We moved from there to my specific experiences with Ben. He said he wholeheartedly believed that Ben was an agent of Satan, most likely a demon in human form, sent specifically to tempt me and destroy me. He told me that G.o.d obviously must have something greater in store for me if Satan was sending someone so powerful, and that I should continue with a strict prayer regimen, which would give me the strength that I needed to fight. He also said that if the situation got further out of control, the Vatican had a staff of approximately ten exorcists who worked exclusively in the United States. They could be called upon to confront the demon directly, and had the power to send him directly back to h.e.l.l. He directed me to alert the other priests in my parish to the demon"s presence, and said that all of us should keep holy water on our persons at all times, and that when the demon returned, we should splash him with it. I thanked him for his advice, and he told me he was proud of me, and that he was excited to see what the Holy Father had in store for me. I thanked him and said goodbye.
I spent the rest of the evening in prayer. I slept for a couple of hours and woke the next morning and resumed my duties and worked according to my normal schedule, celebrating ma.s.s, advising and comforting parishioners, and doing paperwork related to my church. Every free moment I had, I spent either reading the Bible or praying, hoping that G.o.d would respond to me in some way. I wanted, more than I had wanted anything in my life, to receive some sort of sign from the Holy Father, some sort of indication that all of the time I had spent on my knees and before the cross had not been wasted. Because of what I believed to be the gravity of the situation, I hoped to receive something quickly, and though I had been taught that G.o.d works in his own ways, ways that man does not and should not understand, I was upset when nothing came. A sense of loneliness, which in some way had always been with me, but through study, prayer, and activity I had always been able to ignore, deny, or control, began to overwhelm me. I had always felt that I was missing something, or had lost something, or misplaced something, and I a.s.sumed that that was a normal state of being, part of the pain of being human. Within a few days, however, the feeling became one of complete emptiness, hopelessness, and horror. I started weeping while I prayed, and weeping before I went to sleep. I wept when I woke up, and I wept whenever I was alone, and I had to force myself not to weep in the presence of other people. I didn"t want to get out of bed and didn"t want to see anyone. The job that had meant so much to me for most of my life had lost all meaning. It got to the point where I started thinking about killing myself. I knew it was considered a mortal sin by the church, that it was believed I would d.a.m.n myself to h.e.l.l for all eternity in committing it. I also didn"t know what else I could do. I had no one to talk to about the situation. I knew that my fellow priests would tell me to continue to pray and that through prayer I would find my way. I had no other friends, and no family. I no longer felt close to the Holy Father or Jesus Christ. I was absolutely alone, doing something that no longer had any meaning for me, and I wanted to die.
I tried to identify why this was happening, and it was obviously tied to meeting Ben. This led me to a startlingly simple conclusion, which was that in my entire life, as a child, in the seminary, and in all my years in the priesthood, I had never felt real love. I hadn"t received it from my parents, my teachers, or my fellow priests, and, despite what I wanted to believe, I had never got it from prayer, from the church, from Jesus Christ, or from my supposed relationship with the Holy Father. I realized that the most powerful form of love could only come from another human being. That the love that was spoken of in the Bible could only exist in a person walking the earth, and could not come from a representation of that person, regardless of how beautifully it was made. That love was something real if it was coming from a real person. I realized that I loved Ben, that even after my limited interaction with him, I loved him in a way that I had never loved anyone or anything. I also realized that, in some way, he loved me, that in his divinity, he expressed love for everything and everyone he came into contact with, and everything and everyone he touched. And for the first time in my life I understood Christ, and his importance, and I understood why I believed Ben was Christ reborn, and was the Messiah, as I still do. Like Christ, Ben loved unconditionally and without judgment; he loved men and women equally, and did not make distinctions between loving men and loving women; he made everyone who met him feel his love, and feel it in a way that was unlike anything they had ever previously felt; and he understood that religion as it was practiced had little to do with love. Love is something we must feel in our hearts, and in our bodies, and something we must express without fear of judgment or d.a.m.nation. Love is something beyond rules and dogma. Love is beyond good and bad, or right and wrong. And love is beyond people who know little of it and have no experience with it deciding how it can be felt or expressed or who has the right to feel it or express it. I believed Ben would come back, and I decided to wait until I saw him again before I made any decisions about my future, though I already knew what I was going to do.
A week pa.s.sed, and I continued to perform in my role as a priest, though it was entirely ceremonial for me. The words I spoke were empty, and I no longer viewed the blood and flesh of the Eucharist as anything other than what they were, and what they are, which is cheap wine and bad wafers. I spent most of my personal time sitting in the church, which was almost always empty, staring at the door, waiting for Ben to walk inside and sit down, but it never happened, and I thought constantly about what he had said to me the last time I had seen him, how he had whispered life, not death, is the great mystery you must confront in my ear. And he was right. I had spent my life worshipping death, fearing it, obsessing over it, and living my life according to what a book says will happen when it comes. I had functioned as a missionary of death for a dead church, praying to a dead man, and I came to understand that it"s no way to live, and that living is all we have, and all we will ever have, and that it is not to be wasted. That love is life. That life isn"t worth living without love. And that the Catholic Church, filled with celibate men who have no experience with it, has no right telling other people how to love or who to love or what kind of love is right or wrong.
I was faced with a choice, a very simple choice: I could continue to worship a G.o.d who promised me some kind of life after I died, or I could go live the life that I have been given. I could kneel before a statue, or I could find real people who might actually hear me. I could preach judgment and hate or experience love. It was an easy decision, and one morning, three weeks after my meeting with Ben, I took off my collar, and wrote a short note resigning my position, and thanked the men I worked with for their service, and walked out of the church. I walked into the street, a street where I knew he had walked, in a city where I knew he lived, and I started looking for him.
JUDITH.
I"m a light sleeper. A very light sleeper. I always have been. As a little girl, my parents used to have to turn off the television and the phones after I went to sleep because if I heard them I"d wake up. And if I woke up, I always believed it was because something bad had happened, or was going to happen. I was very skittish. Everything scared me. At school and later, when I started working, even in my car, I was always scared. I didn"t like being that way, but I couldn"t help it. It"s just how I am, I guess. Or it"s how I was. How I was until Ben. After Ben, everything changed for me.
I"ve led a quiet life. Lots of people would say it was boring, and they"re probably right. I was born in a small town in upstate New York. My dad was a farmer who grew potatoes and raised goats. My mom helped him and took care of me. I was an only child. My parents both wanted a large family, but there were complications when I was born and my mother couldn"t have any more. My mother blamed my father for not getting her to the hospital early enough, and my father blamed my mother"s body. I know neither of them really ever got over it because they used to tell me about it. The fact that I was such a disappointment didn"t help.
I met Ben in New York. I love musicals and used to go into the city once a year to see a show. I would save all year and get a special outfit and a hotel room in Times Square and go by myself for a fancy dinner and a show. The next day I"d walk up and down Fifth Avenue and look at the windows of the fancy clothing stores. I knew I"d never be able to afford any of the clothes, and I knew they didn"t make them for women my size, but I loved doing it anyway. I always dreamed of going into one of the stores and buying something, a bag or a dress or some shoes, but knew I"d never do it. Dreams are for people who can afford to make them come true. For someone like me, and for most normal people, dreams are just things that keep us going.
I was sleeping when I heard him. I usually stay in rooms on the first floor because they"re cheaper. And because elevators scare me, and I don"t like to use stairs. I had eaten a sandwich for dinner. It was roast beef and cheddar cheese, which I love. I had brought it with me from home, along with a bag of chips and some diet soda, and I had had some doughnuts for dessert, which are my true favorites. I had watched a couple of TV shows. One of my favorite shows is a dance compet.i.tion show. The men are really handsome and always smiling, and the women are graceful and wear the most beautiful dresses. It"s really like a fairy tale. And even though I loved the show, and never missed it, it hurt me every time I saw it. In some way, I know my parents loved me, even though they had trouble telling me, but no one else ever had. I"d never been on a date. I"d never danced with a man. I"d never really even had a man talk to me, at least not in a flirty way or anything. And it was what I wanted more than anything. Really, more than anything. To dance like one of the girls on the show.
After the show, I had gone to sleep. I had even put in earplugs because New York City is always so noisy. But I woke up right away. First I heard a rustling. Like an animal or something. It was a sound I knew from living on a farm. My dad had all his goats, and we had a couple of pigs, and there were lots of animals living in the woods near us. Animals aren"t so scary, especially if they"re not in your house. I thought I"d wait and it would go away, but it got louder. I thought whatever kind of animal it was, it was really loud. So I got out of bed and I walked to the window and peeked around the curtain.
At first I couldn"t tell what I was seeing. There was a dumpster right outside. The lid was open, and there was tons of garbage in it. Something was moving around. Really moving around like crazy. I didn"t want to open the window because I was scared whatever it was would come after me. And I didn"t want to call the front desk because I could tell when I checked in that they didn"t like me. I just stood and watched and hoped it would stop. I thought maybe even it would die. It was banging against the side of the dumpster, making really loud noises. I knew it must really hurt. And even though people try to pretend that pain doesn"t do anything to them, none of us can really handle it. Everything bad we do in our life is because of pain of some kind. I couldn"t imagine what it must have felt like. Twice I walked away from the window. I got into bed and put in my earplugs and put my pillow over my head. I closed my eyes real tight. I even balled up my fists. I just kept hearing it, though. A banging sound against the side of the dumpster.
Finally it stopped. It sure seemed like it took a long time. I went back to the window and peeked outside again. I saw a man lying in the dumpster. He was pale, and his clothes were really dirty and gross. He wasn"t moving at all. He looked like he was dead for sure. But he didn"t look scary dead, or mean or angry dead. He looked very peaceful. And normally I would have been very scared. I would have yelled or screamed. I might have hidden somewhere. I wasn"t scared at all, though. I actually felt sort of wonderful. I just stared at the man lying in the dumpster. I forgot about everything. I even forgot I was me, which was something that had never happened. After a few minutes, the man started moving his hands and legs a little bit. I opened the window and talked to him.
h.e.l.lo?
He looked up at me.
h.e.l.lo.
You okay in there?
Yes, thank you.
You were banging around a lot.
He sat up and turned towards me.
Yes.
What were you doing?
I was looking for food.
In a dumpster?
Yes.
That"s gross.
He laughed.
There"s lots of good food in dumpsters.
No lie?
He laughed again.
No lie.
What do you find?
What other people don"t want.
And you eat it?
Of course.
Is it good?
People throw away wonderful things.
Did you find anything wonderful tonight?
He smiled.
Maybe.
I smiled.
In there?
No, I got interrupted.
By me?
By G.o.d.
Excuse me?
I was speaking to G.o.d.
Like G.o.d, G.o.d?
Yes.
G.o.d from Heaven?
No, the real G.o.d.
Who"s the real G.o.d?
If a bird dropped a pebble in the same spot once every thousand years, the time it would take for that pile of pebbles to grow to be the size of the largest mountain on earth would be equal to one second of infinity.
Yeah, so?
He laughed again.
G.o.d is infinite. And like infinity, too vast and too complicated for us to understand.
Then why do people worship him?
They"ve been tricked into believing something that is wrong but that they can understand. Humans cling to what they can understand, even if it"s wrong.
If that"s true, then how does G.o.d talk to you?
The sound you heard was me having a seizure, and my arms and legs and head hitting the sides of this dumpster. In the second before I have the seizures, I see things, and I hear things, I know things, and I am told things.
How do you know it"s G.o.d?
Because of what I"m told, what I"m given.
Which is what?
I speak languages I"ve never studied, some of which are no longer spoken. I know the contents of the world"s holy books, word for word, even though I have never read them. I understand general relativity, quantum mechanics, string theory, astrophysics, quantum gravity, physical cosmology, and black hole thermodynamics, even though I dropped out of school when I was fourteen.
What"s all that got to do with G.o.d?
The first things allow me to understand G.o.d as G.o.d has been written, and portrayed, and worshipped. As people believe in G.o.d. The others allow me to understand how close we are to understanding the real G.o.d, the G.o.d that doesn"t need to be worshipped, that does not exist as we do, that does not judge us, that does not offer us anything more than what we have.
You sound crazy.
He smiled.
I haven"t told you the crazy things.
Things crazier than going into dumpsters for food and ending up having a conversation with G.o.d?
Yes.
I"m not sure I want to hear them.
He stood up, and in the dumpster he was almost at the level of my window.
Give me your hand.
Why?
I"ll show you.
Show me what?
He held out his hand. I stared at him. He was very thin, skinny like he was starving. And for the first time, I saw his eyes. They were jet black, and they should have been scary, but they weren"t. They were beautiful. And when I saw them, for some reason none of the crazy things he was saying sounded crazy. They sounded right, and I saw everything he was talking about in them.
Give me your hand.
Why?
To let you feel some of the things G.o.d tells me.
I reached out the window, through the bars that were covering it. As I watched myself do it, I couldn"t even believe it. I didn"t like touching people. I knew they didn"t like touching me. Not only that, I knew people didn"t even like the idea of having to touch me. I always believed I was a good person, and I always felt I was kind and honest, but I knew what I looked like. I had to face myself in the mirror every day. I was, and I am, fat and ugly. It hurts to say it, but I know it"s true. People have told me all my life what I am. They did it when I was a child, and all the way through school. They do it at work, even though I always smile and say h.e.l.lo. They do it as I walk down the street, like they think I can"t hear them or something. And it always hurts. No matter how many times I hear it. It always hurts. So I couldn"t believe this man was asking to take my hand. No man had ever done it. Part of me should have been scared. Once he had my hand, he could have done anything to me. But I guess I didn"t care. His eyes told me he was something beautiful and eternal. And even if he had hurt me, I would not have regretted it. Just to have had it happen once. To have a man ask for my hand, and to have a man want my hand.
It was a little cold. There was a slight breeze coming into the alley. The dumpster smelled like bad meat. I could hear traffic out on the streets of New York. I could hear someone yelling the word tickets over and over. The alley was lit by two streetlights. They were yellow, and one of them kept flickering. The shadows were moving with the flickers. People walking the street were moving into the shadows. I remember the moment very clearly. More clearly than anything, ever, because it"s the moment my life changed. My hand went out between the bars of the window. The bars were round and painted black and some of the paint was flaking off and my skin became cold, even though I was wearing a long-sleeved nightie. He took my hand and held it between both of his, and he smiled, and he spoke.
My name is Ben.
I had hoped to feel some kind of awesome romantic electric charge, like from a TV drama or a romance novel or even a Hollywood movie. What I actually felt was even better. It was the best feeling I had ever had in my life. My insecurity disappeared. My self-doubt disappeared. My self-hatred disappeared. My sense of disappointment in myself disappeared. The feeling that I was bad and wrong and ugly and nothing, that I was a fat, ugly failure, it just disappeared. That feeling of being alone, always alone, truly and deeply and horribly alone, disappeared. He held my hand and smiled and looked at me. I smiled back and spoke.
G.o.d.
Yes.
I let go and smiled.
Thank you.
He smiled and stepped back.
I don"t want you to go.
I need to find food.
I have food in here.
It"s not just for me.
Who else?
My friends.