Lightning from the Dark Cloud; pt. 9: Death and Mourning

A priest sits and talks with one of his order. As they talk his mind circles in on an idea he has been trying to block out. An idea he does not feel ready for. His mouth speaks, answers questions. His mouth with full lips shapes, as it often does, words which are not his thoughts.1

-In previous times it has always been Him who I turned to but…it’s different now. I find no solace in God anymore. My mind keeps questioning itself. That is what happened today, I couldn’t stop thinking about every detail of the sermon in circlel and then suddenly the whole thing seemed so…. futile. I… It was too much.2

Futile, yes. It seems futile to him, his religion. Life as set forth by his religion. He cannot work it out. While unconscious he returned to his childhood, to images of certainty. But that time is fading fast, as is this time. The walls silently hear his confessions. The wind rustles with his thoughts. 3

-I mean the whole religion! I cannot see the why of God anymore. It once seemed natural that we should worship God in this way, that I should live in this way but, now... why should we be punished for our humanity? I can’t understand anymore – why would God want me locked up in this old building where its cold and lonely? Why must I serve like a slave. I will not serve – I cannot.4

The why of God has been lost to him. Why rules? He wonders. Why punishment for expansion beyond the given knowledge? Why would God need control? Who would benefit? He will not serve, like Lucifer, who was cast down for loving himself, for feeling himself worthy. He will not serve. If one cannot think beyond what one is told one cannot rise up. Secretly his mind knows what he is looking for, but his soul is too fettered to his past to accept it. Yet. But he will.5

-Why would God need servitude? What does god have to gain by us moulding our lives around abstinence and smallness? Is it to appease God’s vanity, Thomas?6

God would not feel vanity, just as God would not change his mind, need control, need knowledge limited. If God is truth then knowledge could only lead to God. But he charged Adam, “Do not eat from the tree of knowing good and evil.” What does that knowledge lead to? Humanity. Dichotomy. Reality. God should not need servitude and control: a God who did would be vain and imperfect. But that very God is there in the Bible: if the Bible is not God’s word, then the basis for Christianity is gone and God vanishes. If the Bible is God’s word then He is imperfect and therefore is not God: God vanishes. Epiphany. The Bible is man’s word: to control, to keep in check, to keep mundane, to keep afraid and to keep guilty. Man has not found the true God yet, not fully, not the God of overflowing life. I have worshipped idols all my life. He knows now. He sees only the loss. His mind is ripped from stability, his sanity crumbles: a house into the sea.
We cannot know; that’s the best we have. Thomas saw the Priest’s face droop and gleaned defeat and acceptance.
Defeat. Final defeat of the Idol. The final argument: we cannot know: the final control. Do not seek to know. You cannot know.
This God is manmade thing disguised. This God is like a house or a gun or a lightbulb. 7

After talking with Thomas the Priest returned to his room, his mind a shambles. His world was empty. Looking out the window he saw the stars and the space between them: now empty - he felt it in the deepest recesses of his soul.
The priest saw his entire past life like a great city that now lay, tattered ruins against the dirt. His face screwed up in anger. Lines forming across every surface of skin. A hideous grimace: mouth curled at hateful angles: eyes like crushed cellophane and crystals of salt. His face grew red and his body shook with pain. The impotent rage and loss of his heart popped from his mouth in short, painful grunts and gasps. He felt the pressure build inside his head until his jaw ached and his temples writhed. On the point of exploding the priest crumpled to his bed. Tears as thick and golden as honey bathed his face. He longed for his mother: for connection.8

The depth of his loneliness pulled the covers of his bed around him and there, in the crisp, dying light of evening, he mourned his god.9