For Whose Greater Glory? by Randy Boyagoda

To meet you upon this honestly, I admit my original intentions were less than devout. Not that I had forgotten about you, but rather, selectively excised you from my life.

So what drew me in that evening? Climate offers no justification; I was just walking by on one of those intermediate evenings in late October, too cold to be crisp autumn but still only baby-toothed winter. When Toronto's just growing accustomed to another version of the Leafs that will lift us up only to deny in the end. Religious ideas always work best in sports, especially when your team can move you from believer to atheist on a road trip. But to the matter at hand. Returning from another half-successful trip to one of those sad used bookstores sandwiched between computer shops and laundromats on Bathurst. Near dusk, so under the tall elm trees in the front I saw shapes, bent and slow -- Portuguese mothers widowed and childless as far as they were concerned, their sons lost to the Christmas and Easter lure of suburban Catholicism -- clutching in their bird-boned fists the beads. Wearing their mourning dress to the grave. I lingered at the gate as they stiffly mounted the steps and entered.

And without thinking about it then, though certainly having made up for it in retrospective alternating justifications and renunciations, I turned at the gates and walked deliberately in. Sat down. Waited. Watched.

So far away. Memory is a sad thing; I realised this after a few minutes in the church. It had been so long. I knew it was not you that had changed (even then I knew that was impossible) but me. It was when the procession came in and my once-favourite image of you was there again. A golden figurine suspended upon the cross, held on high leading in the procession. With the hands nailed and the head, arms, entire body sunken and leaning forward, like a bow, the feet nailed together below. I remembered how earlier I thought of you as the conqueror, sweeping down upon us, vanquishing us, consuming us in your sacrifice, regaining us for your, in your, glory. Leading in the priest to bring you down upon the altar and cleanse and save us. To think of all that but not feel it at the moment. To be there but shifted into a (momentarily) better place. Because then the inviolate memory of a purer moment with you was juxtaposed to the present unfeeling. It ruptured, dissolved, unified with the current moment and I lost something of you that I didn't realise was so much a part of me until I attempted to find it again. As if going in meant I moved even further away from you, remembering how close we once were.

So now, there, waiting uncomfortably, far too gutless to slink out the backdoor and incur the wrath of the St. Vincent de Paul Society man, a tweeded and palsied sentry already standing faithfully at guard at the back, his hands respectfully clasped together. He would stand there for the duration of the Mass, next to his simple wooden stand with the dull bronze plaque announcing the need for alms. I offer you that portrait without actually turning around to see him, just knowing he was there. I happily formed the image and the words I would use to describe it to you while sitting in the pew. Because the guilt I felt at ignoring the opening prayers and the readings and instead smoothing out that little vignette about the sweet old guy with the poor box was so much better than the guilt I would have felt if I listened to them. And I resolved myself that it was, ultimately, for you that I was creating that little snapshot of the retired tool and dye man, the President emeritus of the Knights of Columbus local 1432 who lifted fifteen bucks a week for a little Crown Royal.

When everyone stood up for the Gospel I was content with unfeeling, remembering how the Word precedes but is coequal with the Communion as articulations of the Incarnate, my brain happily chewing on snippets of the Catechism. An even better way to evade because, I could convince myself, this was even closer to you than if I were simply standing there, pretending to listen. Now some necessary background: the church was sparsely populated and had one meagre soul on a souped-up Clavinova. The magnificent organ had been silent for many years, a couple of restoration-fundraisers were successful but then the Diocese had decided the money would have been better spent on a soup kitchen in the basement. Damned urban blight. I remember at the time thinking that it would be better to feed on the music of the soul than Campbell's, but then again I had Minestrone at home. While this may seem like a delaying tactic, it is relevant. The choir disbanded after the fundraising fiasco so now it was a few tired old women mumbling along in Portugenglish with the well-meaning but weak-voiced organist. The Gospel anthem began, the Hallelujahs, you know, of course you know the word of the Lord is among us, blah blah and then another chorus of Hallelujahs. Meanwhile I was trying to decide if the hair on my knuckles was noticeable when a voice from on high pierced my heart.

The chintzy organ and blurry voices were cut through, like when you open the fridge at night to get something to eat and the light blinds you but you're happy because it means that after the eyes grow accustomed you're going to find something to fill your achingly empty belly. Sorry. That was a horrible simile, but if I use "like a light penetrating the darkness" you'll sigh and roll your eyes because how many times have people used that one on you? I know I've masked true, heart-desiccating pride with cheap aesthetic pretension, and I want that to stop.

To return. In short, a voice, a woman's voice, from seemingly nowhere, suddenly joined in with the chorus and completely drowned it out with the most beautiful, high-pitched, sonorous, magnificent, I think it was Woody Allen that said writing about music is like dancing about architecture. Can't do it, can't adequately describe the sound, so high up there and splendidly rolling along, like a dove on the crest of a wind. Even the priest noticed it and looked up from the book, we were all looking around, the church filled to her high ceilings with a rich effusion of praise for your Word.

It came from a large pile of rags. No maudlin metaphor for beauty coming out of the ugly. It really did look like a heap of rags from my angle. In the corner of a pew across from me and slightly in front. A jumble of rags which I soon surmised was some homeless woman, covered in every manner of coat, scarf and hat imaginable, probably roasting under all that fabric but Christ, I tell you, she could sing. Not paying attention to the stunned glares, she finished the chorus and waited attentively for the Gospel.

You know, you'd think that would be the best thing possible for me. I could spend the rest of the Mass trying to figure her out, giving her a complete and heart-warmingly sentimental history. That's all I wanted to do just then, but the Gospel started and, without a thought in my head about her, I turned to your Word and was suddenly filled again.

What bothers me most is that it was so quick, I didn't even notice the way my heart buckled and fissured open, back to you. Only able to retrospectively describe it based on surmise. No sobbing, no sudden illumination. And since then, I've been trying to make sense of the connection between that woman's voice and you.

Which explains this attempt to codify, capture, articulate. Because in going back to those moments, I feel that they've acquired a gloss that I'm trying to disperse onto the page, without losing the original, heart-alive-again wonder. Oscillation. From worry that perhaps it wasn't like this, that I'm amplifying in order to get published somewhere better than my last story. That I'm taking what you gave me then and debasing it into, ultimately, just another "" to put under Publications in my CV. There is an obverse fear: that all of this hasn't been enough, that this will never be enough, to tell you or anyone else.

I now make two or three Sundays a month at the Bathurst Church, and that woman's usually there, and only sings on occasion. But I don't wait for her voice anymore, I know that doesn't matter as much now, because I'm at least trying to come back. Just as the mortal success of this writing doesn't matter, because at least it's nominally aimed in the right direction. And I shall keep trying. That, at least, I can promise you, myself, you. Not who comes first, that's egotistically and syntactically obvious but, more pressing, more difficult to answer, who should come first? The latest version of the current issue then: has all this been done to stoke the fires of a writer hoping to someday sit atop one of the remainders bins at Chapters and, if so, did you give me this? And if so, why? Nowhere near ready to start thinking of that last question yet. I'd be content now if this is intended only to express the ardent love and faith of a penitent and soul-filled man brought back to witness and record your glory.

This remains to be seen. To be most honest in closing, it probably depends on what comes first: Book deal or eternal salvation.

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