I Am The Local Atheist (43 page)

“
You fucking asshole.
You fucking
asshole
!”

But he was
leaving the room and reaching for his coat at the front door. “I
just need to head out for a bit. Can you close the door when you
leave dude?”

His feet
slapped against the wet pavements outside and then he was gone,
leaving me alone in a house that didn’t belong to me, surrounded by
possessions that were as foreign as any kind of understanding that
might have come from what had just happened. I felt hollow, like my
insides had been scooped out and dumped in an unmarked grave.

Part II

Alice took a
deep breath before she started her sermon, opened her piece of
paper out in front of her and placed it firmly on the pulpit.

“‘
Vice takes up her abode in many temples, and who can say that
a fair outside shall not enshrine her?’

“
Don’t worry. I’m not going to try to convince you of my ‘fair
outside’ this entire sermon.” She battered her eyelids.

Gentle
laughter rippled across the audience.

“
Far from it in fact.

“
This quote is from a book about poverty, criminals,
righteousness and above all, the triumph of goodness over all else.
When I read this it struck me as a very true statement. True
because vices never pick their targets by outward appearance. They
never say ‘oh this person is too pretty to inflict with an
addiction, this person is too handsome to inflict, this person is
too overweight, underweight, or the perfect shape and has the right
look.’ No, how we look on the outside means nothing to the hard
line of a vice. The only thing that matters is how we act. How
we
react
when we
are faced with the temptation to take a vice by the hand and let it
lead us astray. Any one of us may succumb. Any one of
us.

“
In case you’re wondering, the book is
Oliver Twist
, that famous novel by
Charles Dickens with the classic line ‘Please Sir, I want some
more.’”

Alice smiled
innocently.

“
Please Sir, I want some more.”

The smile was
gone.

“
Now, Oliver lost a bet; and he was starving, hungry and
desperate when he walked up to the master of the workhouse kitchen
and uttered those famous words. He had no true knowledge of his
surroundings as a young boy, only the innocence of knowing what
hunger was and how hunger needed satisfying.

“
How many of us feel like that in the morning? A hunger that
needs satisfying?

“
I had a hunger once that needed satisfying as well. And it
wasn’t just mornings it rose its attractive head to me, so
attractive that I couldn’t resist wanting more. But I wasn’t
blessed with the innocence of youth like young Oliver – I was an
adult; and yet I still managed to purposely ignore the fact that I
was an adult who could make her own decisions. Sometimes it’s easy
to pretend you are still a child when you are in the process of
leaving childhood behind. Sometimes it’s easy to pretend you can’t
make decisions so that you can ignore the decision, and use that as
an excuse later on. But here’s the thing: I can’t forget the
afflictions of my past, I cannot pretend they haven’t tried
destroying my will to live at every turn; they have been a battle
wrought with the temptations of darkness. I can’t pretend it wasn’t
me who picked up the needle and ignored common sense all those
years ago.”

Alice paused
for a moment before continuing on.

“
Well, I
can
pretend, but I will always
know
that it was
me. No one else. Me. Alice. Alice who slapped the veins of her
inner arm to prepare them for a rush she thought she needed, Alice
who lay down and forgot about the world that was calling to her,
Alice who ignored the Lord’s Prayer, Alice who ignored the promise
that God would not harm her; Alice who forgot to seek with all her
heart. That wasn’t
her
, that was
me
. And I can never forget that.

“
Never!”

Alice put a
hand to her eyes.

“
I want to – ‘oh God, please let me forget’ I would cry into my
pillow at night in my officer training days – but God would never
let me forget, because God knew that that knowledge I had of that
pain I had inflicted upon myself would serve me well after God had
called me to help other people.”

Her hands
wiped away the tears.

“
And it has. It has.

“
I used to look at the examples of God’s prophets as though
they were some kind of lie: God called upon thieves, murderers and
gamblers to do His bidding:
what kind of
god was that?
What kind of god would call
a junkie like me to join The Salvation Army?
But I came to understand that the lives of these people were
changed drastically by the calling of God, were changed for the
better, were changed as an example to the rest of us just how
powerful and loving the will of God really is. God chose
individuals like David, and even Jonah who ran away from God’s
calling, as examples of ‘failed human beings’ who could rise above
their humanity and do good in the world.

“
Young Oliver is an amazing character. He never seems to fall
into the trap of crime, only ever to be led by human hands in and
around crime; yet his good soul never seems to fail him. Sometimes
I wish I could be like Oliver, but most days I struggle to even
relate to him. Because every day I seem to fail. Every day when I
think I’m doing good, something goes wrong; every day when I think
I have achieved blissful happiness, the afflictions from my past
stare at me ruthlessly; and every day, at some point, I seem to
fail in my ability to follow the example of Christ.

“
But, it is not the failing that matters – Jesus knew that we
all would fail at one time or another – it is the trying and the
doing that matters. So long as I keep using Christ as my template,
and the likes of David and Jonah as my examples, I know that I can
overcome the failings of my own humanity. I know that I can let the
light of God in and absolve me of my sins and afflictions that not
only plague me from my past, but also threaten to destroy me every
day.

“
So I say to you now: Don’t look to me Alice as your example,
because I am just like you, and I fail everyday also; look to
Christ as your template because he is the only example that we have
of God-in-the-flesh – anything else is just a myth, a fantasy, a
fairytale; here in the Bible we have the truth, the way, and the
light. I have faith in the love that God provides to help guide me,
and I look to the examples in the Bible as consolation for my own
humanity – that if flawed individuals like David and Jonah can
overcome their doubts and put their faith in God, then so can
I.

“
Amen.”

Alice walked
up to my mum and I with her fingers awkwardly folding the sermon up
and shoving it into one of her pockets. She had been holding it
between her thumbs right up until the end of the service when
everyone stood up and started mingling. “Hi David, so glad you
could make it. Is this your mum?”

Mum reached
out her hand. “Hi.”

Alice took it
gently. “So good to see you here.”

“
It’s good to be here” Mum replied.

“
And nice of you to drag your son along.” Alice raised her
eyebrows with a smile.

“
Oh, actually it was David that dragged me along.”

“
Kicking and screaming huh?”

“
Well, I wouldn’t say kicking…”

“
Actually, David has been a great help to us. You should be
very proud.”

Mum smiled
awkwardly. “Thank you.”

“
He’s done so much!”

I rolled my
eyes.

Christie
touched me on the arm. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

We stepped
aside as Alice overemphasised what little I actually had done to
Mum’s receptive ear.

“
David, have you thought about coming back to Charge Up to help
us out?”

“
Oh, I don’t think I could.”

“
Look, Lucas has decided not to help out anymore. I don’t know
if you know the reasons for that or not, but those reasons are his
own and I have no desire to make an issue of it. My main concern is
for the children who attend, and Alice and I would really love to
have a male role model available for these kids and I really think
you proved yourself to be that when you were here with
them.”

“
I’m not sure Christie. I don’t think I’m the role model that
you imagine me to be.”

“
Alice has absolute faith in you, and her faith is more than
good enough for me.”

I looked over
at Alice chatting the ear off my mum. Mum actually looked pleased
to have someone talking so enthusiastically to her. I couldn’t help
but smile.

“
Regardless of how you feel about yourself, David, I also have
faith in your abilities. Alice said something to me the other day
that rang so true about us Salvationists: It’s our life experiences
that make us what we are, and it’s our life experiences that make
us capable of helping in the most humane way possible.” She smiled.
“And besides, it’s amazing how little you have to do in order to
provide these wonderful young people with a positive role
model.”

“
I’m not sure I’m ready to jump back into that kind of
responsibility.”

“
It’s really nothing more than an everyday responsibility,
David. Kids just want to have fun.” She placed her hand on her
chest and laughed. “I just wanna have fun! And that’s all that we
aim for.”

It sounded
enticing, and she seemed so genuine about her concern for the kids.
And in all honesty, I actually missed the physical fun that I had
experienced at Charge Up. “Can I think about it?”

She smiled
with a sense of empathy that I appreciated. “Absolutely no pressure
David. Who knows, maybe you could jump into a Polytech course in
between. Lucas did mention that you were interested in Art History
or something.”

I rolled my
eyes. “My flatmate seems to think so too.”

“
Well, regardless of what you choose, David, I think you’ll
find your calling when God is ready to call you into
it.”

I didn’t doubt
that she was right. But I think that God had already called me, and
I think she knew it.

* * *

We had been
kneeling for some time, quietly, each to their own thoughts; Mum
beside me, eyes closed and head bowed in prayer. The congregation
had left and Alice had closed the doors to the main room quietly
behind us as mum and I stayed behind to pray.

My hands were
clasped under my chin, but I didn’t really feel anything while we
knelt there. It’s not that I didn’t want to or anything, just that
at that point I was still thinking about a lot of things and
wondering how much I believed in God, whether all the Christians I
had ever known had honestly believed in God. They liked talking it
up, going to church and putting on the good act, yet at the drop of
a hat, they were willing to backstab and beat the crap out of
someone…

I had somehow become one of them: The faithless under a banner
of faith.
Wave the banner, do all you can
to look good in the eyes of your peers, but the rest of the world
can go to hell.
I had never wanted that. I
had never wanted that of myself, yet I had slipped out of the hands
of love and fallen into despair that had blinded me. Satan must
have been rubbing his hands in glee as he looked upon
me.

I stared at
the brown carpet on the floor.

I didn’t even
believe in Satan. At least not as an entity. It seemed like such a
ridiculous notion to me. At least with Jesus there was evidential
documents of his existence, and the fact that he was God
personified as a human being meant that Satan as a counterpart was
inconsequential. Even if Jesus had human limitations, and Satan had
all the powers of an angel (if not more), Jesus had all of the Holy
Spirit in him, complete and unbeatable. Satan is no counterpart to
God, there is no duality; there is only the evil that we subject
ourselves to because of our failure to attain love. And love is
God. And God is supreme.

I waited for
mum to raise her head and wipe the tears from her eyes and cheeks.
She rested her head on her arms. She seemed so tired.

“
Do you believe in God Mum?”

Didn’t answer
for a while. Probably wondering what the hell I was asking such a
stupid question for. And then she raised her head and looked up at
the same cross.

“
I have faith that God will absolve me of my sins.”

This had never
felt like an honest answer to me, even when I heard it straight
from the mouths of preachers. It was as if they were trying to pull
one over my eyes, make me feel like I was guilty of a crime that I
didn’t commit, guilty of being human; rather than just answering
the question with a simple and open ‘yes’. I looked up with her.
Most wooden crosses were just symbols. I wondered how much that
really meant without the image of Jesus himself hanging from it.
“But do you actually believe in the existence of God? That there is
an actual God… in existence.”

“
Yes I do. I always have. For a long time I only went to church
because it was the right thing to do, because I believed that I was
a sinner and needed my sins to be absolved. But I realised that my
sins were already absolved, that faith in Jesus was my absolution.
I’m here for myself now. So that God’s love can bless me with
happiness and good will.”