Alice Asks the Big Questions

by Laurent Gounelle

  “A nineteenth-century clergyman.”

  “Oh. Why are you thinking about him?”

  He took a moment before replying. “I often think about him. He’s a little like a role model to me. His superiors found his sermons weak in doctrine, and his bishop did everything he could to prevent their publication. And yet everyone recognized that he contributed to changing the lives of his parishioners. Some people even consider him a saint.”

  Alice stopped herself from shouting “Victory!” but she knew she had won.

  A little later, when she walked Jeremy to the square in front of the church, she felt confident. He would know how to pass on these messages, which were so useful to people.

  She watched him walk away, then disappear into the rectory.

  “Excuse me, miss?”

  She turned around.

  A couple in their thirties was looking at her shyly. They were holding hands, like children, which was rather touching.

  “Hello,” she said, smiling.

  The married couple looked at each other, as if each one expected the other to speak. They both had very sweet faces. The woman’s chestnut-brown hair was pulled back into an untidy ponytail. In the end, she was the one who spoke.

  “Do ya know where we can find Father Jeremy?”

  “You’ve just missed him. He’s gone, and I know he’s not available right now.”

  They looked very disappointed.

  “He’ll be saying Mass tonight,” she added. “You could definitely speak to him afterward.”

  “Tonight won’t be possible—not tonight.”

  “We’re not from the parish,” the man added. “We come from Charolles, and it’s far.”

  “My husband is a night watchman. He works tonight, so we can’t stay.”

  Alice sensed they were worried, and a little embarrassed at the same time, as if they were in a very difficult situation.

  “Do you want me to get a message to him?”

  They looked at each other again.

  “Actually,” said the woman, “we wanted him to baptize our baby.”

  “Do you know Father Jeremy?”

  “No, we’ll have to talk to him,” said the man. “We’ll come back.”

  Alice watched them walk away, hand in hand. Why on earth would you have a child baptized in Cluny when you lived in Charolles, forty kilometers away?

  She went back to her father’s house, thinking about Jeremy.

  He feared seeing his flock disappear. She was convinced they would stay, and even that their numbers would grow. But it was risky, of course, and she didn’t have anything to lose. Even if she were wrong and misguided, she wouldn’t suffer any consequences. For Jeremy, on the other hand, a great deal was at stake: he had chosen to dedicate his life to the church, and now his superiors viewed him badly because of her. But perhaps they were turning a blind eye because of his popularity. If his flock turned away from him, that would be the end of his ministry.

  She was aware of all that, and yet something was driving her to lead Jeremy down this path. She felt it like a mysterious calling.

  23

  “Who are you?” the woman asked in a soft, deep voice.

  She was a brunette in her forties, one of the new parishioners. She had turned her straw-backed chair to face her neighbor, in the last row of the church.

  “I am…someone who works hard,” replied the young man in his thirties.

  “You’re someone who works hard, and perhaps sometimes you are also lazy,” she said in a kindly tone of voice. “And it’s nice to know you can be both at the same time.”

  The man slowly agreed, taking in those unusual words at his own pace.

  “Who are you?” the woman asked again.

  “I am…someone whose work is acknowledged,” he said.

  “You are someone whose work is acknowledged, and perhaps sometimes you are also someone people ignore. And it’s nice to know you can be both at the same time.”

  Alice took a few steps down the side aisle and listened to another two people from a distance. She was nervous, for the presentation of this rather psychological exercise had received a very cold welcome from the churchgoers. Jeremy had had to use a great deal of finesse and persuasion to explain and justify it.

  Alice walked back up the aisle in silence. In the church, everyone finally seemed to be participating in the game, even if some of the older ones were gritting their teeth. The churchgoers had been split into pairs, and each seemed to be scrupulously following the instructions for the exercise.

  Jeremy had remained near the altar. He was attentively, and nervously, scrutinizing the group.

  Alice had thought up this drill, loosely based on an exercise used by the great American psychologist Stephen Gilligan. There were three goals: to prevent identifying ourselves with our roles or attributes, to accept the other side of the coin that is often present in us but repressed, and, finally, to unite apparently disparate elements in us while letting go of our image or our need for perfection. Accepting one’s limitations and yielding to a certain sense of vulnerability also helped make the shift toward an awareness of the present moment and a feeling of unified harmony.

  Jeremy had been cautious and taken his time when presenting the exercise to the parishioners. He had introduced it by quoting Jesus: “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word, that they all may be one…that they also may be one in Us…that they may be made perfect in one.”

  Viewed from outside, the exercise seemed very strange, but experiencing it for themselves left no one indifferent, and each person appeared to find a new kind of internal peace. Alice smiled at the thought that a visitor wandering into the church would undoubtedly have the impression that they had stumbled upon some odd sect.

  She discreetly walked over to two women.

  “Who are you?” the first woman asked.

  Her partner, a woman in her fifties, looked very sad and remained silent for a long time before responding in a soft voice. “I am a woman alone.”

  “You are a woman alone, and perhaps sometimes you are also a woman who is connected to others. And it’s nice to know you can be both at the same time.”

  She waited for a few seconds before continuing.

  “Who are you?”

  “I am…misunderstood.”

  Her partner took a deep breath.

  “You are misunderstood, and perhaps sometimes you are also…understood. And it’s nice to know you can be both at the same time.”

  Alice started when she felt a hand on her shoulder, and she turned around quickly. It was Sister IKEA, who handed her a tiny bit of folded paper. Alice opened it up. As usual, it was an extract from the Gospels.

  She thanked her with a smile and took a few steps, automatically putting the note into her bag, until she was within hearing distance of Étienne and Victor talking.

  “What?”

  “Wh-who are you?” Étienne stammered.

  “What? I don’t understand this exercise at all!”

  “Just t-tell me wh-who you are!” said Étienne, doing his best to talk louder.

  “Who I am, who I am…I am…someone who’s intelligent, that’s for sure,” replied Victor confidently.

  “Y-you are s-someone who’s in-intelligent, and you are per-perhaps also some-times someone who is si-si-silly.”

  “What?”

  “Y-you…are si-silly.”

  “Eh?”

  “Y-you…are si-silly,” said Étienne, exhausted.

  “Talk louder!”

  “You…you’re an ass!” he shouted.

  Victor was so shocked that he slapped Étienne, who burst out laughing.

  “And it’s ni-nice…”

  Just in front of them, a man of twenty-five or thirty wearing blue glasses was facing Madame de Sirdegault, who was obviously exasperated by the exercise.

  Jeremy walked quietly over to them.

  “Who are you?” the man ask
ed.

  “Everyone knows who I am!”

  “Yes, but for the exercise, you have to answer.”

  She sighed loudly. “I hold the title of baroness, as you know very well, young man.”

  “You may have that title but who are you?”

  “Now, really! I have a reputation everyone knows.”

  “Yes, I understand what you have, but who are you?”

  “I keep telling you! My name is sufficiently well known in this area. The Sirdegault family had a plaque bearing its name on a bench in this church before you were even born, my poor man!”

  “I’m not asking what you have but who you are.”

  “This is all ridiculous! I have faith, I do, I am a believer, so why are you annoying me?”

  “You also have faith, but you actually have many things.”

  Madame de Sirdegault was seething.

  “This is driving me crazy. You’re making my blood boil!” she shouted.

  Just behind her, Victor, who had finally understood the exercise and thought those words were meant for him, replied: “And this is also making you feel well and good about yourself, and that’s nice.”

  “Amen,” murmured Jeremy, with a little smile.

  Alice’s liturgical program, if the name could be applied to this cocktail of personal development and spiritual awakening, aimed at transmitting what she had understood about Jesus’s messages, lasted several weeks. It alternated between explanatory sermons, practical exercises, and prayers meant to guide the parishioners to experience the other side, the other reality, which was also the goal of Buddhist meditation, according to Duvernet.

  “We can truly feel the voice of another world within us,” said the philosopher Ernest Renan, “but we don’t know what that world is.” Alice was convinced that experiencing it was the best way to understand it.

  She had pushed, in vain, to rename a certain number of prayers “meditations,” in order to touch a greater number of people, people who might be put off by the word “prayer.” Jeremy had refused.

  “You’re going too far. We’re still in a church, after all!”

  “Admit that it’s the same thing.”

  “Not at all—a prayer is speaking to God.”

  Alice made a face. “Must I remind you that Jesus said, ‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven’?”

  But she hadn’t insisted.

  The churchgoers had ended up getting used to the new liturgy and even reaping benefits from it. By word of mouth, the church continued to fill up more and more each week.

  But what attracted the most people remained confession, something else Alice had revisited. She had invented the concept of “paradoxical penitence,” whose aim was to free a person from their ego by playing down their egotistical tendencies and learning to laugh at them. Laughing at oneself would allow a person to take a step back from events, and had health benefits as well. The idea was also to provoke a true awareness of a person’s tendencies, to see what was naturally ridiculous about them, so the ego would find it difficult to feed on them. The ego is to the unconscious what toothpaste is to the tube: once it’s come out, just try and put it back inside.

  The two gossips, Germaine and Cornélie, were certain that Alice was partly responsible for the changes in their parish’s traditions. They secretly shot her acrimonious looks and turned away when she passed close by. Alice was equally mistrustful of them and watched them out of the corner of her eye.

  One Sunday morning, in front of the church, she had overheard bits of their conversation with Madame de Sirdegault.

  “We have to do something,” Germaine had said.

  “It can’t go on like this any longer,” Cornélie had added.

  “You have a lot of influence, you could actually take steps!”

  “I already have,” Madame de Sirdegault replied haughtily.

  The two busybodies watched the baroness walk away, then went over to Étienne to continue their efforts at sabotage.

  * * *

  Jeremy twisted around to try and stretch out his legs. A victim of his own success, he had been locked in the narrow confessional for more than two hours and was beginning to get cramps.

  “Someone contradicted me, Father,” said a woman’s voice. “One of my husband’s friends. We were having a drink outside at a café. He contradicted me, and I realized he was trying to point out that I was wrong. I felt…annoyed, almost…a little humiliated. Rejected. Perhaps it was the sin of pride on my part.”

  “Was that the first time it happened to you?”

  “No, in fact it happens regularly, and not only with him. I feel bad when someone openly disagrees with me. I’d so like to be able to have a quick comeback, but I can’t.”

  Jeremy thought for a few seconds.

  “The next time you find yourself in that situation, tell yourself, ‘I am my opinions.’”

  “I am my opinions?”

  “Right. ‘I exist essentially through my opinions, my ideas, my words.’”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Tell yourself, ‘My personal worth is limited to the value of my words. If they are wrong or perceived as wrong, it’s because I’m worthless.’”

  Silence.

  “Do you really think so, Father?”

  “Tell yourself, ‘By disagreeing with me, that man is picking on me.’”

  “Maybe he really is.”

  “Then take it upon yourself to prove that you’re right. Don’t even wait for the other person to finish his thought. As soon as you realize he’s disagreeing, interrupt him and affirm your point of view, without allowing him to speak. If he replies, cut him off and repeat what you said. You must have the last word. When it’s done, tell yourself, ‘I’ve preserved my worth. Now I’ll be respected.’ And if ever, when you hear the first objection from the other person, you realize that he’s right and that you made a mistake, don’t admit it. Never change your opinion; on the contrary, stick to your original idea: affirm it, hammer it home, impose it. Repeat this experience a dozen times.”

  “But…I…couldn’t do such a thing.”

  “If you can’t manage it, look to politicians as an example. They’re very gifted at it.”

  “I’m…not sure that’s a good idea.”

  Even though he was safely out of sight behind his wooden screen, Jeremy stopped himself from smiling, for fear that his voice might betray his amusement.

  “Are you disagreeing with me?”

  “Well…let’s say that I don’t entirely agree.”

  He made his voice sound very hurt. “No, you are, you are disagreeing with me.”

  “I’m very sorry, but…I’m having trouble agreeing.”

  He allowed silence to fall, then took on a particularly wounded, depressed tone of voice. “You’re rejecting your priest, aren’t you, my daughter?”

  “But no, not at all!” she hurriedly said to justify herself.

  “You no longer respect me at all.”

  “Of course I do!”

  “You no longer respect me. I can see that.”

  “That has nothing to do with it!”

  Silence.

  Then she burst out laughing. She was laughing so hard it echoed throughout the nave.

  Jeremy peeked out from behind the curtain and saw Germaine and Cornélie in the central aisle, looking indignant.

  “Thank you, Father,” said the woman’s voice. “I think I’ll experience controversy in a different way from now on.”

  “So be it.”

  A minute later, after having stretched out his legs as best he could, Jeremy heard a man’s voice.

  “Hello, Father. The other day, I took my son to his friend’s house. A birthday party. I spoke with the father a bit, you know, small talk, very relaxed. At the time, I thought we would get along and might see each other again. But when I heard he was plant manager of a factory, that made me feel strange. It’s stupid, but I felt…a little ashamed not
to be on the same level as him. Normally, I’m proud of my career. I’m in industrial sales. Before, I was a technician, I worked hard to get promoted, and I’m proud of that. But then, when he told me his job, I didn’t feel as good as him, as if I were…inferior. I thought I didn’t want to see him again. Or maybe wait until later, after I’d managed to get a better job.”

  Jeremy took a deep breath. “Next time, in the same situation, tell yourself that that man is more important than you.”

  “You’re being a bit harsh.”

  “To deserve his friendship, you must raise your social status.”

  “Well, that’s true.”

  “After that, stop seeing your family and friends, and spend your evenings and weekends working more, in order to get a promotion. Once you get it, don’t rest on your laurels. To stay motivated to work more, continue to feel you are less worthy when in the presence of anyone who has a higher social status than yours. You’ll see. It’s very effective.”

  “All right.”

  “Keep climbing the ladder at work. And remember to feel bad whenever there’s someone above you.”

  This time there was a silence. When the man started talking again, the enthusiasm was gone from his voice. “But…there will always be someone above me!”

  “That’s the reason you have to always dedicate yourself body and soul to climbing the social ladder. You will not truly exist until the day when you are in the top position.”

  When the man did not reply, Jeremy added, “I propose that you think about all that for a while.” But he knew that the seed of the idea was already planted.

  It was starting to get hot. The confessional was fine in winter, but in summer, it soon turned into an oven.

  The next person to confess was another man. His typically masculine problem made Jeremy smile: he got annoyed, really steamed up, every time someone pulled away from a red light faster than him.

  “All right,” Jeremy said to him, “the next time that happens, tell yourself: ‘I no longer exist, I no longer have any value, I’m worthless, because my personal value depends on how fast my car can accelerate. I should be ashamed to have failed, my family in the car should be ashamed for me, and all the passersby who saw what happened are looking at me as if I am depraved, a subhuman who ruined his life.’”