Next Christmas

In April of 1983 an astronomical event took place. A phenomenon that is common in geological time, but rare in the era of mankind. The positions of the planets of our solar system were such that they formed a single straight line stretching out from the sun.

The effect when viewed from earth was the appearance of a super bright star. The last occurrence of this phenomenon was around 6 BC and at the time it was a major event.  However, we now live under polluted skies, dimmed by the effects of our bright city lights, and in 1983 the event went unnoticed by most people.

One of the few people who did witness the planetary alignment was Father Liam, his place of work in the desert on the Sudanese-Ethiopian border is not subject to the effects of air and light pollution. He remembered it well; the giant star that hung in the sky for the last few weeks of that spring. As Father Liam himself said, there was little to do here but work, read and stare at the sky, and he spent a good deal of his time engaged in all three.

Father Liam dropped the magazine onto the table. ”Reading about a fourteen year-old astronomical event in a ten year-old magazine is a sure sign there is a drought of intellectual stimulation” he thought.  Still, this should be the last day of this particular drought as he was heading for the city the next day. In this part of the world a city is any village with more than one cross road. Bumbadi however did have a post office, and Liam was sure that his sister would not have let him down and there would be a parcel of new reading material waiting for him.

Normally this annual trip was the highlight of his year, but this year it provided yet another source of frustration. Each year the mission provided scholarships for two students to attend the senior secondary school in the city, but shrinking resources meant this year there would be only one.

 Considering the parish he served covered an area about half the size of his native Ireland, it was not surprising that Father Liam could not remember meeting this year’s candidate before today. The girl and her mother had walked the twenty miles from their village, and would stay overnight in the mission station guest quarters, tomorrow Father Liam would drive them to the city.

Among his many roles at the mission station he was the local transport system. He was the proud possessor of a fifteen year old, temperamental, under-polished Land Rover, which he himself said was more likely to respond to violence than to prayer.

The school here at the mission station was run by the two mission sisters. Sister Nora and Sister Patrick and provided schooling only to junior secondary school level, most students graduated at age fourteen or so. There were also a number of smaller schools attached to the mission, mainly taught by students who returned to the area having received extra schooling in one of the city schools. The fact that this particular girl came from one of these schools, with all of their educational disadvantages, was a testament to her intelligence.

Sister Nora, who had gone to interview the girl at the suggestion of Mrs. Malwal the girl’s teacher, certainly seemed impressed with her.  “She appears to be very mature for her age”, she said, “and I think she has read every book in the mission library”. Father Liam, who had also managed this feat- the library, was not that extensive - had to admit that he was impressed, considering he had a twenty five year start on the girl. When he met Alma and her mother earlier in the day she appeared to be a nice ordinary teenager typical of this part of the world. She was polite and deferred to her mother, who understandably had many questions for him, and consequently did most of the talking.

That evening after supper, as was his custom Liam was sitting on the porch of his small hut, under the hurricane lamp. As he slapped at a mosquito that had penetrated his chemical defences, he noticed that the girl was standing at the edge of the decking area, staring at the sky. “Isn’t it beautiful” she said “I never tire of this sky”. “I always feel that when our Father made this he was having a good day”.

The tone of her words surprised him. The way she said “our Father” sounded like she was indeed referring to a member of her own family, not the tone usually used when referring to an abstract God. If the tone of these words surprised him however, what she said next left him stunned.

 “Oh” she said in a sad voice “but I see that you yourself have lost your faith”.

For forty years he had carried this secret, hiding it from congregation, bishop, the superiors of his order and the world in general. Yet this child had seen it immediately, even before he had opened his mouth to speak with her.  The truth was that his faith did not survive the first full year of his mission work here.

How could one believe in a Just God; when the injustices of seeing his flock, inhabitants of a world of plenty, scrape less than a living from an unyielding desert, the fear of famine and starvation a constant companion. How could he have faith in a God who said “ask and you shall receive” who in spite of countless prayers would fail to save a helpless child from death by hunger-induced disease?

“But” she said in a questioning tone “you still serve us as our priest?”  “She knows” he thought “yet she has no recriminations, she is genuinely curious”

“It is all I know how to do” He said, realising immediately that she would see through his lie. He continued as a priest because he knew that if he left here, his order would not be able to replace him. How could he deprive these people, that he loved like his own family, of the only thing that they possessed, the illusion of a God who loved them and a better life to follow the one they now lived?

“You poor man” she said with genuine grief “faith is so linked to hope, and you have abandoned both and are trying to survive on love alone”.

He was suddenly uncomfortable with this conversation; she seemed to sense this and went to leave. Liam was seized with a fear that he would encounter a great sense of loss if she were to go. “No, please stay” said Liam, nodding towards the second chair on the porch. She sat.

 He tried to change the subject. “What do you intend to do when you finish school?” he asked. “I intend to change mankind” she answered. “Ah, just a little project so?” said Liam, and they both smiled at the small joke. “I am charged with this task” she said “I am made in the image of an omnipotent God and I intend to take the responsibility seriously”

“You really believe in a God who does nothing to help your people get out of this life of poverty and degradation?” he asked.

“But he did do something “she said “he sent you”.  “Me” laughed Liam “am I the best He can do, a drop in the ocean”.  “What is an ocean but many drops” she said “the world contains seven billion drops like you and I, God cannot be faulted for not providing the resources” They sat in silence for a while.

“Will you become a nun?” he asked. “I think not” she said “to be a nun I would need to study and understand the entire bible.” “I am struggling with the first few pages of Genesis”

 “I think that religion” she said “may be man’s greatest arrogance” “Do we really believe that God does or should care what name we use when we speak to Him? “Because our religion is part of our identity, it forces us into all sort of dilemmas” she continued “you know the sort of thing “ – “My God’s more powerful than your God” she sang, bringing a smile to his face.

“I find it hard to believe in the all-powerful God of the world’s religions” she said” such an image of God does not leave any requirement for love”. He was puzzled now. “What do you mean?” he asked

  “The first time I had a problem with theology?” she asked, “I was about six or seven in Sister Patrick’s religion class”. “She was talking about creation, telling us how God had made the world, and was really enthusiastic about how God had made everything, all the plants and animals, the sun and the moon and all the stars and it had taken him only seven days”

“I was left wondering – What took him so long?  You see I believed in the Divine Conjurer.

 “Just picture it” She says “Day one, He says – “Let there be light’” flash bang wallop, and light is created. “That’s me done for today” He says “Mrs God, where’s my tea?” “Not exactly an exacting day’s work is it”?

Tears of laughter flowed from Liam’s eyes as his mind struggled with the conflict between the humorous image inspired by her story, and the habit of suppressing the mildly implied blasphemy of it.

“And you have to ask” she continued “what is it we owe Him” “Yes, He provides the wonderful world we live in, but creating us did not cost Him anything. Before the creation, He was just sitting around being God, it’s not like He had a lot on”

Alma continued with her story. “Later” she said “when I read science I found that the week was not seven days, but millions and millions of years. Not the short compressed years of the past, but real years of three hundred and sixty five days”

 “I then thought what could God be like? If I am made in His image and likeness He must be like me? So I thought: what would I do if I wanted to create a universe, probably the same as I would do if I wanted produce an essay, or a painting or a haystack or anything else? First I would imagine it, but I would not try to imagine it into being; I would then pick up my tools and set about building it. Maybe God took so long, because he had to construct every grain of sand, every drop of water in the oceans.”

“In fact I find I cannot believe in an all-powerful God, because I cannot believe that the laws which govern heaven can be so different from those that rule on earth” “I believe in a labouring God. A God who made us with the sweat of His brow and the efforts of his toil, and that creation is a process and not an event; I think that we keep God very busy”

 “I believe in a God who must work through the frustrations of having to toil for those who do not recognise the efforts that he makes” “A God like, well, someone like you, Father Liam”

They sat in silence for a long time the priest and the girl. Finally she spoke again.

“How simple it is to confuse pleasure for joy, or comfort for happiness. Take you, for example. You have laboured through discomfort and hardship and dealt with many frustrations, if you had your life to live over, how many days would you change?”

He thought for a while. “None” he answered truthfully. “You see” she said brightly  “you were in heaven all along and just did not recognise it”  She rose  “good night, Father Liam, I will see you in the morning”, and she left him under a sky of a billion stars, his mind imagining a great Deity straining to maintain order in an unruly universe.

He knew that he would continue to give of his best to his flock, but in future he would also take, take consolation from his renewed faith, and the hope that it implied, and comfort in the certainty of the existence of heaven.

Before he slept that night he prayed, something he had not done for forty years. “Thank you Lord for again sending Your Saviour into the world”