(A story by my friend, Orestes Wilkinson, hermit; hand-delivered this morning from his mountain fortress.)

Confessional; or, Even the Dog Has a Creed
by Orestes Wilkinson

“Bless me father, for I have sinned.”

“How long has it been since your last confession?”

“To a priest?”

“Yes, of course . . .”

“I think it was 1995. Just before my ex-wife divorced me because I became sick and she realized I’d never have any status or money. And then told my priest I was a bad person or something. I’m not sure.”

“Didn’t you ask?”

“I was in the hospital.”

“But later.”

“Well, I was sick. I waited to be visited by someone from the Church – I used to do this for others when I was a Eucharistic Minister.”

“No one came?”

“No one came. No one called. I figured no one cared.”

“Did you ask – ?”

“ – well, no. No, I felt horrible, abandoned. I lost everything – didn’t even feel like getting out of the bed anymore. It was like waking up the day after the Earth ended for a long time, wondering, ‘Now what?’ I’d survived, but why? What was the point? The only purpose I could lay hold of at the beginning was being a father to my son. He was about a year and a half at that time . . .”

“So what did you do?”

“Decided I had to make it up as I went. Figure it out on my own. I waited around for directions from God for awhile, but what I received was a sense of shipwreck. So, being shipwrecked on alien shores, it looked as if I had to stay alive till the rescue came – if it ever came. Which it didn’t . . . or, maybe, that was the rescue, the inspiration to keep moving and create a meaning where I found none. The refusal to just sit down and die.”

“Why didn’t you return to Mother Church?”

“Father, I had a strong sense that I never left Mother Church: Mother Church left me, abandoned me – or Her representatives on Earth did. And then, since my ex-wife divorced me, I was banned from receiving Holy Communion, the thing I valued most in my religion, the place where I met God concretely and from which received some small measure of peace and a sort of orientation. It was a magic beyond magic for me, a mystical union literally beyond words and saying.

“In losing it, I was shut outside with the dogs, as good as dead. Where once I was privileged to serve the altar as a lay minister and had some reason to take my life very seriously, Mother Church forbade me from approaching the altar rail from the other side at all and decided my life was worthless to Her after all. So, like all good, homeless dogs, I set to wandering as I had before my conversion.”

“Where did you go?”

“Where I always wind up – searching for a place where I am welcomed and valued – or just tolerated; searching for truth; searching for a way to live, and looking for who it is, exactly, that God intends for me to be here in this world. In the end, I went to the Episcopal Church because it had room for the wounded and the imperfect, the seeker and questioner, the doubter, the abandoned. I was and am of a different, lower class than my fellow Episcopalians, plagued with poverty at times, illness, given the burden of caring for the sick, teaching the inquisitive, and facing people who genuinely hate me because … well, I don’t always understand it.

“Sometimes it is because I am very different than most people where I am from, a strange person, a person who asks too many questions, thinks too deeply and comes up with answers that don’t square with the majority opinion. And, then, I am stupid enough to share my ideas openly – for this flaw in my character (one of many), my community tells me it is not my community.

“Sometimes it is because my ex-wife hates me deeply, is angered that she ever had anything to do with me, that we have a child together – feels I must be punished and must be made to pay to the last ounce of my ability to do so; that I must be made to feel guilty for each and every transgression, no matter how minute, no matter how distant, no matter how ephemeral, no matter how illusory, that she perceives or recalls or imagines. Largely, I do not grasp why I am supposed to suffer because of my ex-wife’s anger and unhappiness, especially as we are now nearly 13 years out from the divorce and I have done all for my son I have been allowed to do . . . but, truthfully, I understand very little in this world, being but a dog and a fool.

“Anyway – The Episcopal Church decided it would have me, so I went there and made as much of a home as I could, being a perpetual outsider. The people were all good to me, even when it took effort; I think they tended to forgive my being shy and uncomfortable, as I hadn’t spoken to many strangers for years at the time I crossed the threshold the first time, and as my last experience with a church as an adult was what it had been as a child: I was dismissed and devalued. So, there I went, found a good priest and a good community that was as supporting of me as I’d allow it to be, and was confirmed into the Anglican Communion. And, again, was allowed to approach the altar, allowed to approach my Christ Who, in spite of my many faults and hurts and stupidities, welcomed me again into His presence and supped with me.”

“But the Episcopal Church is not the Roman Catholic Church – their rites and beliefs are irregular, the line of succession from the apostles is broken . . .”

“They are a tolerant and good people.”

“But . . .”

“When you threw the dog from your house and would no longer let him eat even the crumbs from beneath the table, you starved him; and when he was sick and you did not care for him, when he was poor and you did not help him, when he was lost and you did not leave the 100 to look for the lost one – he looked for another home. For no good reason he was welcomed at another house, he was cared for, his wounds were bound, he was fed from the Master’s own table freely and gladly, and not the scraps, he was loved and helped as much as his wounded soul could stand it. Any house that does that for someone is the House of God, no matter what name it goes by, no matter the imperfections – especially as it makes no claims to perfection, Father.

“You say the line of succession was broken in that church? I say that what men beak in their bickering and misunderstanding can be made whole with love, and that the Episcopal Church has been made whole by its love for the outcast and the poor, and by its service to truth, its struggle with truth. It is as much part of Mother Church as the one seated at Rome.

“Should every church be wiped off the face of the Earth tomorrow, every Bible burned to a cinder, every Prayer Book made ashes and dust – the next day, when someone helped another person, cared for another for the right reason, when someone struggled with their burdens and their wounds and inclinations to do the easy and wrong thing, when someone struggled to forgive others, not to be better than them, but to help heal them up, whenever someone loved the truth for its own sake and hoped for something better than what we are given – there the Christ would be, where He has been all along. Even if the people doing these things did not call themselves “Christians” or even anything at all.

“Father, I am no longer afraid of names. I am no longer a worshipper of appearances. I am a dog, but I am God’s dog; I am a fool, but I am God’s fool. I think – I hope – God has a place for such as me, that He has mercy for such an outcast and misfit as I am, and I hope He understands there is no way I could repay such a debt. I have nothing to equal it. All I can do is live by the only word I have discovered has any worth at all in this shipwreck life: Try.

“That’s my confession, Father. I apologize for taking up your time.”

And with that, he walked out, back into the world. Back to the hope that makes no sense, the faith that is a form of idiocy, the love that is difficult, because it is real and because it is the hardest path: the path of peace, the path of forgiveness.

The End

Poore Richard’s Aphorisms for the Week of Our Lord, 10 December Two Thousand and Seven, which He must claim even though we are regaled yet again by another President of the United States saying, "What missing tapes? I don't know nuthin' 'bout no tapes. And, if I did, it wouldn't be any of your business!" (With apologies to Ben Franklin himself.)

Beware of Smiling Americans.
Poore Richard

The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for people to decide evil tastes like chocolate ice cream with rainbow sprinkles on top.
Poore Richard

No matter what you think you know, there's always more to know than what you think.
Poore Richard

Nothing succeeds like coercion.
Poore Richard

You ever had the feeling you are the skeleton in the family closet?
Poore Richard

To err is human; to forgive, in a small town, unheard of.
Poore Richard

Virtue is its own reward. A good lie, by contrast, will fetch you a fortune on the open market.
Poore Richard

The only thing worse than punctuality is someone who values it.
Poore Richard

Too much of a good thing is usually female.
Poore Richard

If you speak truthfully, you can damn sure bet there's someone on hand who'll make you wish you'd kept your big mouth shut.
Poore Richard

Who needs principles when there's Visa/Master Card?
Poore Richard

Laziness is responsible for more evil than malevolence.
Poore Richard

To one who tells the truth
We prefer a liar;
To liars go mansions,
a sinecure, we gather them a choir.
Poore Richard

Have you ever wondered how your mother knew enough about people like me to warn you about us?
Poore Richard

Ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth will make you Poor.
Poore Richard

If people speak ill of you, be sure to give them a good reason.
Poore Richard

It's easier to point the finger -- once their back is turned.
Poore Richard

The greatest reward you can expect for doing good in this world is mistreatment by those who are dead certain you've done something wrong.
Poore Richard

Wishful thinking is better than not thinking at all.
Poore Richard

When you're angry, take a breath and count to ten. Then pull the trigger.
Poore Richard