I’ve just finished The Sparrow, and I’m a little unnerved by it, to say the least.  The despair is so tangible, so grossly real, that I myself have all the same questions the hopeless Emilio expresses in the end.  And because I don’t want to ruin the awful ending for any of you who decide to read the book, I shall skip the parts where he divulges what actually happened to him on this planet in the Alpha Centauri system (remember, it’s science fiction, which I never read), as he’s “confessing” to his superiors.

Over the years, Emilio has fallen in love with God, as a grateful mystic would.  Now here, back on Earth, he tells of what happened to him during the Jesuit mission to Rakhat for the first time, in all its raw and disgusting detail.

“They [his superiors] could see the cost to him, the price of saying this.  He stood swaying slightly, the armature of his face demolished by the work of thin, fine muscles.  John Candotti breathed: ‘My God,’ and somewhere Emilio Sandoz found, inside himself, the black and brittle iron required to turn his head and endure, unflinching, the compassion in John’s eyes.

“‘Do you think so, John?  Was it your God?’ he asked with terrifying gentleness.  ‘You see, that is my dilemma.  Because if I was led by God to love God, step by step, as it seemed, if I accept that the beauty and the rapture were real and true, then the rest of it was God’s will too, and that, gentlemen, is cause for bitterness.  But if I am simply a deluded ape who took a lot of old folktales far too seriously, then I brought all this on myself and my companions and the whole business becomes farcical, doesn’t it.  The problem with atheism, I find, under these circumstances,’ he continued with academic exactitude, each word etched on the air with acid, ‘is that I have no one to despise but myself.  If, however, I choose to believe that God is vicious, then at least I have the solace of hating God.’

“Looking from face to face, he watched comprehension working its way into their minds.  What could any of them say?  He almost laughed.”

Later, the superiors are discussing the ramifications of Emilio’s confession, and Felipe Reyes pipes up, ‘There’s an old Jewish story that says in the beginning God was everywhere and everything, a totality.  But to make creation, God had to remove Himself from some part of the universe, so something besides Himself could exist.  So He breathed in, and in the places where God withdrew, there creation exists.’

“‘So God just leaves?’ John asked, angry where Emilio had been desolate.  ‘Abandons creation?  You’re on your own, apes.  Good luck!’

“‘No.  He watches.  He rejoices.  He weeps.  He observes the moral drama of human life and gives meaning to it by caring passionately about us, and remembering.’

“‘Matthew ten, verse twenty-nine,’ Vincenzo Giuliani said quietly.  ‘ ‘Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.’ ’

“‘But the sparrow still falls,’ Felipe said.”

I know what the Christian faith I came from would say to this.  “All things work together for good to those who love Him,” or “God does care for each one of us,” or “How can we know the mind of God?” or “Elissa, your faith is weak,” or “How dare you question God?”

Those answers don’t cut it, though.  Not for me.  There must be a better explanation for suffering and disaster.  There has to be.  And if we can’t believe that God cares about the minutiae of our lives, or simply observes all the sordid details, without lifting a finger, then why is He there at all?

It has been hours since I last wrote the above, and now I’ve finished the second book called Children of God.  Perhaps there is some redemption in Emilio’s story after all.  I suppose it’s how you look at it.  I’ll share a few of my favorite quotes from the book, without ruining or revealing anything.

Emilio is trying to make sense of his ruined, wasted life, in the midst of beautiful platitudes offered up by his superiors.

“Emilio listened, stone-faced, with the quick shallow movement of the chest that sometimes betrayed him.  Guiliani could not hear their words, but he saw Sandoz freeze, and pull away, and stand and begin to pace.  ‘I made a cloister of my body and a garden of my soul, Your Holiness.  The stones of the cloister wall were my nights, and my days were the mortar,’ Emilio said in the soft, musical Latin that a young Vince Guiliani had admired and envied when they were in formation together.  ‘Year after year, I built the walls.  But in the center I made a garden that I left open to heaven, and I invited God to walk there.  And God came to me.’  Sandoz turned away, trembling.  ‘God filled me, and the rapture of those moments was so pure and so powerful that the cloister walls were leveled.  I had no more need for walls, Your Holiness.  God was my protection.  I could look into the face of the wife I would never have, and love all wives.  I could look into the face of the husband I would never be, and love all husbands.  I could dance at weddings because I was in love with God, and all the children were mine.’

“Giuliani, stunned, felt his eyes fill.  Yes, he thought.  Yes.

“But when Emilio turned again and faced Kalingemala Lopore, he was not weeping.  He came back to the table and placed his ruined hands on its battered wood, face rigid with rage.  ‘And now the garden is laid waste,’ he whispered.  ‘The wives and the husbands and the children are all dead.  And there is nothing left but ash and bone.  Where was our Protector?  Where was God, Your Holiness?  Where is God now?’

“The answer was immediate, certain.  ‘In the ashes.  In the bones.  In the souls of the dead, and in the children who live because of you–’

“‘Nothing lives because of me!’”

Emilio continues to rant, because he feels betrayed by the One he loved.

In the end, Gelasius III tells Emilio Sandoz, “‘…you must go back [to Rakhat].  God is waiting for you, in the ruins.’”

Pages later, one of the Rakhat girls tries to make sense of what she’s been told about the Hebrew God.  “‘The Egyptians could see their gods.  If you wanted to talk to the god of the river, you dressed well, made yourself ready and went to him.  He saw you only at your best.  The God of Israel can’t be seen, but he sees us–when we are ready, when we are not ready, when we are at our best or at our worst or paying no attention.  Nothing can be hidden from such a God.  That’s why people fear Him.’”  One of the characters replies back, “‘That is why my people fear God, but also why we love Him, because He sees all we do, knows all we are, and still loves us.’”

And finally, near the end of the book, a sweet moment of query and story, trying to make sense of what’s happened to him, Emilio listens to a refrain of haunting music and whispers the words to a poem he’d heard long ago, “‘In all the shrouded heavens anywhere/Not a whisper in the air/Of any living voice but one so far/That I can hear it only as a bar/Of lost, imperial music.’”  Turns out the name of the poem is “Credo” by Edward Arlington Robinson…

“‘Tell me, Dr. Sandoz,” [John] asked, ‘is that the name of the poem, or a statement of faith?’

“Emilio looked down, silvered hair spilling over his eyes as he laughed a little and shook his head.  ‘God help me,’ he said at last.  ‘I’m afraid…I think…it might be both.’

“‘Good,’ said John.  ‘I’m glad to hear that.’

“They were quiet for a time, alone with their thoughts, but then John sat up straight, struck by a thought.  ‘There’s a passage in Deuteronomy–God tells Moses, ‘No one can see My face, but I will protect you with My hand until I have passed by you, and then I will remove My hand and you will see My back.’  Remember that?’

“Emilio nodded, listening.

“‘Well, I always thought that was a physical metaphor,’ John said, ‘but you know–I wonder now if it isn’t really about time?  Maybe that was God’s way of telling us that we can never know His intentions, but as time goes on…we’ll understand.  We’ll see where He was: we’ll see His back.’”

I hope that’s the way it is–that we’ll understand some day, that we’ll see how all these inglorious strands of our lives are woven together–for the greater good.

[Post image: The Irony of Thirst by kenchu on stock.xchng]