Faithless
Javin Lee-Lobel
Faithless Javin Lee-Lobel
Faithless Javin Lee-Lobel The Literary Arts Department Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12, A Creative and Performing Arts Magnet
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Table of Contents 1. Amos 2. Penitent 3. God – a how-to 4. Message in a Bottle 5. Devoted 6. Twenty Things You Wish You Had Known 7. The Pursuit 8. God’s Daughter 9. The Pursuit, part II
Amos He remembers that last words that his mother said to him, almost three years ago now, were “Because you forgot God, Amos Scott, you let God forget you.” She died a few months later. Cancer. His first memory is also with his mama, in church. It was early one Sunday morning, and he remembers looking up at Mama, strong and protective, her hand wrapped around his. It was 1968, he was three years old. Mama was a guardian; once, his childhood best friend had cracked Amos and in response she kicked him out of the house for a week. Amos laughed at him as he walked out the door, though he didn’t escape without punishment. She was a community mom. Most importantly, Mama was his friend. But, when he was just a little boy with smooth skin and hair like swoops of ink against his bronze forehead, his mother was a distant, all-knowing woman, Black and proud of it, who needed no helping hands. He didn’t know yet what had happened to his father. He only knew that they were alone in the world. Mama, Amos, and God. Only with age did he find more family—kids like him, angry, lost on their own home turf. A decade passed by, and the divided blood of the ’60s was swept into the corners and became the tense “peace” of the post-Vietnam ’70s; in ’72, amid the ashes of the Civil Rights Movement, Roberto Clemente died in a plane crash, breaking Mama’s heart further. Little Amos, now seven, and his mother, in her late twenties, stayed quiet as Pittsburgh fell apart from deindustrialization, the slum getting sicker and the suburbs more inviting. Amos started writing poetry, got to school on time every day, and went home with a fresh black eye or a bloody nose six times in one year.
Then, in 1979, the fourteen-year-old poet Amos heard his crazy uncle Sammy play Rapper’s Delight by the Sugar Hill gang, straight outta the Bronx. It was there that Hip Hop was born, and then that he met her, sculpted from ancient wisdom and deathless culture yet brand new, and he fell in love. The decades sped by and Pittsburgh started spitting out young rappers like Amos, who always kept their ears peeled for the newest flows from West Coast and the most cutting-edge beats from New York. Amos didn’t make it through college, but drooled over Rakim and Run-D.M.C. like a hyena, waiting for his chance to bite in. He prayed for a future, which not many young Black men get, but God never came.
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He remembers the last words that his mother said to him. “Because you forgot God, Amos Scott, you let God forget you.” She died a few months later. Cancer. His first memory is in church. It was early one Sunday morning, and he remembers looking up at Mama, strong and protective, her Black hand wrapped around his. Proud. It was 1968, he was three years old, just a little boy with smooth skin and hair that like swoops of ink against his bronze forehead. He didn’t know yet what had happened to his father. His world was only Mama, Amos, and God. Only later did he find more family—kids like him, angry, lost in their own homes. A decade passed by, and the divided blood of the ’60s was swept into the corners and became the tense “peace” of the post-Vietnam ’70s; in ’72, amid the ashes of the Civil Rights Movement, Roberto Clemente died in a plane crash, breaking
Mama’s heart further. Pittsburgh deindustrialized, and it hurt; Amos started writing poetry, got to school on time every day, and went home with a black eye or a bloody nose six times in one year. Then, in 1979, the fourteen-year-old poet Amos heard his crazy uncle Sammy play Rapper’s Delight by the Sugar Hill gang. It was then that he met her, Hip Hop, sculpted from ancient wisdom and deathless culture, and he fell in love. The decades sped by and Pittsburgh started spitting out young rappers like Amos, who always kept their ears peeled for the newest flows from West Coast and most cutting-edge beats from New York. Amos didn’t make it through college, but drooled over Rakim and Run-D.M.C., a hyena waiting for his chance to bite. He prayed for a future, which not many young Black men get, but God never came.
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He remembers the last words that his mother said to him. “Because you forgot God, Amos Scott, you let God forget you.” She died a few months later. Cancer. His first memory is in church. It was early one Sunday morning, and he remembers looking up at Mama, strong and protective, her Black hand wrapped around his. Proud. He was three years old, 1968, a little boy with smooth skin hair like swoops of ink. He didn’t know yet what had happened to his father. His world was only Mama, Amos, and God; them and the street kids just like him, angry, lost in their own homes. In ’72, amid the ashes of the Civil Rights Movement, Roberto Clemente died in a plane crash, breaking Mama’s heart further. Pittsburgh deindustrialized. Amos started
writing poetry, got to school on time every day, and went home with a black eye times in one year. Then, in 1979, the fourteen-year-old poet Amos heard his crazy uncle Sammy play Rapper’s Delight by the Sugar Hill gang. It was then that he met Her, Hip Hop, sculpted from ancient wisdom and deathless culture, and he fell in love. The decades sped by and Pittsburgh started spitting out young emcees like Amos, each faithful to their dreams of victory, each waiting for God to answer. Amos prayed for a future, which few young Black men get, but God never came.
Penitent Long ago, in a land since changed, on the edge of a great sea that divides nations, a brave young knight was summoned to the castle of his king. He donned the kingdom’s colors with haste and set off for the capital. There the King asked him to serve in a great battle against invaders from the East who were contaminating the Holy Land. “This quest is the will of God. But I must ask you, Sir Paladin,” said the King, “if you are a good, faithful Christian man worthy of this task. Do you surrender yourself to the Lord?” The Knight affirmed this with a bow, showing the King the little gold crucifix he wore around his neck with pride. The Knight thanked the King for this opportunity. Donning his wartime chainmail and white robe with the red cross, he sharpened his broadsword until it could slice bone like paper. Through his flat-topped helmet’s narrow slits, he would soon face bloodshed the likes of which he had never seen. After the long sea-voyage and grueling desert trek, the King’s legions arrived in Jerusalem. There, endless battles raged on and on. Blood seeped into the sand and turned it red. Slowly the King’s army advanced inward on the city, washing over walls into the streets in endless numbers, the Knight on his steed with the cavalry beside him. They trampled over parks and tore through synagogues and mosques, felling any foe who stood in their way. They did not hesitate to execute any of the city’s inhabitants, the savage enemies of Christ.
One day, after ravaging a marketplace, the Knight halted his horse and took off his helmet for a breath of fresh air. But instead he filled his lungs with the pungent odor of those who had been slaughtered. With this piercing inhale, he was struck with a staggering sense of guilt. He half-dismounted, half-fell from his steed and stood there swaying. Then he looked down at himself. His white robe was stained red, almost completely concealing the cross. But this was not his blood. The Knight looked up and scanned the site of the massacre for his cavalry brethren, but they were nowhere to be seen, and neither were any of the hordes of the King’s infantry. He realized then that these soldiers were no brethren of his. They were simply bound by faith, like he was. He knew not what to do.
So, the young Knight cast aside his keen blade and rode, despondent, into the desert. After many days, he came to a great mountain that rose from the sand as if pinched by a giant hand from above, at the base of which he left his exhausted steed. There he began a long ascent to the summit. By the time he was at the top, he was panting and bleeding from the sharp rocks, but determined not to rest. He was controlled fully by his shame and regret. His anguish was overwhelming and he began to yell at the dusk heavens, pleading with his God, casting away his armor and exposing his bare flesh to nature. At that moment, the first lightning of a storm flashed across the cloudy sky, and rain started pounding mercilessly on the Knight’s vulnerable skin. A rumble echoed around him, and he nearly slipped off the peak. His gaze lowered to the distant earth
beneath him, and his heart pounded in fear. His throat was hoarse and his muscles weak. But he did not back down. “Is that all You have to say to me?” Rain. “Am I not worthy of answers?” Lightning. “Am I nothing to you?” Thunder. In one final, brokenhearted attempt to provoke God into action, he tore off his crucifix necklace and hurled it to the sands. Still, nothing. The sun had now set and the rain showed no signs of stopping. He waited, for perhaps minutes, perhaps hours, until he collapsed, forsaken, on the mountaintop, under a silent God, or perhaps just empty, vast infinity.
In the morning, he returned to his horse and rode slowly back to the city. More fighting raged on, and eventually the King’s army returned home and was celebrated for their bravery and faith. But the Knight was wretched, and retired silently to his home on the outskirts of the kingdom, where he could wake up each morning to the sea. Sometimes he thought about the land on the other side, the land of God. Usually he cast all such thoughts from his mind. And so the Knight was until his death… empty, penitent, and faithless.
God – a how-to So, you say you want to talk to God. Don’t talk to God, He’s preoccupied; and while you’re at it, don’t call God a He, because you don’t know that God’s a He; if the Bible said He, you don’t need to believe it, because it’s just a book that somebody wrote; I don’t care how many years you’ve been going to church, you ain’t a man of God because of going to some building Mama told you that you better show up to on Sunday; praying too—it doesn’t mean automatic Godliness, just means you believe; God isn’t more divine in some big chapel than everywhere else, and damn sure isn’t holy only on Sunday; I don’t care how much you go to church, just go because you feel like it, not because you think it’s a requirement—it’s not; don’t feel like a sinner for pleasing yourself; sin is usually a damn lie; don’t forget that God is omnipotent, so if God wants you dead, you’ll die; don’t forget that God is anything and everything… God is everywhere, always; don’t forget that God is always awake—God is always watching us from the inside and out; see, when I was young I wanted to be a famous rapper, but I played some of my cards wrong, and God caught me doing it, so It left me right where I was at; don’t forget that God don’t really care about anything—God made it all and can unmake it all; don’t forget that God loves you—God made you because It wanted to; don’t forget that God is everything that you can and can’t imagine… God is energy, God is humanity, God is a person, God is all people, God is inside you and me, God is good and evil, God is with and without purpose, God simply is, and God don’t want or need anything to be different than how it is right now; God is in your food, in your oxygen, in your alcohol, in your clothes, in your bedsheets, in your skull; remember not to sin; I don’t care what type of Christian, Muslim, Jew, or other God-fearing man you are,
because as long as you fear God, what I say applies to you; fear God, but don’t let fear control you; if God don’t punish you for something you do, keep on pushing; if God punishes you for something you do, accept your punishment; if God don’t punish you, don’t let it get to your head; remember to witness by life and by word; don’t believe in no Muhammad or Rastafari or Christ or Moses or Abraham or Guru Nanak or nobody else, or no damn Heaven or Hell, because somebody told you to, if you don’t believe it yourself… but I’ll tell you right now, if you want all the love and blessings God can and may give you, you better believe; but believe for you alone, because you got more God in you than everything and everybody else you’ll ever meet, though they’re gonna tell you otherwise; see, many folks tried to prove God, like St. Thomas Aquinas, an Italian philosopher in the 1200s who tried to explain It… but there is absolutely no way anybody can prove God other than via faith, which is the highest form of understanding; don’t just sit and waste time praying or repenting to a God who doesn’t have time to study your self-pitiful whining; if you want something done, morally right or wrong, and you’re gonna do it, do it… God ain’t gonna do it for you; I used to believe that God loved me and would do for me what I wanted, and so I prayed for a future… in my case it was Hip Hop success that I was after, but God decided against it; remember to put God first; if people say not to believe in God, tell them to prove that what they believe ain't God, even if it’s as damn simple as the ability to think and perceive; you have to be strong to believe, so stay strong and don’t let God get to your head; God used to make me so damn angry, all Its secrets and strange choices and pain It caused me for nothing, and I would spend days out on the Hill in the cold rain, screaming into the sky in agony, bubbling over with rage, hoping that God would bellow something back or strike me with
the lightning that he threw without giving a damn around that oh-so-holy Heaven above us, that lightning that sliced across my pupils, and I would pull at my hair and curse until I fell to the ground in exhaustion, burning inside, and there on the ground I’d punch the pavement until I was bleeding and unconscious in the wet; but I learned through many years of suffering and failure that God simply is, and breathes into the universe the feeling of love that makes it home, and that beautiful feeling is called faith, and without the tool of faith we can’t comprehend God; and so, I love God. by Amos Scott
Message in a Bottle “It was as if the intrepid adventure were already over and now we just had a [long] ride ahead of us, which we did.” —Peter Orner, “My Dead” Ten thousand dollars. That’s the Church promised us each, every man aboard the ship, if we made it to the furthest island of Hawaii and converted any of the population who didn’t follow God with every ounce of their blood—but, unfortunately, I did not think about the risks. Ten thousand is a mind-numbing number. We were bribed into a pointless conquest mission, told to “convert the natives, as is the will of God!” as if that were a straightforward task. Yet, when we were mere days from landfall, a terrific storm struck our ship and sent us miles upon miles off course. Now we are lost at sea, our star charts long overboard and our sails torn and useless. On the hopeless boat with the silently judgmental captain and dozens of crewmates who know that their days are numbered, trapped in hours of silence with men I barely know, I realize how inferior my church is. Not my faith in God—I have no less faith here, on the vast sea, than I did back there at Saint Peter’s Cathedral. In fact, I am enthralled by the open ocean, amidst which I have never been. It is proof to me of the power of God to create infinity. Yet I still am left with doubt about the Church I have always called home. They promised us, each crewmember a good Christian man proud to do God’s work without hesitation, enough money to thrive for the rest of our lives. In all honesty, Lord, I would have done it for no money at all, were I sure that this mission is truly your decree. But in simple-minded ignorance, we did not consider that we would not even make it to the
island. Methinks the Church knew we would not survive—I doubt they even have the funds that they promised us. So, we are alone, lost, without our reward, without ambition. Had someone told me this was my fate but months ago, I would have responded that, with faith, I surely would survive. Though now I begin to doubt that God has any intention of saving us. We are starving, we are sick. Yesterday a man jumped ship and drowned off his own accord. Perhaps he had gone mad, perhaps he knew that death was the only way out. I guess God wants us to die. Why would God kill his most loyal of children?
Should anyone find this note, assume that God did not save me. Yet I will love Him until the day I die.
—John Morse, American missionary, August 1835, from a note found in a bottle washed ashore on the coast of Southern California alongside a golden cross pendant on a chain.
Devoted “The smallest wrinkle started beside her eyes. Her mouth flicked in a way he recognized.” —Donald Hall, “I Never Looked” The first time Amos fell in love, he was twenty-six. They had been dating for eight months already. It was his longest relationship. He sat there on the bed in his shorts, watching her profile on the fire escape in front of the setting sun. The sky was a soft orange. She was smoking a cigarette. A little turntable in the corner, Amos’s prize possession, blasted Black Sheep, and he wiggled his feet to the beat, too relaxed to dance. “…Similak child, drivin’ me wild / Simi-limi-lak child - you're the woman…” The bass filled every crack in the ceiling and wrapper on the floor, and he felt like it took up too much space between them, so he turned it down. Somewhere in another apartment, an air conditioner clunked. The summer of 1991 had been long, still, and hot, and after a few unsteady months of odd jobs, he had enough money saved up to take some time off. He’d spent most of it in bed writing. “Smoking kills,” Amos said absentmindedly. She ignored him. He watched every minute movement of her lips as she inhaled and exhaled. A little breeze picked up and she wrapped the sheet, her only clothing, tightly around her upper body. He smiled a little and turned down the volume some more. Her eye twitched, how it always did when something was wrong. “What’s up?” he said. “Huh?” she asked, playing dumb. “Nothing. Why?” “I saw your eye twitch a little,” he said.
“So? What’s that supposed to mean?” She rolled her eyes. “It means something’s pissing you off,” he said. “Maybe it’s you,” she said. “Mind your business.” “You’re condescending.” Amos stuck his tongue out at her. “You’re bad at minding your business,” she said. He laughed. “Your business is my business.” “Says who?” she asked. “Me,” he said. She ignored Amos again. Her carelessness for his opinions kept him on his toes—he had to work for her to love him, and he lived for a challenge. “You’re condescending,” he repeated. “Wow, big words,” she teased. “I’m serious,” he scoffed. “You just love to make me feel lower than you. Blah blah blah, Amos is dumb-da-dumb stupid.” They always spoke to each other like this. They both trusted brutal honesty more than charm. “Well, damn, Amos, sorry you feel like that. Maybe you should leave.” She mocked an apologetic voice. He raised his eyebrows. “Girl, you kicking me out?” “This is my apartment, Amos. I do what I want,” she said, tossing a carefree hand in his direction. “I do what I want,” he mocked, waving his arms around as if in an upset frenzy. He squirmed around the bed acting a fool until she giggled. He was the only person who could get her to giggle, but he never knew that.
“You’re ridiculous.” “You’re curvy.” “Shut up,” she giggled, and jumped on top of him, grabbing at his mouth to try to silence him. “I refuse!” he yelled, and they wrestled. Somewhere a dog started barking.
Twenty Things You Wish You Had Known 1. Not a single child in the last six generations of your family believed that Hanukkah Harry was a thing, beyond Saturday Night Live, but you did until you were fourteen, thanks to some sly convincing by your uncle Stanley. 2. Not once in your life did you go twenty-four hours without sleeping. You were convinced that you made it once during a very long party, though you actually blacked out after too much alcohol for about fifteen minutes… three different times that night. 3. In middle school, you embarrassed yourself in front of your class thirty-six times. Nobody in that class remembered more than three of those occasions after graduating to high school, though you remembered thirty-five until you died. 4. Eight people attended your funeral. They all loved you more than you had loved them, and this would have made you very happy. 5. You didn’t lose your yarmulke when you were ten. Grandma accidentally burnt it on her stove while trying to make breakfast. Even she was unsure as to how it got there. She was always committed to not buying glasses, which she considered deeply unattractive. 6. When you were thirty-six, a swastika was spray-painted on the front door of your synagogue. You were the first person to see it, and you soon joined, in a fit of panic and self-doubt, a Zionist organization that you did not investigate very well. The millionaire who funded it, one Ronald Hogan, illegally dealt arms to a vigilante group in Israel who harassed, assaulted, and brutalized Palestinian citizens. The Israeli police turned a blind eye, and the CIA, though fully aware of this throughout Hogan’s involvement, never did anything about it. 7. Sixty-eight. That’s the amount of times your big brother drank chicken-noodle soup after midnight, alone, crying. 8. Grandma told you that you were a very handsome young man every time she saw you until she died, though she actually thought your glasses made your eyes seem to bulge out of your head. 9. Your brother never told you what happened to your mother. 10. The pigeon you kicked while trying to impress girls in middle school did not stumble away and die, though you lied awake in bed far past your bedtime, suspecting that it had. In fact, the pigeon was completely unhurt, and forgot that it ever happened.
11. Your mother did not die when you were two years old. She died when you were fifty-one. 12. While Dad’s body died when you were forty-five, he didn’t really die on May 31st—it was in the early hours of June 1st when his brain left too. A coroner badly needed to use the restroom when handling his body, and rushed the job. No human brain in recorded history has lasted that long after blood flow ends, most brains dying in less than three minutes. But nobody ever knew about your father’s brain. 13. You ran over nearly thirty different rodents during all the road trips of your life. 14. When you were eleven, you misunderstood your rabbi’s teachings about eating kosher food, and believed that eating non-kosher food would lead to being struck down by God and sent to Hell immediately and without question. That same day, you ate a shrimp chip that you found in a free sample bowl by the shellfish section in the grocery store. You were not struck down by God and sent to Hell immediately and without question. 15. Three. That’s the amount of times your brother told you that he had been up until midnight crying. 16. At ninety years old, the last of your siblings to survive, you woke up one morning with absolutely no belief in God. You forgot about it the next day, and the day after you were diagnosed with dementia. 17. Sixty-eight. That’s the amount of times your brother wished you had been there for him when he was up until midnight, heartbroken, alone. You would’ve been there for him, had you known, and you wouldn’t have had to be the last one alive in your family. 18. That wasn’t a chili bean in your soup that one time in Bermuda when you were forty-three. 19. The reason your brother stayed up until midnight crying all those times was that he found out your mother hadn’t died when Dad said, but had instead left him with the kids and run off with another man. He found out about this when her death in house fire was broadcast on local news. She had lived in the same city as you the whole time. Chicago is very big. 20. It wasn’t only once that you lost all faith—in fact, this occurred every few months for the last few years of your life. Sometimes you went full days as part of the secular goyim, skipping any prayers, synagogue, and so forth. You would wake up, alone in your home, and step outside into the fresh air and smile. You were strangely proud to be able to appreciate your world without needing Adonai to back you up—you would simply look up into the fast blue sky, or distant stars, or
hopeless rain, and love it all. You loved the smell of gasoline on the air from the nearby freeway, the birds chirping, ignorant of your existence. You loved your anger, your sadness, your fear, your loneliness. You loved the fact that you had lost everything and everyone you had held close and yet were still happy. You loved the way your old bones seemed to crumble beneath your skin, the way your face seemed to slide away from your skull. You loved the infinity of the universe and the fact you'd never get to see it. You loved the insignificance of yourself; that you were so small and weak, and yet you could imagine anything and everything. You breathed in faithless, free love. You didn’t need God to appreciate it all. Yet the next day you'd always wake up devout.
The Pursuit “So Thankful for a Moment of Peace” —Dave Eggers, “Accident” You have no interest in fighting it anymore, you decide, early in the morning as the birds don’t chirp. The sky isn’t blue, the sun isn’t shining, and the smell of breakfast doesn’t float up from the kitchen. You’ve been alone for nearly twenty years. You know why you can’t keep a girlfriend or even dream of marriage—you’re broke, you’re temperamental, you’re angry with the world. But you’re not just alone as in single, but you feel alone in the world. You’re a starving artist of Hip Hop, a genre that has long since outgrown you’re 1980s style. You’re decades past your prime. Your music is going out of style, you’re being looked up to as an elder rather than an idol. You’re great at telling children how to live their lives, though all the advice you give them is from your own experience—you always advise them to do the opposite of what you would have done at that age. But you don’t mention that you made all the wrong choices. Once you told a boy you were teaching about Hip Hop that he shouldn’t look up to you so much. Everything you had told him about the culture was said with sanctimony—you were the expert, the emcee, the OG. But you couldn’t lie forever. “Why, Amos?” he asked. You weren’t prepared to answer. Maybe you never would be. Your demons, the shortcomings of your past, were something you rarely mentioned to your students. That Hip Hop had been your life yet you had let it slip from your grasp. But it’s because you know you’ve failed.
You swear to yourself your failure had been out of your hands; that social expectations had it out to get you. That you were victim of systemic oppression, of the United States’ prejudice of the Black man, and thus you had never made it in life. But to uphold that mindset requires passion—the passion to keep trying. You lost your passion, and so you admitted defeat and blamed yourself. You once told the same boy, “White Supremacy, in our society, is so deeply ingrained that it’s easier to straight ignore it than, you know, fight it. Especially for white folks, half ‘cause they benefit from it, especially the corporations through mass incarceration and all that legal loophole nonsense, and half because they say ‘it doesn’t affect me! I’m not racist, so it’s not my problem!’ as if it isn’t the white man who started this mess; as if compassion for others isn’t what God always wanted in the first place.” But now you have fallen into the white man’s trap, not because you deem yourself unaffected, but rather because you are so used to and helpless against the oppressive system that you don’t even see why you should try anymore. You seem to have forgotten compassion for others. You are no longer a victim fighting for love, for money, for success, for fame, for freedom, but simply a pointless cog, rusted over, long past your expiration date. You’re burnt out, and you’re just thankful for every moment of peace you can get. Loneliness is the cold water that you used to be so terrified to dive into, but once you realized that you were already submerged, you learned how to adapt. Now you’re warm. So you lie there in bed, lonely, and okay with it.
God’s Daughter After “Ill Mind of Hopsin 7” by Hopsin
Some call her the Hebrew, others the Egyptian. Some call her the Canaanite, the Judean, the Libyan. Few know where she’s truly from, for she speaks all tongues and has left footprints everywhere from the Balkans to the Suleimans, from Nubia to Scythia. The stories written about her call her “God’s Daughter.” Some simply know her as the Gnostic Woman or the Sage. Some say she crossed the Sahara on foot, outwalking even the Berbers. To herself, she is simply a human wandering the desert wasteland that delivered God to Man. Her skin is the color of the sand, her hair the color of scarabs. She is always wrapped in a cloak to protect her from the sandstorms she walks through without hesitation, and she carries a long knife that few men would dare face. Her skin is cracked like a dry riverbed, though she is strangely beautiful, with a profile like a falcon and piercing black eyes. They were the first things I saw when I met her.
It took six years for me to track her down, and when I finally did, she granted me only an hour with her before she had to walk on. We were in the isolated Siwa Oasis, in a little inn by a lake, in the shade of a lone mountain framed by palms around its base. We sat in the front room, which had only three walls, the other open to the street, where families and peddlers walked back and forth with camels and food. I asked her where she had to be, but she would not tell me. I think perhaps she did not know herself.
“Why do you walk?” I asked her first. She did not speak for a minute or so, her eyes closed as she collected her thoughts. “For the same reason the Israelites did,” she finally said. “I don’t follow,” I said, pushing my spectacles up my nose and putting my pen down to look at her. I daresay I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. She is the most mysterious person I’ve ever met. Outside in the afternoon glow, a drummer from the South began playing on a djembe, and a little crowd gathered to listen. Her eyes seemed to smile a little at the music. “For that,” she began again, pointing out at the drummer. “The music. The music and the culture, the places and the people. Every person in this great land of deserts and mountains is one of my people. I wish to be among them all, always.” “But you have wandered for so many years. Can you not be among them in one place, settled down? With your family?” I asked. She smiled with her mouth this time, not her eyes. “They are all my family, scholar. I am always settled, and always among them. And, like the Israelites who wrote the Tanakh, I collect their knowledge of God.” “Why God?” I asked. “Well, this is the land of God, isn’t it?” she said. “I suppose it is.” I was silent then, for a short while, and began to sip my tea in thought. I noticed after a few minutes that she was watching me very carefully. “Would you like some?” I asked, offering her my mug. She politely declined, and leaned back to continue watching.
“So. Do you believe in God?” I asked. She sat forward, surprised, though she tried then to hide it, and leaned back again. “Why do you ask?” “I am a scholar and a philosopher,” I answered honestly. “It is my calling in life to know such things. I fully understand if you wish not to think of such things, but I assumed, since they call you ‘Daughter of God,’ that you… well, I’ll let you speak.” She nodded. “Yes. Yes, I believe that, for my people, God exists. Without God, this land would not be what it is.” I raised an eyebrow. “How cryptic.” She said nothing. “So you believe in God for others?” I asked. “I believe in God for my people, and I am one of my people, so I believe in God for myself, yes.” She spoke more confidently now, but seemed to not have thought about such things in a long time, if ever. I kept pushing. “But does God exist?” She seemed suddenly quite calm. “Does anything?” I did not know what to say. I decided not to push further.
The conversation yielded little more information. She seemed quite done with me, just a travelling student of the distant North. But that hour, though there is so much more I wish I had asked now, thinking back on it, taught me very little and yet very much. But she likened herself to the Israelites, and I have not since thought of the
ancient people of the Biblical World just the same. Perhaps they were not as simply faithful as we tend to think.
The Pursuit, part II
You lied there in bed, lonely, and okay with it.
It took you decades of life to learn to love loneliness. But now, there you were, feeling self-aware for perhaps the first time in your long life. As painful as it is to recognize your own shortcomings, you smiled at the bittersweet taste of something, at least, being different for once—knowing now that you could be content in your isolation. Waking up the same way for nearly half a century is painful, as are most things. You were proud to be okay with sadness for once. “Maybe I’m not depressed,” you thought to yourself. You stared at the water damage that split your ceiling like a cobweb, illuminated through gaps in the frail slats of your window blinds. “‘God works in mysterious ways’ is a cop-out,” you said aloud, thinking back on your teachings to local children. You would monologue about God as if you had met God yourself, like some ascetic Christian guru, and while you still held many of the same views today, you did so noncommittally. The wrinkles in your face showed that faith was wearing you down. Your prayers had become spoken wishes that you muttered to yourself as you wandered the streets at night. You brushed your teeth, tied your dreadlocks back behind your head, ignored your receding hairline and shabby beard in the mirror. You put on all black. You forgot to get your glasses. You went downstairs and make an egg-and-cheese sandwich. You locked the door. You caught a bus heading nowhere in particular. You fell asleep in the back-left seat, eight rows up from the only other people on the bus, a couple. You felt
your stomach tense up a little when you saw them cuddling. You gave them a warm smile when you walked by, though.
“You know that God doesn’t exist, right, Amos?” You sat up, surprised. Another man was sitting on the seat next to you. You’d never seen him before, and he wasn’t there when you got on the bus. “Who are you?” you asked. “Doesn’t matter, because God doesn’t exist.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” you asked, rubbing the sleep from your eyes and yawning. You looked him up and down. There were dozens of other seats open on the bus but he chose the only one right next to you. “How does he know my name?” You didn’t like him. You didn’t like that his ‘80s fashion reminded you of your prime; you didn’t like his red, white, and blue Nike Cortez sneakers, you didn’t like his black leather jacket and loose jeans, his baseball cap pulled over his eyes so that you couldn’t get a good look at him. He said nothing. You continued to stare at him, but he didn’t pay you any mind. He sat perfectly still. You could see his cracked lips from under the hat, which looked like yours. “And why doesn’t God exist?” you eventually said, annoyed. “Can you prove God does?” the man responded. “I’ve spent my whole life trying, but I can’t. So, God doesn’t exist.”
“As far as you’re concerned, sure,” you said, “but that’s the whole point of faith. You gotta be able to believe without questioning. Otherwise God won’t ever show itself to you.” “It?” he said, still not looking at you. “Yeah, it.” You took a deep breath. “It. God isn’t a person, a He; God is an it.” He began to chuckle. “You’re playing yourself. You act like you know God better than everyone else does—like ‘it’ speaks to you in your dreams or something. Like you know better, like you’re wise enough to know God’s an ‘it.’ Meanwhile, you don’t know nothing. You’re only halfway there. God ain’t a He, an it, an anything.” The man began to annunciate every single patronizing syllable, speaking slowly. “God just doesn’t exist.” Normally you would’ve fought back viciously for your beliefs and spat on his ridiculous argument. But something about this man was getting to you. The way he was so calm, the way he didn’t make eye contact with you, as if you weren’t even worth his full attention. You felt worthless, more worthless and hopeless than you’d felt in all your decades of ambling across the city, doing odd jobs and lecturing kids. You were speechless. “Yeah, I got you now,” he spat out, laughing. “You’re as alone in the universe as the rest of us. No God, just you. You’re alone as sure as you’re a sinner.” He laughed harder. “Look at your face,” he said, though he still didn’t look at you. “You’re so doubtful, so scared. Your whole life you’ve been chasing happiness but you’re too afraid to find it on this side of the horizon. You couldn’t speak, though you tried to open your mouth.
“So worried about the white man, but he’s the one who taught you faith in the first place, and made it a sin to doubt. I know how you think, boy,” he said, each breath slow and disdainful, as if he were scolding to a child. Then he looked at you, and you finally saw his whole face. It was yours. “I’m not your boy,” you managed, slowly, irate. Then you threw a punch, a punch propelled by the anger of God leaving you in your youth and never coming back though you waited through the rain for longer than you can remember, and as the punch landed on his cheekbone, you felt the impact on your own face, your own doubt. It knocked you out of your dream. There was nobody next to you on your bus. You were still alone. “God doesn’t exist.” His words rang in your ears, his words that defiled your faith.
The little couple at the front of the bus was staring at you questioningly. You gave them a little smile. “Sorry, folks. Just trying to kill my demons.”