Jesus Jackson (22 page)
Authors: James Ryan Daley
Having no place left to go, I just started walking back toward home, figuring that I would be found at some point before I got there, but not caring enough to hide anymore. After just a few minutes of walking, though, I found myself passing by the entrance to Saint Christopher's, and decided to step inside.
The chapel seemed empty, so I wandered slowly toward the altar, just taking it all in, and thinking back on all the Sundays I had spent there when I was a little kid. I was almost at the first row of pews when I heard a voice say my name.
“Jonathan? Jonathan Stiles?”
I turned to my left, and there was father Kevin, kneeling just a few feet away. “Oh,” I said. “Hi.”
“Please sit down,” he replied, almost in wonderment. “What brings you here so early?”
Thankfully, he did not seem to know about the previous night's events. But I had to give him some kind of answer, so I brought up the only possible topic I could ever want to discuss with him. “I want to talk about Ryan.”
He smiled at me gently, as if he was expecting this very answer, and then motioned for me to sit down beside him in the pew.
“What about Ryan would you like to talk about, exactly?” he asked.
Of course, I really didn't feel like talking about Ryan with anyone, much less a priest. And yet, there was one question that I always wanted an answer to. “Three years ago, when Ryan and I came to talk to you, what did you say to him after you sent me out of the room?”
He looked a little surprised by the question (I imagine he was anticipating a more general inquiry about death, or heaven, or something like that), but he didn't let it faze him much. He folded his hands across his stomach and nodded slowly in recollection. “Ah, yes. That was a long time ago. Why come back here after so long, for that?”
“I justâ¦Well, I think Ryan changed after that. A lot. And I just need to know why.”
He nodded some more, apparently accepting my reason. “I didn't have to say much, really. I figured out pretty quickly that his fervor was for your benefit, so once you left the room, I just asked him to explain to me again why he didn't believe. The next thing I know, he's telling me a very long, involved, and personal story about not believing in Christianity, but still needing there to be a god.” Then his eyes flickered into a smile. “And if I recall, he said that he had researched just about every god that ever was, and couldn't find any evidence to support any of them. Is that right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “That's right.”
“And when I told him it was impossible to find
proof
about something that you're supposed to have faith in, he told me that it was impossible for him to have faith in something without having any proof about it.”
I had to chuckle a bit. “Yup, that sounds like Ryan.”
“And so I told him that he had reached an impasse. He couldn't believe in any god without evidence, he couldn't find evidence about any god at all, and yet he still felt like he just
needed
to believe.”
I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach. It sounded quite familiar, this dilemma. “So, what did you tell him?”
Father Kevin shrugged. “I told him that it didn't matter how many gods he read about, he would always come back to the fact that believing in Godâin any godârequires faith. And faith means believing in something you cannot prove. If he really needed God to exist, then he would just have to accept that he existed, despite any evidence he found to the contrary. If he couldn't bring himself to do that, then he would just have to go through life without a god. It's really very simple, when you think about it.”
“And what did he say?”
“Nothing,” said Father Kevin. “He just thanked me for my time, and said he should get going.”
“Whatâ¦that's it?” I asked. “That's all? He just got up and left?”
“Pretty much,” he said. “Although he did ask me for a favor first.”
“What kind of favor?”
“He asked me to not meet with you again, unless you really wanted to meet with me. He was worried that he had already influenced your ideas too much, and if anyone else tried to influence them, you would wind up just as confused as he was. I guess he thought you'd be better off figuring out what to believe for yourself. I generally don't meet with people who do not wish to meet with me, so I had no trouble agreeing.”
“But did he
ever
tell you anything about what he believed?” I asked. “Even years later, did he ever tell you what choice he made?
Father Kevin shook his head. “No, he never did. He came to church, took Communion, he may have even gone to confession a few times, but I never knew what he truly believed in his heart.”
“Of course,” I said, mostly to myself. “Only Ryan could know that.”
“And the Lord,” added Father Kevin.
“Right,” I said. “Him too.”
And with that, I thanked Father Kevin and walked out into the dawn.
Now, I won't lie to you, this all put me in a mild state of shock. Not so much because Father Kevin didn't know what Ryan chose to believe about God (how could he, after all?), but rather because Ryan was able to make a choice at all.
And then again, maybe he didn't. Maybe he was pretending the whole time and that's what led him to the edge of that ravine behind the school. Or on the other hand, maybe he just accepted the whole God thing, became an honest, contented Catholic, and had the best three years of his life. Of course, these are just more and more questions that I'll never be able to answer.
But what I do know is that I could never follow the same path that Ryan did. Whether his faith was real or an act, he jumped on the bandwagonâhe played along, he joined the club. And that's just not in me; it's not who I am. I could never
pretend
to believe like that, and I could never
decide
to believe like that. Even if I wanted to.
And as I stepped out of that church, it occurred to me that I didn't have to make that choice at all. That you don't need to choose between accepting someone else's faith and going without faith altogether. That you can choose to have faith in anything you want, in anything you
feel
. You can have faith in science, or your favorite comic book, faith in the stars or faith in the Earth, faith in your job or your family or your best friend or your dog. You can have faith in the sweet face of a pretty red-haired girl who just wants to be close to you because she thinks that you just might want to be close to her tooâ¦.
And so I made my choice. Right there, on the front steps of Saint Christopher's. I made my choice and I ran down the steps and then clear across town, as fast as I could, until I found myself stumbling and panting on the St. Claires' lawn.
Cassie must have heard me out there in the yard, because she appeared at her window before I even had the chance to toss a pebble at the glass. She looked angry at first: her face hard and hurt. But then I saw her eyes focus on something in the distance. I turned to see what it was, though I already knew: it was a police car, making its way slowly past the house, searching for me.
I collapsed onto my kneesâout of exhaustion, or desperation, or emotion, or all threeâand Cassie softened, a little bit. Then she smiled, climbed out her window, and joined me on the lawn.
And after all of it was overâafter the cops and the apologies and the wrath of my mother, after Henry and I got kicked out of St. Soren's for good (which really wasn't much of a punishment)âafter all of it, the only thing that still mattered was the fact that I had finally made a choice. I chose to believe in what I feel. I took a leap of faith, and landed.
And sure, I still don't know how Ryan wound up in that ravine, or where he is now, or if he's anywhere at all. But it doesn't bother me anymore. What matters is that I have faith in where
I am
, now. And I am right here. And I am alive.
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