Well, said the priest, sitting back. Big challenge. Big task. I’ve been trying myself ever since I got here to get a new church built in town because the current version is falling apart, a drafty barn, it smells like mildew, but if you don’t mind, let’s concentrate on your vision. I, for one, am prompted by your vision to meditate on the nature of illusion. On the seeing of extraordinary things.
Me too, said Carolyn.
I’m interested, said the priest, in the forms of illusion. The various forms of mirage and apparition. Take, for example, crossing your eyes. I can hold my fingers in front of my face and by merely allowing my focus to soften produce the illusion of two index fingers, one immediately beside the other, and that’s one form of illusion. Different from a magician’s illusion that he has pulled a rabbit out of a hat or cut his assistant in half at the waist—that’s just sleight-of-hand and mirrors, I’m not raising the specter of that. If you’re camped beside a river at night and sitting dreamily by your fire you can begin to imagine that the sound of the river is really the sound of voices in the woods or when you’re falling asleep or in reverie you can feel that somewhere in the drift of your thoughts is something vaguely repetitive of the past, as if you’ve been in this moment before, but—
Déjà vu, said Carolyn. I’m having one right now.
That’s an illusion, said the priest. Though it’s entirely possible that in point of fact you might have been here before.
You said that last time, exactly.
The priest smiled. Did I smile? he asked. Did I ask you if I smiled?
I’m completely not religious, said Carolyn, so I don’t care if you know this or not you can take it or leave it for whatever it’s worth since it’s probably some kind of sin or something but I’ve been on probably two dozen acid trips and seen things like seagulls flying in slow motion and a cat multiplying into twenty cats sort of like in a hall of mirrors and also a tree squeezed so tightly by a cable that I could literally hear it… weeping. And it all seemed more real than real, more real than normal does, but it was just inside my head in the end. It was just something my head made up. It was just a trip I was on.
I know what you’re saying, Ann said. But this isn’t like that. It’s different.
Different how? said Carolyn.
I remember, said Ann, my science teacher in the ninth grade saying that if you were a dog or a bee, everything would be different. You wouldn’t see what we see. If you were a fly this teacup wouldn’t be here. If none of us were in this room and just a fly was buzzing around there wouldn’t be this cup.
What is this, Ann, Philosophy One-oh-one? I thought you believed in God and Creation. What are all these deep thoughts?
I’m just saying—I saw the Blessed Mother.
Look, I have to pee, said Carolyn. So hold the phenomenology, please, until I empty my bladder.
I saw Mother Mary, repeated Ann.
Carolyn got up and went toward the bathroom. Remember to lift the handle, called the priest. You have to hold it for about three seconds if you want the thing to flush right.
Then they were alone together, the visionary and the priest. He could hear her rough, asthmatic breathing. He became self-conscious and began to worry that the fine hairs shooting from his ears now that he was close to thirty were highly objectionable. Ann, he said. That’s your name, I guess. The epistemological argument can be a compelling one.
Sorry but I don’t follow you.
It doesn’t matter when I think about it because your argument isn’t really epistemological, it’s empirical to its core. It’s based on data, raw evidence. It’s based on knowing something definitively because you’ve experienced it directly and explicitly and without questioning the validity of your senses. There’s no deduction or induction. Just your sensory impression.
Anyway you don’t believe me, Ann said.
I do believe you. I didn’t say that. I believe you saw Our Lady.
But you don’t believe she was actually there.
That’s what I’ve been talking about. That’s exactly the question at hand. What do you mean by actually?
Really there. You know. Not just something that came from me. Something that came from outside of me. That’s what I mean by actually there. Really there, Father.
Really there is the central question.
And I can tell you don’t think she really was.
I’m just saying honestly that I don’t know. I’m just saying it didn’t happen to me. I have no direct experience of Mary, unlike you, can you see that? For you, it’s one thing, for me it’s another. What I have is your report about it which I am not criticizing in any way, but still it’s important for me to be certain before I decide that the Mother of God is really, actually present. It’s just too important to accept on its face without asking fundamental questions.
She told me I should come and tell you everything.
And in what way would you describe her tone?
I don’t know. What do you mean?
I mean is she giving you a firm command when she instructs you to come and talk to me? Is it an order, a request, a suggestion maybe? How would you describe her tone?
It’s a command, Father. She commands me.
A command sounds… scary. Is it scary a little? Is all of it kind of frightening?
I’m scared about one thing.
What is that?
I’m scared about the devil, Father.
There isn’t any devil, Ann.
Yes there is. I feel his presence.
The priest appraised her disconsolately. It’s normal to feel unsettled, he said, in a situation like this.
Ann leaned toward him desperately. Suddenly my whole life is different, she said. I didn’t ask for this to happen. But it did happen, and I’m here because of it. Because she told me to come to you.
I’m trying to understand this, said the priest. I think I can guess how it might feel to be seeing the Mother of God, yes.
You think I’m crazy. That I’m seeing things.
I’m a cautious believer. Inherently.
And I’ve been chosen. I don’t know why. Just chosen by the Blessed Mother.
That puts us clearly on two different levels.
Well I saw Our Lady out in the woods.
I don’t deny that. I don’t deny or affirm. I only ask questions, Ann.
The girl shook her head. Why me? she asked. Why me of all people? I never went through confirmation and I wasn’t ever baptized.
Father Collins considered this. You’re obviously devout though, he answered.
I’ve never even been to confession, I’ve never taken the sacrament, I’m not even officially Catholic, I only got started being religious the last year or so. So why? Why did she choose me?
Because you’re pure and innocent, I’m guessing.
I’m so not pure it isn’t even funny.
What do you mean?
I’m just not pure.
How exactly?
Everything.
Carolyn tiptoed into the room. You two are whispering, she told them.
He agreed to accompany them the following morning on an expedition to the woods in question, though not without making it explicitly clear that by so doing he offered no sanction or any imprimatur of the church, the trip was merely exploratory, he undertook it speculatively, he would meet them at approximately ten-thirty with his raincoat and his boots. He was casual in manner throughout his farewell, but when they were gone he couldn’t concentrate on his reading—Fear and Trembling, by the angst-ridden Kierkegaard; the priest always read five things at once—and browsed through the National Catholic Reporter with its ads for spiritual retreats and sabbaticals, for hermitages and conferences offering massage or tai chi, one quoting the mystic Rumi in a banal and embarrassing marketing ploy: Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there’s a field. I’ll meet you there. Father Collins combed the classifieds and considered the parish position in Ecuador, Fishing villages on the sea,
and the pilgrimage to Spain and the Celtic pilgrimage and the possibility of Florida Priest Week, to be held at Boynton Beach. Was there really something called Florida Priest Week? A coterie of priests in bathing suits and zoris, discussing, say, the communion of saints or the origins of the church’s sacraments? God be with you, Brother William—and now could you please pass the cocoa butter? Father Collins laughed out loud. He was laughing out loud when the phone rang.
It was Larry Garber from his congregation, who out of both religious zeal and a yearning for perpetual self-flagellation was developing in his evening hours a pro bono set of architect’s plans for the proposed new Saint Joseph’s Church of North Fork. Father, he said. I’m calling late. I don’t like to call anybody this late at night—especially you, a clergyman—but I have a few small questions I need to ask if you don’t mind for a moment.
I’m always here if you need me, said Father Collins. Besides, it’s only nine-thirty.
Well, regarding, again, the elevation of the altar. Have you given any more thought to that? And the three options I presented you with last week for the dimensions of the sacristy? Can we spend a few minutes on those two things? And briefly—again—about the soffits?
I’m glad you called, said Father Collins. I’d love to discuss the sacristy in particular. I’ve been giving it substantial thought.
White lies are loved by God, he told himself. Because the last thing he wanted to do right now was discuss a hypothetical sacristy. Hypothetical because the new church was hypothetical: there were no funds for it. The town’s economic demise and the general indifference of the larger diocese toward its much-beleaguered North Fork parish made certain of that. The new-church notion had been conjured up almost two years before Father Collins’ tenure and the account that had been established for it was now at seventeen thousand dollars and earning three and a half percent. The whole thing seemed, to Father Collins, like an empty and ultimately fruitless hobby, this endless tinkering with lines on a blueprint, worrying which way the doors would swing, what sort of finish to put on the hinges, it seemed to him like a child’s project, like Tinkertoys or Lincoln Logs, he could no more imagine being an architect and spending his working life on these things than he could imagine worshiping Satan. His “work” on the new church was theater, a performance. It was also unexpectedly therapeutic, like woodworking or building model boats. A pastime that felt to him ominous and boring, a staying action, a siege. He wasn’t doing anything important and that fact elicited a fundamental angst not even Kierkegaard could vanquish.
I prefer, he said to Larry Garber, option two for the sacristy. I think it gives us more room to work with. And I’m willing to give up the office space. The third option—that’s too much. I lose the entire nook for my files. I don’t think we want to lose that flush face, the files pushed back, like we talked about.
There was at least ten minutes of this sort of blather, and then Larry Garber asked, tentatively, if Father Collins had heard the rumor about a girl who claimed to see the Virgin Mary.
Yes, said the priest. I’ve heard of that.
What do you think?
As you say—it’s a rumor.
What have you heard?
Various things.
I understand she’s a mushroomer-type person.
Yes, well. We’ll wait and see.
I understand she’s a runaway or something. And maybe—mentally unstable.
Mentally unstable, said Father Collins. All the saints were mentally unstable. Saint Teresa of vila was mentally unstable, as was her friend Saint John of the Cross. As was Saint Francis of Assisi.
Yes.
So look, we’ll talk about the footing drains soon.
After I hear from the engineer. I’ll give him a push. Tomorrow morning.
There’s no hurry, said Father Collins. And God bless you, Larry, in your work. God be with you in it.
After he hung up he dropped the newspaper on the floor and examined his bookcase for anything pertinent to Marian apparitions. There was nothing so he did the remaining dishes before falling onto his bed still clothed where idly he remembered with disturbing clarity the sallow beauty of the girl’s complexion and thought of her saying I’m so not pure, and then he recalled the redhead on the Alaska boat exhorting him to greater heights. These images waned, his fantasies dwindled, and he recollected that his mother had been a dues-paying member of the Marian Helpers and a supporter of the Legion of Mary, had sometimes practiced the First Saturday devotions, had kept Lourdes photos in a keepsake book, had made a trip to Our Lady of Scottsdale in conjunction with a convention of remote-control glider enthusiasts held near the Grand Canyon. He was in seminary and she sent him a postcard depicting the Arizona apparition with a countenance resembling a Barbie doll’s. One hundred and two degrees but very dry, with redrock mountains. Your father’s stomach has been a tad upset but he is finally taking something for it after a little bit of convincing. The convention was a big success and the Grand Canyon had a spectacular sunset and then we drove here to Our Lady of Scottsdale which frankly is disappointing. Looking forward to seeing you Labor Day. Proud of you—Dad too. XXX Mom
She no longer sent postcards. Recently his mother had discovered e-mail, ensnaring him in an instant messaging relationship that made him loath to go on-line. Just checking in, she would write invasively. I’m still here, he’d reply in surrender. When do you think you might come home? I am home, so to speak, I guess. You know what I mean. I have some free time in 2013. Your father’s birthday is coming up. Dad’s getting old—is he depressed about it? Your father doesn’t get depressed. Maybe he should, wrote Donny.
He put his sisters on his buddy list. Forgive me Father for I have sinned—something of that ilk would pop onto his screen. So what else is new? I’m sleeping with my lover’s lover—do you think that’s okay with God? I’d ask for you, you know I would, but I don’t want to bore Him with the details of your sex life. I’m also sleeping with my neighbor’s black Lab. Cruelty to animals. Better than nothing. Two-word limit. You lose. No way. Make it one. Okay.
Or: How many loggers have you converted this week? I stopped counting when it got to be a problem. I want to visit. Well don’t wear Gore-Tex. What’s acceptable? Nothing, really. It’s a town with NAKED ONLY signs? It’s a town with YOU’RE NOT WELCOME signs. I feel so welcomed in places like that. EARTH FIRST: WE’LL LOG THE OTHER PLANETS LATER. So—ahem—you’re doing okay? HUG A LOGGER: YOU’LL NEVER GO BACK TO TREES. Gee I guess you’re doing great. I LOVE SPOTTED OWLS—FRIED.
Or: You’ve been a priest for almost a year. You’re excellent with a calendar. No regrets you ex-pothead? It isn’t possible to have no regrets. Mother Teresa wouldn’t say that. Mother Teresa’s not an ex-pothead. You have to miss the act of fornication. Fornication remains inviting. Satan is powerful, Father Collins. But I don’t want fornication, really, what I want is meaning. Fornication’s meaningful. For however long it takes, agreed; then postcoital depression, in my case. You’re a very heavy dude, Father. It’s a heavy job, sister—very weighty. Couldn’t it be like one-year probation? I wouldn’t have to wait a whole year. Well Jesus Christ. Quit.
Quit? He’d arrived in North Fork the previous November and found that his congregation was twenty-seven families, half of them out of work. There was a core of twelve families regularly at mass, a gathering of forty to fifty people, the majority with Teutonic or Anglo-Saxon names like Goble and Pendergast. Half of these were staples at confession, which he sat for fascinated three times a week: I got drunk and shoved my daughter against a wall when I caught her with a six-pack. I ripped off the clinic for these pills I like. I stole a T-bone at MarketTime by shoving it down the front of my pants. I cheated on my Food Handling test. I hung around till they were just bout closed and when she went into the back to get something I took a bottle from behind the bar and stuck it in my coat. Or: I siphoned gas because I didn’t have none and didn’t leave a note or nothing. I didn’t go all the way but I sure came
close and I didn’t tell my husband about it. I took some paper clips at work and after that it was like a flood and I just filled my house with office supplies and with cleaning stuff from the closet. Or: I rammed a Forest Service gate last night. I borrowed a chain saw from behind Pete’s shop and just didn’t never return it. I was out elk hunting with no success and out of sheer frustration I guess it was I shot somebody’s cat.
There was the woman with persisting sexual thoughts about her teenage son’s best friend. There was the girl considering birth control measures whose virginity was under siege. There was the man who was only recently remarried but sleeping with his ex-wife again, to his endless astonishment. There was the grocery store checker upbraiding herself for ignoring her mother in Alabama, where she was dying of kidney failure. There was the divorced man whose daughter hated him, the divorced woman whose son hated her, the former car-parts sales clerk who hated everybody. There was the woman who felt she was uncharitable because she hadn’t made enough hospital visits since her confession the week before. Then there were the members of the Tom Cross family with their highly appropriate surname. The girl of fourteen sat with her mother near the middle front every week but Tom Cross always sat by himself farther toward the rear. No matter that they were separated, as a whole they were a disturbing reminder of God’s capricious mystery. They’d been visited by the worst sort of accident. The Cross boy, nineteen, was paralyzed. A committee had formed to attend this tragedy, and like the chorus in a Greek play its members felt called upon to comment. Be prepared, its chairwoman had written Father Collins, a week before he came to North Fork, for a family in a state of disarray, a family much in need of your ministry. Perhaps it is for them as much as for anything that you’ve been summoned to us.
But did Father Collins feel summoned? Not in that way, not called. He had simply replied when asked by the bishop that he was willing to go where he was needed. And he had only said this because to his ear it sounded like what a new priest should say, a properly pious and humble new priest who understood his vocation. So in truth it was via this momentary playacting that Father Collins was summoned. He had practiced a small heroic deception. By the route of his own deceit he had landed in a dying timber town. Now and again he tried to convince himself that in fact he had not engaged in a falsehood but had declaimed before the bishop instead his truer and more noble self, discovering it in that moment. As if the words had surprised even him—wherever I am needed. As if inspired by all his training to rise to this occasion. But most of the time, alone in his trailer, his self-effacing pronouncement to the bishop felt like circumstantial theater for which he now paid dearly. At the moment of truth he had not been true and North Fork was his daily penance for the sin of obfuscating.