in any way?

I used to work as an in-home support to a woman with paranoid schizophrenia and intellectual disabilities. She was Black, and very poor, and also really really loved Jesus. We went to a Christmas concert at a wealthy white Protestant church where she stood in the aisles singing and waving her hands while everyone else sat sedately. When we tried to come back into the hall after going to the bathroom, a phalanx of older white men barred her from entering and then manhandled her out of the building when she tried to push through them. I was so, so furious and devastated at my powerlessness to help her. I just shouted at them, almost in tears, “I thought you were supposed to be Christians!”. They looked abashed, but didn’t let us back in.

Since these events transpired, and since being flung kicking and screaming (and yet, willing) into Christianity myself, I have come to realize that there are as many kinds of Christians as there are kinds of any other person. There are mean Christians and kind Christians, generous Christians and stingy Christians. There are Christians who shout cruelties outside abortion clinics and there are Christians who show up every week to serve food at the soup kitchen. Often, these activities are undertaken by the same person. Humans are flawed, and weak, and confused, when it comes to God or politics or relationships or just walking down the street. It’s okay. None of us are perfect. We can only stay in our lane and listen to God and, if we so choose, follow Christ as best we can and within our understanding of what that means.

I sometimes wish there was some symbol to identify other people who are dedicated to Christian values the way I interpret them. Love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control… you might recognize these as the ‘fruit of the Spirit’. It’s not a way of being that you get by wearing a cross. It takes work, and practice, and most of all it takes Grace.

And yet, what would that symbol become? Just another signifier of good or bad, in-group or out-group. Symbols are powerful reminders but they are also, so often, separators. I have a large pentacle tattooed on my chest, a spiritual reminder from a different religious tradition, and I’ve regretted getting it almost since the day it was inked into my skin. Not because of what it means to me personally, but because of the way it marks me as ‘insider’ or ‘enemy’ to many of those who see it, depending on their own interpretation of the symbol.

The man at the artesian spring didn’t talk to me. I don’t think people pay as much attention to each other as I often worry, or hope, they will. I filled my bottles and went on my way.

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