A priest sat in his small local church, a becoming meditation for one whom was no longer as mobile since lord knew when. One last inhale of collected dust; filling his trembling lungs, and one final exhale summoning out his anxieties of his physical being. Luckily, his first attempt to stand was successful… although his hefty stomach seemed to anchor him down with the preventable force of moving on towards the outside door. Yet, he would not regret his tasting of the several cinnamon buns his nuns had labored over and took delight in watching him enjoy during the morning routine. Ah, he had conquered the steps to the door that would lead him to his waiting ride. A silent man from inside the car looked down at his band aided his hands. Purple stained his age spotted skin, revealing his clumsiness and helplessness of carrying on much longer without the aide no one wishes to admit to needing other then that of a covering band aide. Those magical adhesive strips with a touch of cloth were his addiction and fix to the embracement of losing the constant struggle of keeping his self alive.
Different areas of life have different realities, but only because the connection that once united them once upon a time had been singed off by the separation from ourselves and others. Circumstances engulf us all… circumstances, these situations of deciding fate; pull us farther from our self, our world, our reality, and bring us closer to that of separating our entire being from one another and reality.
The pointless chore the priest had chosen today for him and companion in disintegrating health, was to bring his ancient relic; a vacume cleaner from half a century earlier, to be repaired and made into something functional; yet still, no better then ever before. The priest thanked his bandaged friend for being so reliable, for sacrificing his last days on earth to help a man of the cloth who can no longer bare a driving license under the federal law to help him carry out the day long quests that are his daily errands. However, it only came out as an ungrateful, “Thanks.”
The simple and accustomed gesture of speech pried open the troubled mind that almost handicapped the driver from any form of living or that is considered a life.
“I’m awfully grateful to do the lord’s bidding these days, in particular. Doing his tasks keep me going and his cross is his constant reminder of what his plan for me, in particular, is.” He took a piercing breathe that burned his lungs of the still air that consumes a car, and for a second closed his eyes to relax, to soothe his anxieties, his restlessness; the same sleep deprivation that either is killing him or keeping him alive. The reality of the circumstances that consumed him separated him from knowing anymore… And the restlessness often ushered him away from simple self care and what family ties had still remained. Yet he still, in the spare moments of his maintained hectic chaos; offered to his large eyed grandchildren, a moment or two to converse stories with over the phone.
He passed a stop sign, he passed through the final stages of self destruction; still too over taken by the reality of circumstance to realize… He opened his eyes, and wondered just if 40mph was safe enough. “One of my granddaughters calls me on the phone and tells me about war stories, even though she’s never been to war. I wonder sometimes, if I’m her hero. But if I am, it’s for all the wrong reasons. She tells me about her constant revelations and visions; they’re all so troubling… She says she’s an atheist, so you know, Father; she will never reach enlightenment, at least as long as she does not accept the Catholic cross.”
A young boy ran across the road, “Jesus Christ, the son of God!” The car halted, but the shriek of the brakes and profanity didn’t stop the boy from his journey. Both of the car’s inhabitants were proud of the driver’s reflexes, but admitting that would cause too much of an admittance of some inhelpable flaw in what he or they could no longer carry out. The car continued on it’s own way, and the boy was forgotten; separated from their original thoughts. The priest handled the eccentricity of senior citizens well, for he could appreciate their fears and they relied on him for the promise of eternal comfort. So it was okay and routine to hear their stories that often were too vague to understand or too simple to make sense. Their stories usually ended with the same need as a baby after having fallen from a parent’s arms; reassurance and twice the amount of comfort as before to blind them from what has happened. He didn’t even have to listen or care, but he always remembered those same people that came to him for council could do favors for him at the very least.
“We believe in the soul and spirit, Father?”
“God gave us spirits that become the soul of the body.”
“And can a spirit split into multiple souls to occupy more then one body, Father?”
“In the bible, if more then one spirit possesses a body then a demon is present.”
The old man sighed, his lungs collapsed with most of his body weight, his mind did not want him to dare question that which the bible did not answer. But only his Father could advise him if this new belief could possibly be true, and not just heresy from the lesser gender.
“I bought a doll, Father. And, gosh was it almost as beautiful as my late wife…I placed it with her collection, and even though she has a different hair color then her, I swear it reminds me of even the essence of her. I feel less alone and separated when I just even remember her essence. And it scares me that this is how I feel, yet it holds no place in the bible, that I can remember, Father. I can’t remember much… but the bible means more then enough for me to realize the separation of that of the truth and what is nonsense.”
Hesitation on both sides led to an awkward pause, giving time for every hair on the back of the priest’s neck and arms to rise on end.
“You’ve never exactly questioned the Catholic religion before. I would ignore you’re illogical feelings that lust for something that isn’t true and is against what we believe in. I forgive you for your sins.” The driver had become less nervous until the priest had to forgive him, was he that out of line? No, no, no, his motivation was too much to not let him continue to persist.
“Father, it seems that were here…” His heart swallowed hard on the words he choked on… The store was less of a vacume specialty warehouse, but more exactly a mechanic’s small shed. The driver retrieved the vacume and hurriedly caught up to the priest whom barely held the door open.
Religion is only one form of the constraints in life that restrict us from what we want to believe. Whether it be your mother, your friend, or a friend of a mother’s… any fat crow; ashened black with the coating of experience drags keys clutched in its claws… ready to be shoved down your resistant throat by a persistent beak; pecking at your insecurities in life until it leeches into your mind that what you feel is wrong. Your original self will not meet his standards until it is mutilated down, into the vision of whatever you have let control you, separate you, and re-make you.
And is that not why, love is a confusing concept?
Love is a feeling too precious for us to allow those restraints change our believing in what we are feeling or remember of those moments when we understood that in reality were not separated from everyone.
The old man considered how he truly felt, his original and raw passions. He thought of the fat and old crow that was the granddaughter, the priest, and the bible. He dropped the vacume, a small gasp released from the lungs of the Father as the ancient relic dropped to the floor. The daily chore had evaporated into something much more, a vicious picture of priest’s disappointment reflected on his face.
But the old man was calm; not as in a state of utter control, but as in the freedom by releasing his anxiety and accepting something that was without comfort. “Is it; that the reason why we feel so alone… is because our bodies carry the missing half of one spirit and if we are ever lucky enough in this separated world to find our soul mate… we can kiss them and no longer be hindered from reality? I don’t know, but that’s what I believe. That’s how she makes me feel when I remember her very essence, when even after death she returns to me and her soul deeply kisses mine, when no other spirit can touch me, so!”

The priest, the world and its stubborn ways, the separation from reality, our distance from true love and accepting our soul mate