Capcir Spring (27 page)

It was now John's turn to share dreams. He paused with his mouth open wondering whether to say it or not but then he said "I don't want to return to the life of a priest. I don't know what I want to do yet but in your presence, now don't get me wrong, I've finally decided that the celibate life of a priest is not for me. Now I haven't known you long enough to know how our relationship will develop. Indeed if we have any sort of long term future together but at the moment I feel more alive when I am with you than I have felt anyone else in the past. I haven't lost my faith. But my calling to be a priest was as clear and distinct as the feeling I am getting now that there is something else that I should be doing with my life."

" You know what we've both said. It amounts to let’s hang around together and see what happens. That sounds a remarkably adolescent, immature and irresponsible thing to say. But it sounds so right. I used to dream of the academic fame of revealing my discoveries to the world. But now, though I may get mention in the press, the French ministries and departments will take over and I'll not be wanted to dig my site. As if something like this could ever be mine. I think I only wanted to be a famous academic to make up for my total lack of recognition by James. I was a history student undergraduate when we met. He was a theology student. We married as soon as we graduated and when he was a curate I became his assistant, the vicars wife. If we'd had children it might have been different. I was so young..."

John broke the silence buy asking, "I've said I've still got a faith though perhaps not a vocation. You have never told me if God or religion plays any part in your life now?"

"God left my life with James. The institution of the church and James completely between them destroyed all the beliefs and ideas I had of God. Where was God when I needed him?
Why on earth doesn't God answer those questions? If god had been just a little more reasonable then I would have kept my faith. If God answered peoples problems and questions then probably the whole world would believe.
I asked so many times why is this happening to me and there was a stony silence in reply. The days I was in hospital recovering from the attack I prayed fervently and continuously for a miracle - but there was no miracle. After a while I thought why bother continuing with this so I stopped.
I felt ashamed even to mention these unanswered prayers to anyone. I was a sort of semi-professional religious person and I had found it didn't work. In fact you are the first person I have told about this. I found that all the disappointments tend to accumulate over time, undermining my faith with a lava flow of doubt. The more anger I directed at God, the more energy I seemed to gain. I realized that for several years I had shrunk inside myself. Now, as I started doubting, and even hating the church and other Christians around me, I felt myself coming back to life. True atheists do not, I presume, feel disappointed in God... But those who commit their lives to God, as I did, instinctively expect something in return. Is it wrong to have such expectations?"

"
I had various dealings with church people but they too did nothing except put me off all the Christian religion stands for even more. They were only interested it seemed to me at the time in how long I had before I had to get all my stuff emptied out of the vicarage. God didn't come into our conversations. As you know I resumed my historical studies at postgraduate level. And there the religious knowledge was very helpful in understanding the subtleties of the various heresies and factions in the ancient churches. But none of it was in any way real. I could have been studying alchemy. My religion has all gone."

"Do you miss it?"

"To be absolutely honest not at all. I loved the freedom of having an extra day in the week when I didn't feel obliged sing three hundred-year-old poetry to two hundred-year-old tunes and pretend it was moving me. I have found the support, companionship and fellowship with my professional colleagues to be as good as I got from the fellow members of the congregation."

"So church as institution rally let you down but what about God - the divine - Has all idea of God - however you define that gone too? For me even when I have been most angry with the church I have never lost the conviction that God is and God is important and this makes me even angrier with the way my fellow men (and it was always was men) let the great idea down."

"Yes - The world can now be a horrible unfair place full of needless suffering and if I care about this (and I do) then it is because of my love for people and life itself. I am not forcing myself to do mental gymnastics all the time to understand how God can possibly be there and care for people so much if it is all such a mess. I just cut the idea of God out of the picture and I'm happy."

"Doesn't it bother you that I feel that despite everything that I have been through, all that I have done: denying my vocation, lying to save my skin, breaking sacred vows etc. etc, that I still have not shaken in my belief in God. A God who loves me, puts up with me and wants better of me. At the times of my deepest despair I have been most aware of a living presence with me and beside me that is the same living presence that has been with me all along. I suppose my experience of God has been so much a part of my life that I have never thought of deleting that part. Oscar Romero, the South American archbishop, assassinated on the steps of his cathedral, wrote this. I had it pinned above my bed in the monastery where I was recovering and I said it to myself again and again and every time it rang true for me
'God exists, and he exists even more, the farther you feel from him. God is closer to you when you think he is farther away and doesn't hear you. When you feel the anguished desire for God to come near because you don't feel him present, then God is very close to your anguish.' I don't think that God could reveal himself in a way that would leave no room for doubt without somehow destroying me in the process. If there were no room for doubt, there would be no room for me to exist as a rational, self aware person."

"Of course that is not to say that God is pictured like other people picture God. I learnt long ago that orthodoxy was only engaging for those without a mind, will or imagination of their own. Thus for me the most difficult question any one can ask me is what God is like I have to answer with a meaningless mystical statement - God is blue. God is the pure bright warm blue of the dawn before the sunrise. It is the only way I can say what has been my experience and it probably makes no sense to you."

Mary was silent as if lost in thought or daydreaming. John continued "As for the old one about why God doesn't step in and clear up the mess and make things right and put an end to all suffering. Of course we spent weeks on those old chestnuts in the first year of seminary. An the solutions we arrived at which are the solutions arrived at by philosophers and centuries over the centuries satisfied me then, and I guess will satisfy me still."

"Hmmm. I think the point I am making is why should I bother. I have heard all the arguments too. I read a book once which set out very well why god is good and powerful and yet doesn’t use his power to do good. It seemed pretty convincing at the time that evil was not because God was not good or not powerful enough to do anything about it. Why should I bother my little brain with all these conjectures if the world makes perfect sense without this medieval metaphysical philosophy to help understand how god fits in when it all works much easier if we leave God out."

"But doesn't the word God mean anything to you on an emotional level?"

"In terms of the traditional Christian image, you know William Blake's white bearded old man in the sky, God is just a quaint aspect of a past culture for me. I reject it along with the idea that the earth is flat. But the other evening as I was alone in the flat staring out across the valley as the light slowly faded, I entered what could be described as a mystic reverie. I felt that I was being cradled and supported by the hills them selves. But it was more than perhaps older than the hills. It was the sense of something wonderful and something eternal. It was an other-ness, a spiritual dimension that seemed as real as anything else my senses could tell me at that moment. If you call that God then I have experienced God in this last week. But it is a very different God from the Judeo-Christian God as I learnt about in my years of orthodoxy."

"You are more orthodox than you think " suggested John, "Or perhaps it is that I am just as wacky as you!" They both smiled. "New age spirituality is a natural follow on from existentialism which was all the rage in previous decades. It takes for real as a starting place where we are and how we see things and feel about them and builds on that rather than saying this is how it is you have to believe it. Much new age spirituality is dependent on you finding the strength within you from techniques of meditation or channelling or crystals - this creative actualisation helps you achieve your full potential. I think you are more orthodox than that because you have felt the presence of God outside of yourself very recently as a very real experienced reality. That is an experience to be treasured as a gift. The church has lots of work to if it ever is going to give people true freedom to make their own personal spiritual journeys. People will not stand being told what to believe these days. The church has a vast storehouse of wisdom that can provide guidance and help from the traditions. As I think about our autonomy, our independence and our genuine searching based those chinks of revelation we have been privileged to experience I can see that I will be making a break from the mother church also to be with you. Your presence and conversation is so stimulating and challenging in every way. I have an intuition that our life pilgrimages and spiritual pilgrimages will go forward together and I am sure we will make some wonderful discoveries together."

A companionable silence fell on them as they arrived back at the shop and cabin at the entrance of the zoo. By this time John had taken her hand in his and she had let him. Walking along hand in hand seemed the most natural and wonderful thing in the world for both of them. Both felt at peace and a sense of contentment.

As they arrived at the car he said "I might as well learn what it is to be an adolescent. I spent all my adolescence in the seminary. So as you can guess apart from the tragedy last year, when I discovered the power that sexual passion can have over the whole of life, I am totally ignorant about what this business of falling in love and creating a relationship involves. Don't expect an easy ride."

"I was a devout serious religious girl in my adolescence so I don't think I had any of the wild fun that adolescents are supposed to have. I was a good girl at University too and met James in one of the fervently enthusiastic Christian student organisations. How naive we all were in those days. Perhaps this is a new teenage start for me too. But teenage years are full of angst and uncertainty too. Teenagers have fierce rows with their parents and other adults as they think no one understands them. It isn't all a joy at making all these new and wonderful discoveries about yourself and the world. Remember that I have been very badly scarred, literally and emotionally by James and I'm not sure how fast I can get into any sort of commitment. Let's just walk along together and see where we get to.

John couldn't resist quoting from TS Elliot: "What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from."

"You pompous twat" laughed Mary, "I agree that Thomas Sternes Elliot was absolutely right. I think we both need a new beginning." And she turned and kissed him lightly on the lips. At that point they both knew, although it would be some time before they would feel confident to admit it in words, that this was what each of them had been waiting for, for a very long time.

The End.