nodded. “I don’t. I didn’t. At least, not until these last few days. Now I don’t know what to believe. Or not to believe.”
“But before all this. Why not believe in God, outside religion? The idea of something wondrous and unknowable—and putting aside all the associations the word God has in the minds of religious people.”
“Logic. You can boil it all down to the basic ‘chicken and egg’ question. The only reason—the only need—to believe in God is to try and explain where this all came from, right? Where we came from. Where we’re headed. But it doesn’t work. If there was a creator, a designer who created all this, well then there had to be a creator to create that creator, right? And one to create him. And so on. It doesn’t hold water.” She paused, thinking further, about something closer to heart. A deep-seated sadness seemed to emerge from within her. “And then my mom died. I was thirteen at the time. Breast cancer. She’d been clear for five years, then it just came back and took her away in ten days. It was . . . brutal. And I couldn’t see why anyone would create something that nasty or take away someone so wonderful.” Even all these years later, her eyes glistened at the memory.
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.” She studied him and hesitated, as if unsure about whether to mention something, then decided she would. “You know, back at the monastery. When you leaned down beside Finch. For a moment there, I . . .”
“You thought I was going to bring him back?”
She was taken aback by his insight. “Yes.”
He nodded to himself, as if he had wondered about the same thing. “I have to say . . . I wasn’t sure myself. Of what would happen. Of what I could do.” He looked up at her, his expression foggy.
“But that’s what I’m talking about,” she said. “That’s what I can’t understand. One minute, something we can’t understand—something that could well be what we call God—is sending us some kind of message, showing itself, and it’s hopeful and inspiring and wonderful . . . and then, the next minute, a perfectly good man’s life is taken away, just like that.” Her whole face was questioning him. “It’s like when my mom died. There wasn’t a better, kinder soul on this planet. And I couldn’t understand why something like that could be allowed to happen if there was any kind of super-being watching over us. There was no way that could be justified. I talked to a couple of pastors at the time. They just gave me the standard sound bites about her ‘being with God’ and his ‘testing us’ and all kinds of other platitudes that, frankly, sounded like complete nonsense. Their words meant nothing to me.”
Father Jerome nodded thoughtfully. “The reason your preacher couldn’t help you is he’s lost. He’s still using the same words preachers used to try and comfort people five hundred years ago. But we’re a bit more sophisticated than that now.” He paused, as if pained by his own words. “That’s the problem with religion right now. It hasn’t evolved. And instead of being open and looking for ways to be relevant in today’s world, it’s gone all defensive and protective and it’s regressed into lowest-common-denominator sound bites—and fundamentalism.”
“But you can’t reconcile religion with modern life, with all the knowledge we have, with science,” Gracie said. “I mean, let me ask you this. Do you believe in evolution? Or do you think men and dinosaurs wandered around the planet together six thousand years ago . . . after it was created in six days?”
Father Jerome smiled. “I’ve lived in Africa for many years, Miss Logan—”
“Please, call me Gracie,” she interjected.
He nodded. “I’ve been to the digs, I’ve seen the fossils, I’ve studied the science. Of course I believe in evolution. You’d have to be a blinkered halfwit not to.” He studied her reaction as she flinched. “Does that surprise you?”
“You could say that,” she laughed, still stunned.
He shrugged. “It shouldn’t. But then, religion in your country is so focused on fighting science and all these compelling atheist voices that your preachers have lost track of what religion is really about. In our church—the Eastern Church—and in Eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism, religion isn’t there to offer theories or explanations. We accept that the divine is unknowable. But for you and for a lot of rational people like you,