“I wouldn’t say that out loud,” Philip said. “People don’t generally respond well to being called racist.”
“I’m not saying they are, at least not hatefully so. But they have implicit biases about others like most of us do. I think it’s good that they struggle with it. Maybe it will open their eyes. As long as their struggles don’t run people off in the meantime.”
Philip nodded. “In my situation, it was because we had a homosexual couple in our church. I was a first-year minister at the time. One of the young men had grown up there. He’d come out shortly after I arrived, fresh out of seminary, and a few weeks later, he showed up with a boyfriend. They wanted to participate. They wanted to take communion, learn the Bible with everyone else.”
“I imagine there were those who thought you needed to chastise them and beat them down with God’s law until they repented.”
Philip nodded. “Pretty much, yes.”
“So what happened in the end?” I asked.
“I tried,” Philip said. “I tried to encourage people to be patient. I wanted people to see that they had giant blind spots. That they should focus on their issues rather than worry about the lifestyle of other members who were hoping to seek God the same as them.”
“I’m guessing that didn’t work out?” I asked.
Philip shook his head. “I was too passive about it. I was hoping people would just get over it. Eventually, they’d see that these two men were looking for God just like the rest of us. That they weren’t any different from anyone else. But some of the members took it upon themselves to let them know they weren’t welcome, and by the time I’d realized what had happened, the damage had been done.”
“Did they find another church?” I asked.
Philip shook his head. “Last I heard, they weren’t involved in any religion. They’re married now. Got married by a justice of the peace. Never even asked me if I’d conduct the ceremony.”
I winced. “Can you imagine? I mean, when Matthias was bishop, he’d have crucified you for that.”
Philip smiled. “Probably. If he found out about it.”
I snorted. “He’d have found out. That man had eyes coming out of his ass, I think. Seemed he was privy to anything that wasn’t by the book.”
Philip nodded. “I’m telling you all this to tell you that you can’t be passive about what’s happening. Believe it or not, you were called to serve the church members and your community. You need to find a way to unite the people. Help them see each other through God’s eyes.”
I nodded. “Easier said than done.”
“Indeed it is,” Philip said. “But you aren’t going to make much progress by grandstanding or making declarations. Help them see the truth. You have a way of explaining scripture that’s simple. It isn’t wrapped up in seminary lingo and church dogma. Show them the heart of the message, lead them gently, and let them realize the truth for themselves.”
I sighed. “That takes time. Unfortunately, with as many folks as we had today in the service, I’m not sure how long this can be allowed to fester.”
“If you don’t address it,” Philip said, “the people will react, and it might not be pretty. This is the reason you’re there: to help people see through their biases, their limited perspectives. To help them see things through God’s eyes.”
“You have to understand the people at Holy Cross. They aren’t bad people. But the new folks, they come from an entirely different kind of life. They have different experiences, not just because they are poor, but because they are people of color in a city and country that hasn’t always treated them well.”
“When we don’t understand where other people are coming from,” Philip said, “we become fearful. And fear is a dangerous thing. Over time, it breeds hate.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I admitted.
“Damnant quod non intellegunt,” Philip said.
“Latin?” I asked.
Philip raised his eyebrows. “Surely you remember enough from seminary to figure it out.”
I chuckled. “I could wager a guess, but I’m pretty sure I’d be wrong.”
“’They condemn because they do not understand.’ That’s what it means. It’s a big problem with a lot of folks in our denomination, but it’s also pretty universal in human nature. I don’t think it was a Christian who said that originally. It was Cicero, if I’m not mistaken.”
I took a deep breath and nodded. “Still, it’s true. Most of the time when we condemn each other for things, we do so without understanding their perspective or comprehending their experience and viewpoint. Or only understanding a small part of the whole situation.”
Philip relaxed back in his booth as he started perusing the menu. “Exactly. But how can you help people understand? How can you bring them along to the point that they might start to empathize with other folks’ struggles? So they learn to embrace them?”
I huffed. “Maybe if I got them to join us at the soup kitchen.”
“Not a bad idea,” Philip said, looking at me over the top of his menu. “When is that starting up?”
I shrugged. “As soon as I tell Evelyn we’re ready, I suppose.”
Philip nodded. “In that case, I suggest you tell her it’s time.”
“But how am I going to get folks to volunteer?” I asked.
Philip shrugged. “Ask them. Personally.”
“I’ve asked everyone. We’ll still have a hard time getting sign-ups.”
“Ask the specific people whose opinions you think hold the most sway over the rest of the members. Choose the leaders and ask them to help personally. Most people will agree if you approach them that way.”
I smiled. “That’s pretty smart.”
“When you’ve been around as long as I have, you pick up a few things.”
“As long as you have?” I asked. “You were only a couple of years ahead of me in seminary!”
Philip nodded. “We’re getting old, Casp.”
I chuckled. “Speak for yourself. By the way, is that waitress ever going to take our order?”
Philip looked around. I did the same.
I mean, you’d think she’d at least take our drink order.
“I think they might have forgotten about us,” Philip said.
I snorted. “Or they’re back there debating. You take the table with the priest, no, you.”
Philip smiled. “Yeah, this damned collar. People behave oddly when I’m wearing it.”
I nodded. “That’s why I never do.”
Philip pinched his chin pensively. “I’ve been working on a little parable. Not sure if it’s sermon-illustration worthy yet, but it’s getting there. I think it might fit this whole situation you’re facing.”
I smiled. “Storytime with Phil? Oh, goody!”
Philip rolled his eyes and cleared his throat. “Imagine being shown a great, beautiful tower and being charged to take care of it.”
“Like the Sears tower?” I asked.
“Or the Eiffel Tower,” Philip said. “Doesn’t matter. Or make up one of your own. Just make sure it’s beautiful.”
I bit my lip. “All right, I’ve got it.”
“When you saw the tower for the first time, you were taken aback,” Philip said. “It was breathtaking. You’d never seen anything so magnificent.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I do get the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated every year.”
Philip stared at me blankly. “Caspar, will you just shut up and let me tell the story?”
I chuckled. “Yeah. Sorry.”
Philip cleared his throat again. “As you stood there, beholding the tower’s wonder, a sinking feeling set into your gut. You begin to fear that someone, perhaps another architect jealous of the tower or just some common vandals might seek to defame or destroy it. So, you built a fence around it. It might not stop the vandals, but at least it would slow them down. The day you put up the fence, a few folks threw eggs at it.”
“They
threw eggs at my fence! How dare they!” I protested, slamming my fist on the table.
Philip nodded. “See, you knew the vandals would show up eventually. Now you feel justified. Vindicated, even. You were right to do it. I mean, what if they’d egged the tower?”
“Or spray-painted it or threw toilet paper on it.”
“Unthinkable, right?” Philip asked.
I nodded.
“Then you were emboldened. You always knew the haters would target your tower.”
“Haters gonna hate,” I quipped.
Philip nodded. “So you built the fence taller and higher. You added a little barbed wire for good measure. Then, when people vandalized the fence again, you built a second one. You couldn’t be too careful, after all. This time, you charged it with electricity. If push came to shove, you knew you could build a moat and fill it with snakes and crocodiles. Whatever it took.”
“Heaven forbid they threaten my tower. My beautiful, beautiful, tower,” I made my voice a little growlier and higher than normal, “My precious!”
Philip ignored my Smeagol impression and continued. “Then, after years of reinforcing the fence, you turned around, and you were shocked to see that your once beautiful tower had fallen into disrepair. The birds had shit all over it. The weather had taken its toll. You never really appreciated its beauty because you were so focused on the fences, the barbed wire, the moat. You were so fixated on protecting the tower that you never cared for it.”
“I think I see where you’re going with this story,” I said. “If we apply it to our religion.”
Philip shrugged. “I think it applies to anything we hold dear, honestly.”
I nodded. “If we don’t enjoy it, if we don’t relish the goodness of what we have, and in fear we fixate on the fences we’ve built, before we know it, we’ll find we’ve lost what’s most meaningful. We’ve forgotten what’s good and beautiful.”
“And more than that,” Philip said, “we’ll become hateful and resentful. That’s the challenge you face right now, Caspar. You’ve never had much propensity for fences. You’ve always tested the boundaries. But trying to undermine the fence isn’t the point. How can you magnify the beauty of the tower? How can you show them that the people who are coming to your church are, as Gollum might put it, precious?”
I took a deep breath and sat back in my chair. I had a lot to think about.
“Can I take your order?” a young man asked. His hair was short and his face nervous. His eyes darted back and forth between Philip’s collar and my eyes.
“Do you want to touch it?” I asked.
“Excuse me?”
“His collar,” I said. “I’m sure he’ll let you touch it if you’d like.”
The boy chuckled nervously. “No, thank you. Have you had a chance to look at the menu?”
Philip grabbed the little white tab in the front of his shirt and pulled it out. “See, nothing special. Just a piece of plastic.”
“I didn’t know that thing came out,” the boy said.
I smiled. “That’s because he’s a cheapskate. They have other ones that go all the way around and button in the back. That’s the kind I have. Don’t wear it much.”
“When have you ever worn your collar?” Philip asked.
I reached into my back pocket, retrieved my driver’s license from my wallet, and flipped it on the table.
Philip laughed. “You wore it for your driver’s license photo?”
“A lot of Catholics in St. Louis,” I said with a smirk. “You wouldn’t believe how often this gets me out of tickets.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The food was delicious, even though all I had was a chicken salad.
I was watching my figure, after all.
I waited for the crosswalk sign to change to walk before jogging across the road. I always tried to hurry when crossing the road. Nothing drove me nuttier than a pedestrian taking his grand ‘ol time, oblivious to the fact that I was sitting there in my car, waiting.
Frickin’ pedestrians. They were the worst when you weren’t one.
But now that I was, the best part about having my car out of commission was that walking gave me plenty of opportunities to reflect. Even riding the Metro was a meditative experience compared to driving.
It wasn’t just the food that had been a pleasant surprise. The whole interlude had gone better than I’d expected. I suppose I’d been through the wringer enough times with the various powers that be that I was preparing for the worst.
Sure, I knew Philip was more progressive than the former bishop, but I’d figured he’d feel pressure to enforce official dogma, to push me to get in line. Not to mention, when folks complained to authorities, there was a tendency to want to appease them, defuse the situation, and pacify their frustration.
Philip had taken a different approach. I was grateful for that.
People weren’t usually bigots or closed-minded assholes because they were confident that they were right.
They became that way because they could not consider that they might be wrong.
Or they were afraid that if they were wrong, especially when it came to matters of religion, God would strike them down for their ignorance.
Sort of a bastardization, I thought, to the whole idea of having faith.
Faith, for me at least, wasn’t about proper knowledge. It was about simple trust. The willingness to turn one’s life over to a higher power and let go of the need to always be in control.
It was a freeing thing.
Because we can’t control as much as we’d like to, and when we let go, at least in my experience, things tended to go to shit a lot less often than when I tried to run the show.
Not that there was anything wrong with having beliefs.
Most of us have to operate within some kind of worldview, some basic idea of what was true to move forward with a reasonable degree of confidence. We needed that to be oriented. My truth might not be the whole truth, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. And if it was sufficient to guide me through life in a way that made me a reasonably decent person and helped me avoid too many asshole moves along the way, there was nothing wrong with believing I was right, at least tentatively.
In fact, with all I’d been through—the Blade of Echoes, Layla, magic—none of my core beliefs had changed. My confidence in my core principles had been challenged. I’d had to struggle with how this new information changed the context of my worldview. It had forced me to broaden my beliefs and think outside of the box. It had even meant that about a few things, I had to admit I might have been wrong.
There was nothing wrong with being wrong.
There was the tower. And there was the fence. It was a damn good parable, I had to admit.
If we were more terrified of being wrong than loving what was true, we would never find happiness. Somehow I had to get that across to the folks at Holy Cross.
But I had to remind myself of it, too.
Unite the people. Unite all the people. That was what I was supposed to do as the chosen one.
To be, as a politician might say, a uniter, not a divider. We weren’t blue states and red states. We were the United States.
Never mind. I got off track.
For me, unity couldn’t be some kind of half-hearted platitude. According to the elven prophecy, I had to accomplish it.
And as hard as it might be to unite people across a political divide, I had to unite people across a divide between worlds and races: humans, elves, giants, and maybe even fairies.
Then again, that would probably be easier than trying to make Republicans and Democrats get along. I didn’t identify with either political party, truth be told. There were things I liked and disliked about each side. But when you were walking a narrow path between two alternatives, you tended to be on the receiving end of judgment and hate from all around. So, as much as was possible, I kept my political views to myself.
But here I was, engaging in otherworldly politics,
dealing with both elves and giants, dating one, training with the other. One loved me. Layla had given up everything because she believed in me. B’iff had died for my sake because he believed in me, too.
That was a lot of pressure, and I wasn’t sure what I should do.
How much longer would Brag’mok be willing to wait for Layla to come back? Was it fair to make him wait? He’d said he was in pain as long as his brother wasn’t laid to rest.
He still wanted my help to remove B’iff’s body from Earth’s magical core. He still wanted to close the gate.
But how could I unite the people, all the people, if I cut them off? If I did what Brag’mok wanted and effectively killed the gate between worlds?
But he was right; it would end the possibility of an elven invasion.
However, not all the elves were bad. Not all of them deserved to languish in a world that was torn apart by perpetual war. It wasn’t every elf’s fault that their authorities had squandered all the magic they’d brought to the world and now their planet was dying.
Maybe I was being naïve, but perhaps the whole reason the elves hated humans was because back when our ancestors persecuted the druids, it was because they’d been focusing on fences rather than towers.
They’d used fear of the other as the driving force behind their actions.
They had never shared the beauty of their world or their culture or bothered to consider the beauty of the druids and their magic, their connection to the Earth.
So, the druids left. They found a new world and evolved into elves, and the giants with them, becoming what folklore disparagingly referred to as orcs.
Maybe this whole situation with Holy Cross, trying to unite people in my world, was meant to be practice for uniting the elves, giants, and humans if that was what the prophecy was about.
But that was the challenge. Everyone had fences. How could I get people to see beyond the others’ fences and appreciate the beauty of other people’s lives?
We had to start by dismantling the fence. We had to trust that the tower we cared for, be it our world, our humanity, or even our faith, was attractive and beautiful on its own.
And to do that, we had to stop comparing ourselves to others. We had to stop exaggerating other people’s flaws while diminishing their virtues. We had to, as Jag put it, be our own competition, always striving to be better versions of ourselves.
Old Dogma New Tricks (The Elven Prophecy Book 2) Page 14
