receive something quickly, and though I had been taught that God 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 assumed 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 damn myself to Hell 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 damnation. 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 passed, 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
I was faced with a choice, a very simple choice: I could continue to worship a God 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 competition 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
