Happy Endings

by Sally Quinn

  “I don’t need any help, really. I just want to understand what’s happening to my husband.”

  He looked at her for a moment, clearly trying to determine how to proceed.

  “Many people who come to me, including Catholics, come because they have crises and they lose their faith,” he said finally. “In order to be able to help them talk about it, I take the strongest case against God. There would be no way for me to get anywhere with them unless I dealt with their intellectual problem. Ultimately, life doesn’t make sense. The moral challenge of life is how to live with integrity in a world that doesn’t make sense. As Dostoevsky says, the death of one innocent child is enough to destroy a belief in God.”

  Now it was her turn to nod. She liked this man. He didn’t get defensive or hostile with her. He understood what her problem was. He wanted to help her.

  “I know it sounds like a contradiction,” she said, “like some sort of hidden fault line, that I could be an atheist and at the same time be mad at a God who does these terrible things. I can’t really reconcile this. I need to be angry. I’m angry at God, your God, Des’s God, until I remember that I don’t believe in God. Then I have no one to be angry with but Des. Or myself. I was mad at myself but I couldn’t sleep so I’ve transferred the anger to Des.”

  She had tried to make a little joke but it wasn’t funny and neither of them laughed.

  “What faith provides,” he said, picking up on her question, “is not answers but meaning to all the questions we have to deal with. As a child, Des may have been exposed to people whose lives took on a pattern of meaning; they were able to deal with their questions because of that meaning. The power of this tragedy has stripped the resources. It has driven him back to look for the meaning of the questions. St. John’s Gospel says ‘to believe is to see.’ It is a way to see through this tragedy and make sense. Faced with the most devastating event of his whole life he searches for meaning in a way he hasn’t done in a long time. My guess is he’s finding something.”

  “Something new?”

  “Not at all. This harking back got him in the door. Once he’s in the door, he finds what he knows.”

  “But Des has always called himself a lapsed Catholic. He has insisted since the first time I knew him that he wasn’t religious at all, that he detested the Church and everything it stood for, that he would never, under any circumstances, go back. He has always said that the Church is corrupt and has nothing to offer him. I remember him once telling me a story about having an automobile accident. They pulled him out of the car, bleeding, broken bones, half dead. The medics were so sure he was going to die that they asked him what religion he was. He told them ‘none.’ ”

  “To be lapsed is not to be disconnected. You never leave. Your baptism is the fundamental act of life. Nothing is so fundamental to your existence as having been baptized. You are joined to the body of Christ. You can reject it. But to the Church you are still a member. Coming home is another way to put coming back to your faith.”

  “You’ve told me what lapsed is not. What is it?”

  “A lapsed Catholic is one who is not fulfilling the obligations of faith, not practicing the faith… praying daily, going to Mass each week, using the Eucharist each week.”

  “Remind me what that means.”

  “Receiving communion. However, you ought not to receive the Eucharist if you are in serious sin.”

  “Is Des?”

  She had been having a hard time with this. Now she was incredulous.

  “In his situation, because of being divorced and remarried outside the Church, technically he should not receive the Eucharist.”

  “But what if it helps him with his pain? Isn’t that what the Church is for? To give solace? If he were married in the Church would that do it? Or remarried? Would I, I mean the spouse, have to convert to Catholicism?”

  “No, she wouldn’t have to be Catholic, but…”

  Allison leaned back in her chair. She found herself becoming truly angry. Not at this intelligent, kind priest, but at what she considered the absolute cruelty of what he was telling her in such good faith.

  “You’re angry. I can see that I’ve made you mad.”

  He understood before she had even shown a trace of her emotions. He was very smart.

  “I’m sorry. Yes, you have. You sit there in your little black shirt basically pronouncing life and death sentences on people with impunity. And if I may be perfectly honest, it sounds like total nonsense to me. And worse, it’s unforgiving.”

  “Are you sure you want to talk about this?” he asked. “I don’t feel I’m helping you.”

  He had that sympathetic look on his face again. She didn’t want sympathy. She couldn’t deal with sympathy. She wouldn’t let him comfort her. She wanted an intellectual discussion. Or at least she wanted to believe she did. What she really wanted was to vent her anger at someone.

  “All I wanted to know is if you think you have the answers to some of my questions.”

  “I don’t have ready-made answers. I’m not that smart. Things aren’t that simple.”

  “But you must have an answer for why a supposedly all-powerful good God would cause suffering. Otherwise you wouldn’t have devoted your life to him.”

  In her mind, God was always spelled with a little “g,” him with a little “h.”

  He nodded again.

  “I believe there is a good God who holds the universe in his hands. What makes it hard is if you believe that God is all powerful and all knowing, all good, and wills the best for his creatures. What do you do about suffering? Essentially, the way one approaches this, is that God has created a universe that has intrinsic human limits. Into this world that is without sin, there is in fact sin. A world without the possibility of sin is a world without freedom. The essence of sin is to choose against God. If God creates a world in which there is no sin he creates a world with no higher form of life than animals and things.”

  This made absolutely no sense at all to Allison.

  “Well, if God is all powerful, why couldn’t he create a world where there was no sin and there was also freedom?”

  “Catholics believe God can’t be a contradiction. God is the source of all truth. God in a sense obeys the laws of rational truth, a world in which there was no sin but there was freedom is a contradiction.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the meaning of freedom, when one engages God, is the ability, in spite of God’s love for us, to say ‘no’ to God. There is the possibility to reject God. The essence of sin is when a person wants something they cannot have and have God, too.”

  “Like chocolate cake?”

  She was now insistent on throwing a little levity into this discussion.

  “Like chocolate cake.” He smiled. “There has to be the possibility of saying no to God. If that possibility doesn’t exist, then there is no way to sin.”

  She was appalled.

  “So what’s wrong with that? Is this what people mean when they talk about Catholic fear? That they fear they will say no to God and not have him in the end? Is this what hell is? What is hell, anyway? Do you believe in it?”

  “Yes, I believe in hell.”

  “With the devil and flames and everything?”

  He smiled. “The picture of hell has been distorted. The essence of hell is to know that God is the ultimate good and that I will never be with him. Heaven is to know that the God whom I have known I now choose finally and totally to rest with him forever.”

  “I think that’s something you have to be brought up with,” she said. For a moment neither of them spoke.

  Then, with no warning, Kay Kay’s face appeared in her brain, as though it were a wide screen, completely wiping out everything else that was in her mind. Up until this point they had been having a perfectly rational conversation, arguing points, answering questions. Ironically, she had forgotten about Kay Kay while they had been talking, forgotten the reason she was there. Now she felt a sear
ing pain and she remembered the rage that had propelled her into this priest’s office in the first place. His god had killed her child and now he was robbing her of her husband as well. Yet she couldn’t fight against him with a small “h” because he had not chosen to reveal himself to her. It was like fighting marshmallows. In her mind, he didn’t even exist except to cause her pain, except to mock her through the faith of others, particularly through Des. This god they all believed in had the face of the Devil to her. She could more easily believe in the Devil. At least He, let’s give the Devil his due with a capital “H,” didn’t pretend to be something other than what he was. He was no hypocrite. He claimed His Evil. God hid behind the face of good. God was the real Devil, holding out this pathetic hope of eternal salvation to these poor assholes who believed in him, putting them through their paces, forcing them down on their knees to pay him homage, to praise him. Love thy god and watch me kill the person you cherish most and if you praise me afterward I’ll kill somebody else you love and make you grovel for my blessings so that I can cause you even more grief. Believe in me and watch me fuck you over. Amen. Ah. But if you refuse to believe in me, if you just don’t buy it; wait. I’ve got something better in store for you. I’ll make you pay even worse because I won’t even hold out the promise of eternal salvation. You’ll just be damned to hell. Neat little trick. I have the power to make you believe in me but I’m not going to do it and I’m going to punish you for not believing in me. Your choice, pal. Don’t believe in me and watch me fuck you over.

  Her voice was shaking when she finally spoke. She tried to control her anger but she could feel it spilling out all over this good Catholic’s desk like Christ’s blood. Lick it up, receive the sacrament, don’t hate, desecrate. She was losing it. If she didn’t get a grip she might start foaming at the mouth.

  “Well, either there is a god or there isn’t,” she said. “And if he’s all powerful then he can choose to whom he wants to reveal himself. He has revealed himself to all of these born-again Christians, these evangelical preachers who steal their flocks’ money and screw their secretaries. Why has he chosen not to reveal himself to me? Am I not good enough? I think I live a good, moral life compared to many ‘Christians’ I can think of. Are all of my decent atheist and agnostic friends not good enough, but thousands, millions of truly evil people who hide behind the cross more worthy? More evil has been done in the name of religion than in the name of anything else. Maybe that is the proof that God is really the Devil with a mask on.”

  Father Herlihy sighed. Those dark eyes bored into her. She couldn’t be sure what she saw in them. Certainly sorrow, and frustration.

  “We are faced with a leap of faith here,” he said quietly. “Faith is ultimately not the result of a rational conclusion.”

  “Bingo!” She practically leaped from her chair, elated. “Now that makes sense to me. I’ve been sitting here straining to understand what you’ve been saying for two hours. It’s like listening to someone trying to explain physics or trigonometry and you’ve finally given me something I can grasp on to. You’ve just said the magic words.”

  He shrugged, almost apologetically.

  “One never does it as well as one should. You keep trying to understand and to respond. A priest is supposed to be able to live it and explain it, to help other people live it and share it.”

  She returned to her seat and leaned back in her chair, oddly exhausted. She felt as though she had just gone twelve rounds in a boxing ring. She hadn’t won but she certainly hadn’t lost. There was no knockout.

  “I guess this is all pretty redundant and boring to you,” she said. “You probably have to go through this all the time, answering these questions.”

  “Look,” he said, leaning forward intently, “I don’t mean to sit here and say that I have all the answers and you have none.”

  “I don’t see it that way at all,” she said, a note of triumph in her voice. “I see it that you have all the faith and I have none.”

  * * *

  She was still shaking as she walked out of his office and back down O Street. What she needed to do was to go to the health club and work out on the “stairmonster” for about three days to get rid of the anxiety she felt. If only she could exhaust herself physically with exercise her jaw would stop aching from clenching her teeth and her stomach would untie itself.

  She turned right on 36th Street toward N and was almost at the corner when she looked up and saw a woman walk out of Holy Trinity Church. It surprised her, from a security standpoint, that the church would be open on a weekday. Then she remembered that Catholics have Mass every day. This was the church were Des went every morning before work. She had never been inside. Her curiosity overcame her. She walked up the stairs and pulled open the door.

  The church was large and open inside with the sun pouring through the beautiful stained-glass windows. It had already been decorated for Easter with tiny blooming cherry trees, tulips, and azaleas. There were two aisles on either side of the main altar, each leading to the small nave. On the left there was a miniature chapel with its own crucifix and altar. Sitting in the front row facing that chapel, his head bowed in prayer or concentration was a man in a camel corduroy jacket, with curly black hair. She knew instantly that it was Des.

  She slid quietly into the very back row on the right-hand aisle, pulled a scarf out of her pocket, and put it on. If he happened to get up quickly to leave she could always kneel and bow her head.

  Two women came in and walked down Des’s side of the aisle to the front. They genuflected, then crossed themselves and sat down. One of them walked up to the small chapel and knelt for a while, then returned to her seat. Finally they left. Des never moved.

  Now it was just the two of them. It was very quiet. From somewhere near the tiny chapel came the sound of running water, like a fountain. She couldn’t see it but the noise was quite loud and blotted out any street sounds she might have heard.

  She sat there perfectly still for a long time, listening to the tinkling of the water, watching the sun sparkle through the stained-glass windows, smelling the flowers. She could feel the tension begin to drain out of her body. She closed her eyes so that only the sound of the water dominated her senses and waited while the anger dissipated. She was almost afraid to breathe, the silence was so soothing that she began to be overcome with a sense of calm and total peace.

  At first she had this odd sensation that maybe god was going to reveal himself to her.

  Okay, okay. You want me to reveal myself I’ll do it. I can’t stand any more of this bitching. Here I am. I’m not Santa Claus, I’m not the Easter Bunny, I’m really God. With a capital G. White robes, long beard, and everything. Now do you believe in me? It doesn’t get any better than this.

  She waited.

  Nothing happened.

  Still, she felt more peaceful. She was more relieved than anything else. If god had actually revealed himself to her she would have felt unbelievably stupid. Ironically, she was even more convinced now that there was no god.

  She let her mind go completely blank. She didn’t have to hear anyone talk, she didn’t have to talk to anyone, she didn’t have to think. She could just sit there and listen to the water. Des had god. She had water.

  She saw Des out of the corner of her eye. He sat up on the bench, then genuflected and crossed himself. Before she could move he had started up the aisle. She quickly pulled the scarf around her face, bowed her head, and knelt down. She waited until he had left the church, until the large double doors had closed and she was all alone.

  She didn’t get up and leave right away. She sat there for a few moments more, not wanting to give up the serenity.

  She had learned something from coming here. Even though god had not revealed himself to her. She had found some measure of peace, of spiritual solace, a salve for her wounded soul. If that’s what Des got out of his religion, then how could she be angry with him for it? How could she possibly deny it to him? It didn�
�t mean that his belief and her disbelief wouldn’t cause some separation or lack of communication. What it did mean was that they were both hanging on by their fingernails, and if this is what worked for him, so be it.

  * * *

  She got home before Des that night. She didn’t feel like having a drink. It was the first time since Kay Kay died that she hadn’t had a glass of wine immediately when she got home from work. She fixed a glass of sparkling water and lime and went upstairs to get out of her office clothes and put on sweats and sneakers. While she was changing she noticed the Bible on Des’s bedside table. She remembered Father Herlihy quoting the Gospel of St. John. She had never read the Bible, except in English class at college, never read St. John. She picked it up and found chapter three.

  “There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews,” it began. In the text, the famous sayings of Jesus were printed in red ink. Her eyes scanned the words very quickly, looking to see what it was that was so important, so meaningful that Father Herlihy would choose to quote St. John above all other passages. She immediately came across one of the most famous quotations from the Bible, one even she recognized.

  15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life.

  16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

  17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

  18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

  * * *

  She was stunned. How could this be? It was so judgmental, so unforgiving, so hateful, so… un-Christian. This was the Bible. The Good Book. This was the book that taught love and forgiveness. The cruelty of those passages seemed to be the antithesis of everything the Bible, religion, Christianity were supposed to stand for. How could any decent person read those words and not be outraged? It was exclusive, bigoted, arrogant. How could Father Herlihy have recommended this to her? God gave us freedom so we could choose to believe in him but then tells us that if we don’t we are condemned? What kind of a god would do that?