"To Be Chosen"

CONFESSION

  Father Atropos sat stewing in the cramped confession booth.  One more confession, and this Saturday would be over.  Normally, he’d look forward to this time so that he could review his homilies for Sunday mass.  But not today, because once Father Atropos took his final confession, he would no longer be the priest of the St. Francis parish.  

            “We’re bringing in Father York,” Atropos reflected on his conversation with the bishop that very morning.

            “Can you tell me why, Father?” Atropos asked.  “York is too young to lead a parish.”

            “I am sorry Johann,” the bishop had.  “But we’ve received complaints.  Parishioners feel you are too austere and traditional.  They are leaving St. Francis.  A change needed to be made.”

            Atropos fumed at the recollection.  He worked tirelessly to uphold the beautifully rich doctrines of the faith, and he demanded no less effort from his parishioners.  Were all the rites, sacraments and dogmas hard to abide?  Of course they were, but that only made those who were committed to following them more worthy.  They should not be changed or, worse, thrown out altogether.

            But it seemed that it was in fashion these days to allow people a sliding scale when it came to their commitments.  It pained Father Atropos to think of his parishioners in that way.  All he had ever wanted was to share the glory of God with his church.  But he only knew one way to do that: the Catholic tradition.  If his stringent commitment to it was truly the reason for his dismissal, then so be it.  He would leave quietly, knowing that his faith would not conform to their fashion.

            “Excuse me?” Atropos heard from the other side of the curtain that blocked his view of the confessor.

“Kneel,” Atropos said, waiting for the silhouette to comply.

The man awkwardly got to his knees, shifting around to find the right position.  He tried putting his hands together, as though to pray, then decided against that and let his hands rest.

            “Sorry, I’ve never, uh…” the stranger’s voice quivered as he searched for the right words.

            “This is your first confession?” Atropos asked, getting to the point.

            “Yeah.”

            “That’s fine,” Atropos said in a tone that intimated it was not fine.  “Tell me about the sin that brought you here.  What did you do wrong?”

            “That’s the thing, uh, father,” the voice beyond the curtain offered hesitantly.  “I haven’t actually done anything wrong.”

            “We all sin, my child,” Atropos tried to offer paternally, though he spoke more sternly than he intended.  He had little patience for people who refused to admit their own mistakes.

            “I know!” the jumpy voice came back.  “Everyone screws up.  I know that in my brain.  Problem is, ever since I was a kid I’ve been monitoring myself.  And I…honestly, I just can’t remember ever committing a sin.”

            This was ridiculous.  Father Atropos’s mind, momentarily distracted from his own troubles, reeled to figure out what was going on.  He could only deduce that this man was playing a joke on him.  He’d been pranked before.  Apparently, believing strongly in something, anything, made one an easy target.

            “Listen here,” Atropos said with quiet fury, “I am in no mood for foolishness.  This is a house of God, and you are disrespecting it.  Leave now!”

            “Sir, I swear I’m telling the truth,” the voice pleaded.  “I know how insane it sounds.  I know at some point, I must have sinned.  And I came here so you could help me figure out how.”

            “Why?” Atropos demanded.

            “Because…” the panting voice paused, and the man’s breathing began to quicken.

            The priest watched as the silhouetted stranger raised his head to look at the ceiling, then brought it into his hands.  He shook his whole body from side to side, as though the feeling of the word “no” was buried deep and now fought to escape.  He was at war with himself, and Atropos could only stare in growing concern.

            “I have dreams father,” the man finally said, letting his hands fall.  “You’re going to think it’s crazy, but I’m starting to think they come from God.”

            “Tell me about these dreams,” Father Atropos said, clinging to the obvious question like a life raft.  He was torn: the confessor sounded insane, but also genuinely desirous of help.  In thirty years of service, the priest had never heard a confession like this before.  He decided to wait and listen, hoping that God would offer a direction in the conversation.  For Atropos strongly believed that God was always talking, but to hear Him meant one needed to always be listening.

“It’s actually just one dream, on repeat,” the trembling voice began, dropping in register.  “An angel visits me.  We talk for a while.  Then, before the dream ends, he tells me something that can’t possibly be true.  He tells me that I am the son of man.  That I’m Jesus.”

            Atropos’s eyes bulged so far out of their sockets that he thought they might burst.  In his rage, he reached instinctively to yank the curtain away and scream at the heretic on the other side.  But he stopped himself just short of the pull.  He remembered his training.  He was an emissary of the Catholic faith, if no longer one of this church.  He could not succumb to blind anger; no matter how justified he thought it.  He had to be better.

            “What you have just said, is heresy,” Father Atropos said calmly, a simmering fury beneath each word.

            “No father…”

            “I am no father to you!” Atropos snapped.

            “I know.  God is,” the man beyond the curtain replied.  He said it reflexively.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean it…”

            “Stop,” Atropos commanded, taking a deep breath.  He had to remind himself that he was a priest.  Even without a parish, he was a priest.  “God is your father.  Just as he is mine, and all the world’s.  Forgive me.  I lost control for a moment.  I know that you sincerely believe what you’re saying.”

            “I do!  That’s why I came here.  Because something in my gut tells me that this might be true.  And just the idea that it’s a possibility scares the shit out of me,” the confessor concluded.

            Father Atropos took another deep breath.

            “Oh fuck,” the man let out.

            “How long have you had this dream?” Atropos moved on.

            “Every night for as long as I can remember.”

            “Why have you never shared it before?  With your priest or bishop?” the father demanded.

            “Because…” the silhouette shifted again, “I’m not Catholic.  I’m not even Christian.  I’m Jewish.”

            Atropos’s body fell back in his chair.  “Jewish?” the priest was in shock.  “Practicing?”

            “Yes sir,” the confessor declared.  “All my life.  I’ve never strayed.  Never wanted to.  I love my faith and the tradition.  And now, I love passing it all on to my kids.”

            “You have children?” Atropos felt like his brain had turned to mush. 

            “Two,” came the man’s reply, an audible smile through the answer.  “Jonah and Leah.”

            “And a wife?” the priest pressed.

            “Yes father.”

            “No need for that,” Atropos said.

            “It’s more for me than for you, if that’s alright,” the confessor said sheepishly.

            “Very well,” Atropos relented.  “Does your family know about your dreams?”

            “No.  I mean…how do you tell people something like this?” the man asked genuinely.

            “You told me,” the father offered.

            “I had to tell someone,” the man confided.  “Between the anonymity and, ya know, him being your guy, I figured this was the safest way to go.”

            “In the dreams, does the angel tell you to do anything?” Atropos asked, consciously taking a more clinical approach with his questions.

            “No,” the man answered simply.  “He just asks me stuff.”

            “Like what?”

            “Normal stuff,” the confessor clarified.  “He asks me about my day.  How my kids are doing in school.  He asks if my wife sticks to her diet.”

            “And what do you do?” Atropos continued.

            “I answer him.”

            “So the two of you just talk?” the priest inferred.  “That’s it?”

            “That’s it father.”

            “Does he always tell you that you are the messiah?” the clergyman asked.

            “I never said he called me the messiah,” the stranger answered.  “He never uses that word.  Makes sense to me.  He’s probably one of those Old Testament angels.”

            Silence.

“…cause I’m jewish…” the man petered out, “But yes, the dream always ends with him saying the same thing.  ‘I rejoice for thee Jesus.  I rejoice that in this life, the son of man has found true joy.  The joy denied thee before, and perhaps after.’”

            “My god…” Father Atropos whispered.

            “I know.  But they really do talk like that,” the voice offered a chuckle.  Father Atropos did not chuckle back.  “Man, O for two.”

            “How can you make jokes about this?” the priest admonished. 

            “What else can I do?” the dejected confessor asked.  “I’m either crazy, or the chosen prophet of a religion different from mine.  Either way, I don’t see how this ends without me losing everything.”

            “You could just be a man with a recurring dream,” Atropos suggested.  “Why not continue keeping it to yourself?  It doesn’t seem to disrupt your life in any way.”

            “But what if it starts to?” the man asked readily.  “What if the conversations turn into commandments?  What if I get asked, or told, to do something I don’t want to do?  Do I ignore it?  If I am crazy, does that make me worse to the point of having to be institutionalized?  And if I am…the other thing, does that mean I’m damned for refusing the ways of God?”

            Atropos brought a hand to his chin.  The immensity of the stranger’s situation was suddenly clear to him.  

The confessor was grappling with questions shaped over years of dwelling on every possible outcome to every possible action, and the conclusion was always the same.  Either to insanity or to divinity, he was caught between two forces bigger than himself.  For now, both seemed content to let him be.  But if one of them came knocking on his door, he would have to open it.

            Atropos understood then why this man had come today, of all days, for confession.  The stranger believed in something that no one else would.  He believed in something that, if spoken aloud, would ostracize him from his own community - from his own family - from his own faith. 

Atropos could relate.  Over the years, he had grown so sure in his belief of what Catholicism was meant to be.  But with each passing year the faith became less and less familiar to him.  Now, he was one of the old guard, clinging to a tradition that the world had passed by.  He had been laughed at.  He had been ostracized.  And today, he had been cut off from the only family he had ever known.

            “My son…” he searched himself for what he could say to comfort this man.  But there were no verses that seemed appropriate anymore.  There were so many things he was thinking and feeling in this moment: so many ideas that were alive in him.  But he had to speak.  This stranger was waiting for him to say something.  Finally, Father Atropos opened his mouth, unsure of what would come out.  “I do not know what God has planned for you.  But I do know this…things change.  What the world needed when Jesus walked it is not what it needs today.  Today, it needs more.  It needs you.  It needs your wife and your children, and all of those who are willing to live well and do good…and find joy in one another.”

            “Wow,” the voice beyond the curtain said. 

            Father Atropos agreed with the sentiment. 

            “Do you mind if I ask you one more question?” the man pressed.

            “Of course,” Father Atropos replied.

            “Do you think I’m crazy?”

            Atropos let his eyes wander over the pulpit, visible from where he sat.  He ran his gaze over a huge wooden cross with a wooden Christ nailed to it.  He did not look away when he answered.  “You may want to seek some counseling.”

            Silence.

            “That was a joke,” Father Atropos said, offering a titter.

            “Wow,” the man returned with a single laugh.  “You’re bad at jokes.”

            “I don’t think you’re crazy,” Atropos shared.  “But I do think you should talk to someone.  Your family, some trusted friends…”

            “I kinda like the cranky priest option,” the confessor interrupted.

            “Sadly, you caught me on my last day,” Atropos said easily; much more easily than he ever thought possible. 

            “I’m sorry to hear that,” the man returned.  “You really helped me.”

            “I’m glad.”

            Atropos saw the silhouetted man stand on the other side of the curtain.

            “Thank you again father,” the visitor said.

            “Peace be with you, my son,” the priest offered.

            “Shalom Aleichem,” the confessor returned.