Courage

by Angela B. Macala-Guajardo

  Roger exited the barracks and followed his compulsion to head to the base chapel. He didn’t believe any of the organized religion crap--not one bit, be it Buddhism or Christianity, or anything in between. They all claimed to be the one true religion and had visions of total global religious domination, so why bother with any one of them? In the end they just wanted people’s money. Perhaps he could’ve just called or texted Mike, but he feared falling into a heated argument. Instead, he decided to go to the first church he came across.

  He followed the lighted sidewalk across a tidy lawn dotted with pines and spruce. The sun was still setting shortly after seven, casting the base in beautiful shades of red, orange, and yellow. Straight ahead was a stout white chapel bathed in sunset colors. It had a giant wood cross just to the right of the mahogany double doors. So Christian it is. Whatever.

  Once he reached the double doors, he checked behind him to see if anyone was watching. Of course no one was. Nobody cared who went to church when. Even he never gave the chapel a second thought when he passed it. But for some reason Roger felt like he was committing a taboo by entering a place he hated in hopes of finding solace.

  Roger pushed one of the doors, and it swung open with a wooden groan. He slipped inside and closed the door behind him, then put his back to it. The seven ’o’ clock mass was going on. He purposely thunked his head on the door, kicking himself for forgetting. A few people turned to glance at him, but other than that, no one paid him any heed, not even the preacher. The pews full of heads devotedly looked forward at the modest altar and the female pastor, who wore a dress suit and had a Bible tucked under one arm.

  The last thing he wanted to do was sit in on a brainwashing session. But still, he felt like there was something here he needed--not faith, or a newfound love for religion, but something else. He’d been an atheist for so many years, and now he’d met God in person. Not even the best-trained soldier could mentally brush that off, even if they still didn’t believe Baku was who he’d said he was. There’d been an undeniable energy about Baku, something godly or whatever that exuded a sense of peace. But there’d been waves of anxiety mixed in, anxiety that hadn’t been his own.

  Roger took a seat on the floor in one corner of the back of the church and put his phone on silent. He resisted the temptation to take out his laptop or put on headphones. No one had shooed him out of the church, and he felt it appropriate to let these people enjoy their brainwashing session in peace. Why bother going out of his way to be rude? They weren’t harming anyone sitting in those pews.

  Someone let out a low psst and Roger looked up. A woman in her BDU waved him over to the very last pew and patted the space next to her. Roger shook his head and tuned out the sermon.

  * * *

  At around 7:30, the flock rose from their pews and filed out of the church. Roger got to his feet, eyeing everyone warily. Again, no one paid him any mind, not even the lady who’d beckoned him to the pew. Roger headed for the altar, more specifically the preacher lady, who was placing her Bible atop a wooden bookrest. He stopped at the foot of the dais and waited to be noticed.

  The preacher, a short Hispanic lady with black hair gelled to her head and tied back in a twirl, glanced at him. “You, sir, look anything but relaxed.” Her voice lacked a Spanish accent, instead sounding like she was from New York. She carried herself like a tough girl out of a rough neighborhood as she circled around the altar and stood before him on the carpeted dais.

  Roger straightened up, but kept his feet spread as if he were standing at ease.

  “Do you need a confession or something? This is the Protestant church, not the--”

  “No, ma’am. I--” He sighed. “I don’t really do the whole religion thing.”

  “But yet you’re here,” she said with a raised eyebrow.

  “But yet I’m here,” he agreed. He sighed again and thought a moment. The church was totally silent when they didn’t talk. The silence filled Roger with sense of being watched--not by anything scary, but a big, invisible pair of eyes from above and behind the altar. He knew it was just his childhood expectations acting up, but he couldn’t seem to dismiss the feeling. “I guess... I guess I want some answers, or something. I don’t really know why I’m here. I just felt a need to come.”

  “Well let’s sit down then.” She gestured to the first pew. “I’m Officer Garza, by the way.”

  “Corporal Alcadere.” They shook hands and took a seat. Roger plopped his belongings on the floor next to his feet.

  “Are you related to the President?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Just his nephew, though.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” the preacher said with a shake of her head.

  “I apologize. Reflex reaction.”

  “No problem. So what’s up?”

  Roger studied the contours of his duffle bag, seeing if he could tell which layer was what item of clothing. The bulges of the green nylon yielded no answers. “May I just be frank?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’m an atheist, but I met God, and he asked me and the other soldiers to fight for him. Do you believe me so far?”

  Garza stared at him with both eyebrows raised. Roger couldn’t tell what she was thinking and that frightened him. “I think so. Go on.”

  He leaned back in the pew and folded his arms protectively in front of his chest. “I agreed to fight for him--not because he asked me to, but because I believe it is the right thing to do. To serve and protect our country, and apparently the whole world.”

  Garza smiled. “You should read the Sermon on the Mount. I think you’d like it. A chunk of the Bible is spent explaining the right and wrong ways to spread the word of God. For you, by choosing to do what is right because you wish to do what’s right is doing the will of God.”

  “But I’m not doing God’s will. I’m just doing what’s right.”

  “And by that, you do God’s will, believer or no. Contrary to common belief, you don’t have to be a believer to carry out God’s will.”

  Roger looked at Garza. “I don’t want to do ‘God’s will,’” he said, making quotes with his fingers. “I live life for me, my family, and my country; not invisible people who claim to see all and know all. Why does every good thing I do have to be claimed as what some invisible man wants me to do?” Baku had denied seeing and knowing all, but Roger found it hard to dismiss such a preconceived notion, even though he was glad it was wrong.

  “I thought you said you met God in person.”

  “I did! Well--” Roger sighed yet again. This was all so frustrating. Part of him wanted to storm out, but the other part of him wanted Garza to see things his way. “He asked me to participate in this war. He didn’t say ‘Roger, I’m sending you off to go fight and die ‘cause that’s what I want you to do.’ He explained the situation and left it up to us to decide, then talked some things out with me one-on-one.”

  “That’s amazing,” Garza said, no sarcasm in her voice.

  Roger recoiled. “Wait, you believe me?”

  “Of course. God usually speaks more subtly, but you make it sound as if you were face-to-face and having a verbal exchange.”

  Roger looked away and studied the altar and its religious adornments. Why had Baku made an exception to his usual behavior and shown himself? It couldn’t be just because he was so skeptical of Baku’s existence. Was he expecting every last one of them to die and decided it didn’t matter if he broke character?

  “Whoa, steady there,” Garza said, snatching his upper arm.

  Roger felt lightheaded. He leaned against the pew and concentrated on taking deep breaths. Death wasn’t entirely frightening. What happened after death was unknown, but everyone died in the end, so there wasn’t any point in fearing it. What made him feel lightheaded were all the implications behind a god showing his face to select people around the world. So many things would change if society believed him and the rest of the soldiers. They just had to compete with people who believed they were either
Jesus or the Devil incarnate, or some other religious figure, along with all the fanaticism that tarnished organized religion. “I’m fine,” he said, barely managing to squeeze the words out. “I just wish I knew what drove me to come here.”

  Garza let go. “Confusion, it seems,” she said. “I used to be an atheist myself.”

  Roger looked at her, wide-eyed.

  “I was young and thought I knew everything. Believing in something I’ve never seen or felt was a stupid idea, so I stayed home while my parents went to church. But around age fifteen, one of my grandmothers died, and--you’ll either believe this or you won’t--” Garza’s voice tightened “--I saw her standing in my mother’s flower garden while I was doing homework on the back porch.”

  “You weren’t just seeing things you wanted to see?” Roger would have loved to see the ghost of his sister, to see her smile one more time, maybe even laugh and wave to him. But he got nothing of the sort. Just a silent, emotionless gravestone, along with a hole in his heart.

  Garza shook her head. “It was a tiny garden squished into a quad of an apartment complex. That garden was the last place I expected to see a ghost, much less the ghost of my grandmother. But what’s even stranger is that whatever photo with her in it would always be found crooked or out of alignment with what surrounded it. My family and I took it as a sign that she was still with us. I couldn’t help but question what I thought I knew after that.”

  Roger could do nothing but nod. What could he say to that? He believed her, and now he wished his sister had left him some sort of sign that she was well and still with him and the rest of the family. His parents were still faithful to Christianity, but they’d never reported any strange sights or events. “I believe you,” he said softly.

  “Thank you. Should I get you some water or food? You still look rather pale.”

  “No, ma’am.” He faced the pastor again. “I just need my brain to stop running in circles.”

  “I’m not sure how to help you, other than knock you unconscious, but I don’t think that’s going to help.” Garza gave him a wry smile.

  Roger laughed softly. “The whole believer-nonbeliever thing isn’t what’s bothering me, I guess. I don’t do organized religion, but at the same time I don’t care if other people do, so long as they don’t go on murderous crusades in the name of one invisible entity or another, and don’t put me down for being an atheist.”

  “Judge not lest ye be judged,” Garza rattled off.

  “What?”

  “It’s from the Bible. You don’t go to Hell for holding an opinion. Those who’ve looked down on you have committed a wrongdoing for judging you negatively based on your opinion.”

  “There needs to be more preachers like you.”

  “That’s a discussion for another day.” Garza smiled. “How did you decide on being atheist, might I ask?”

  Roger went back down a painful part of memory lane. “I wasn’t an atheist until about five years ago. I grew up Catholic. I never questioned it. It was just something my family did. But then my sister died in a car crash while talking on her cell phone. The truck driver who ran her over said she’d drifted into his lane, and since it was dark out, he didn’t notice until it was too late. The last thing he saw was her shocked face in his headlights right before he pancaked her. She was only seventeen.” He fell silent.

  A few seconds later, Garza said, “That’s horrible. I’m so sorry.”

  “Thank you. After my sister’s death, I began wondering why bad things happened to good people. If we’re all being watched over, as I was told time and time again growing up, why does so much horrible crap happen? I researched a bunch of religions and read several texts, but all the messages were about how to be a holy person, and happy, and have a good relationship with one invisible man or another. I couldn’t find anything on what God was doing while us humans lived our miserable lives. In the end, I could only rationalize that there was no god, that there was no one making sure we came out okay and got to enjoy life. No offense, ma’am, but I can’t stomach organized religion.”

  “None taken,” Garza said with a sympathetic smile. “It’s not mandatory to go to church every week, much less follow one doctrine or another. Even though I’m Christian, I love Buddhist meditation practices, and I have civilian friends who are Pagan. They have different beliefs than you and me, but we all strive for happiness and doing the right thing, along with taking care of the world we live on. You get to do that in your own way.”

  “That I do,” Roger said unhappily. The impending war still made him feel a little lightheaded.

  “Do you feel any better yet?”

  “Yes and no. I think I’ve pegged what’s bugging me the most. And it really isn’t the whole religion thing.”

  “Well that’s good to hear.”

  “Maybe,” Roger said. “What do you believe a god should be like?”

  Garza looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “That’s a loaded question. Why do you ask?”

  “Because when I met him, he was and wasn’t what I’d expected. He was exactly what I’d expected if I were to meet God face-to-face, but his personality was so... not godly.” He adjusted his position in the pew and propped an elbow on the back of it. “I’m not sure how to put it. I could tell he knows tons of things I don’t that a god needs to know, or whatever the heck it is I’m trying to say, but he wasn’t entirely all-knowing and all-seeing with this blueprint he wants humanity to follow. He was... he was more human than I expected. He made it clear that he isn’t perfect. I dunno. Am I making any sense?”

  Garza sat in silence, her gaze unfocused as she digested what he’d just told her. He hoped what he’d just said didn’t come off as insulting. Finally, she said, “Have you ever wondered if perfection is a man-made thing?”

  Roger thought a moment, then looked at the pastor.

  “There’s another phrase in the Bible that says God created us in his own image. Now that you’ve said that, I’m wondering if he made us with the same flaws he has.”

  “How does that make any sense?”

  “If God is perfect, then why make us so flawed when it causes so much suffering?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does God have to be perfect?”

  Roger opened his mouth to retort, but closed it. His first reaction had been to blurt “of course he does!” But that sounded so ridiculous. “Are you trying to say Baku couldn’t design us to be perfect because he isn’t perfect?”

  The pastor nodded. “A parent can teach a child or wish them to be different from them, but in the end the child will turn out similar to his or her parents. It’s inevitable. However, the child can make conscious choices to behave differently than what they were taught or saw. God is father to us all, so what’s stopping us from inheriting his flaws?”

  “He’s not around to parent us?” Roger said with a shrug. Garza’s speculation was intriguing. In all honesty, things made a bit more sense that way. But still: it was so hard to peel himself away from a lifetime of preconceived notions his parents had passed on to him. But maybe he could break away from his parents’ preconceptions and form his own. He’d met Baku in person for cryin’ out loud.

  “Nature versus nurture. And that is a heated debate. In the end, I believe perfection is a manmade concept, and many thousand years ago, we humans tacked the concept onto something we had no understanding of and just assumed we’d got that part right.”

  “I think you’re right, but I need to continue thinking on it.”

  “You’re always welcome to come back and talk some more.”

  Roger stood and stretched. “Thanks.”

  * * *

  Soon-to-be Fleet Admiral Reginald Whitman waited at attention by the altar of his local church, with several dozen people looking on from the pews. Considering that God himself had asked him to do His work, church seemed the most appropriate place to don his final rank promotion. No one had argued. Everyone was a mix of pride, joy, worry, a
nd confusion. No one really knew what was going on. Not even Whitman. However, he’d already compiled a munitions list, complete with all sorts of big boy ground toys. God hadn’t told him what to bring to war, so Whitman played it on the conservative side with tanks and the likes. In the end, nothing beat the raw power of well-trained American soldiers fighting for their country.

  Almost all of the witnesses present were Whitman’s family. His wife, Big Mama, stood next to him in a black dress that he loved seeing on her voluptuous figure. Her girlfriends often bugged her to try and lose some weight, but even the much skinnier ones couldn’t measure up to Big Mama’s beauty. She held herself with an air of dignity and pride balanced by a sweet smile and rich voice.

  He and Big Mama had four wonderful, beautiful kids together, two girls and two boys, who were standing in the front pew with his grandchildren. His kids, all tall and lithe, were in their twenties and thirties--he couldn’t recall their exact age until a birthday rolled around, and even then it often turned into a guessing game. His grandchildren ranged from toddler to child, all of them standing respectably quiet as the ceremonial officer read off the short speech that accompanied each pinning ceremony. The ceremony itself would last maybe two minutes, even though it had taken several hours of scrambling around to get the family together, along with an officer who could lead it. But this was worth it.

  The officer, decked out in full dress uniform, finished the words and opened the case holding a Fleet Admiral’s pins and stripes. Laying atop black velvet were five silver stars arranged in a pentagon. They gleamed up at Whitman and Big Mama. Next to the collar pins lay a pair of golden shoulder stripes, sporting five stars and an anchor. He was about to be placed next to Nimitz, Leahy, King, and Halsey, all deceased Fleet Admirals. This was a blessed day indeed.

  Big Mama picked up the collar pins and adorned Whitman with them, then adjusted his collar and patted them down. Then she picked up the shoulder stripes and buttoned them on, straightening and patting them down as well. Whitman gazed into his wife’s beautiful dark eyes as she took a step back and held him by his shoulders, scrutinizing him. Only his military training kept him at attention. That slight frown paired with her eyes and rosy lips and chocolate cheeks looked mighty fine.