by Julian Gallo<\/p>\n
Before he entered, and subsequently left, the seminary, he wandered through religions as if exploring abandoned homes. He had visited ashrams, practiced yoga, attended meditation classes, or simply found the time for himself to read and read and read, absorbing as much as he could. He had read the mystics, the skeptics, the prophets, the Bible, the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita. Every book he read was a door but it ultimately opened to an empty room. His last attempt was the seminary, thinking he\u2019d become a priest. He thought he\u2019d become \u2018Father Paul\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now he was just \u2018Paul\u2019 and he found himself alone in the woods where he spent his childhood playing. He wasn\u2019t sure what brought him there, but it was a place as good as any, he supposed. That little voice he\u2019d always heard and he thought he ought to listen. He sat crosslegged on the ground, taking note of the patches of dirt which now poked through the dry grass. It never used to be this way, he remembered, but perhaps that\u2019s all it was \u2014 a memory, and a faulty one at that. It didn\u2019t look much different otherwise, and the view was the same. The river still flowed as it always had, the river in which he and his father often fished. The sky above him, a deep royal blue, awash with stars, the moonlight casting an iridescent glow on the ground before him. It was quiet, save for the song of the crickets and the rustle of leaves of a nearby tree, caused by the occasional gust of summer wind. It was a familiar quiet, as it was in the seminary courtyard. He closed his eyes and allowed his mind to wander, his thoughts ricocheting from one event in his life to another. He could not reconcile the chaos of his thoughts with the peaceful silence that surrounded him. He took a deep breath and tried to quiet these thoughts but it wasn\u2019t working. It never did work, but he kept his eyes closed, tilted his head back and whispered, \u2018Are you there?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nothing. Silence. Just the rustle of the leaves and the chirping of the crickets. Maybe the universe didn\u2019t respond to whispers, he thought, so he asked again, this time aloud, \u2018Universe? Source? Whatever you are? Are you listening?\u2019 A gust of wind washed over him. It could have been an answer. He wasn\u2019t sure, anymore. Maybe he was addressing it by the wrong name. After leaving the seminary, he could not get himself to use the word \u2018God\u2019, for he feared there was no God, at least not the God everyone believed in, the God he was taught to believe in. Source was a better name, he thought. Or the universe. Or whatever it was. That was more comfortable to him. He at least still believed in something.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018I don\u2019t care what you\u2019re called,\u2019 he said aloud. \u2018I just need to know that you are real.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Silence.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He just wanted one thing. Presence.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The universe said nothing.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018Why put me here if you\u2019re going to ignore me?\u2019, he asked, then opened his eyes and groped for the pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket. He stared at the pack in his hand for a long moment, then shook one loose and placed it between his lips, lit it with a match. The first intake of smoke felt good, relaxing, though it did irritate his throat a little. He hadn\u2019t smoked in years. He quit while at the seminary. He held the cigarette out before him, questioned why he decided to smoke again, then squashed the cigarette out into the patch of dirt beside him. Years ago there would have been spent cigarette butts all over the place, along with empty beer and liquor bottles, and torn fragments of beer cartons, and a radio would have obliterated the silence. Certainly no one would be thinking of God, least of all him. God was abstract, a cultural thing more than a genuine presence.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He closed his eyes again, tried to sense that presence.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nothing.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He wanted presence. True presence. Not theories. Not symbols. Not obscure or vague signs. It eluded him, even at the seminary.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He opened his eyes again, leaned back so that he was resting on the palms of his hands. How strange this place was when you were alone, he thought. Even when he was a boy, it was different being alone there. There was always signs of someone else having been there, remnants of those up to no good. That\u2019s what his father and grandfather used to tell him. Now it appeared as if no one even knew of the place.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Another gust of wind, stronger this time.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018Is that you?\u2019, he asked aloud.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Again, silence.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018Well, I\u2019m here,\u2019 he said, nearly a whisper.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What brought him to this point, he wondered? Life had been good, relatively stable and comfortable, not wanting for anything. He thought he had direction and he supposed he should have been grateful for that. Something was missing. Exactly what, he wasn\u2019t quite sure. He could feel it, though, deep within. Then came the slow unraveling, as if everything was slowly being peeled away from him, one layer at a time. It was no longer comfortable, no longer stable, the anxiety intensified, the questions more elusive and disturbing. What had he actually done with his life? Why did he feel so alone? Why couldn\u2019t he ever finish anything? He wasn\u2019t asking for enlightenment anymore. Simply a presence. Anything to prove he wasn\u2019t insufferably alone.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Another gust of wind, even stronger than the previous one, and a little longer in duration. Surely, this is you, right, he thought? Then he said aloud, \u2018Is this your way of letting me know you hear me?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A deafening silence. Even the crickets stopped singing. For the first time in his life, he had come to a horrifying revelation. What if the silence never ends? Not tonight, not tomorrow, ever. Why was it so easy for some to have such a knowing<\/em>? For him, there was no hidden voice, no sudden revelation, no burning bush, no cosmic embrace. It was just me, he thought, in this wilderness, a speck in the grandeur of the cosmos. Why would the universe even give a shit about my petty concerns? What kind of ego does man have to think it even would? The same thoughts which plagued him at the seminary. Nothing they said there ever eased his discomfort.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He sat up again, gazed at the stars. He used to do that a lot while meditating in the courtyard of the seminary, seeking to hear God\u2019s voice, to feel his presence. What was God\u2019s voice, anyway, he wondered?<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He stood up and began walking towards the river. The same path which he and his father walked remained, only now it was far more traveled. Nevertheless, it appeared the same to him. Guided only by moonlight, he slowly made his way to the bank of the river, towards the rocks he remembered sitting on as a child. They were still there, of course. He sat on one of the boulders and drew his knees to his chest, listened to the flow of the river. He couldn\u2019t see too much but the moonlight did provide some level of visibility. He watched the water flow around and past one of the boulders jutting out of the riverbed. He remembered that, too. He thought of a Zen concept just then, how the river will just continue flowing, around the rock, unimpeded. He thought of that metaphor often, whenever he was troubled, and he thought of that while he mediated in the garden at the seminary. It never helped, though, and he slowly began to realize that perhaps his time at the seminary would eventually draw to a close, that \u2018Father Paul\u2019 would be yet another unfinished task in his life. He thought of his father, then, a big robust man, wading thigh deep in the flowing river, casting his fishing line, his ruddy face partially concealed beneath the brim of his bucket hat. Paul was nine years old, then, and he wanted to be a good fisherman like his dad, but he was never really any good at it. He did try, did his best to make his father proud of him. At night, back in the cabin, he\u2019d watch his father read the Bible and pray the rosary. He believed in God, then, or at least the God he was told existed. Even then, Paul never heard him, but he kept his questions and his doubts to himself. Did his father hear him, he wondered? He must have, to have maintained that kind of faith. He had always envied those with such unbridled faith, who harbored such certainty. He was never able to make sense of his confusion.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Paul looks up and said, \u2018Are you there? Can you hear me?\u2019<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Silence, save for the flow of the river and the rustle of the leaves in the wind. He unconsciously reached for his pack of cigarettes again, but he stopped himself. Then he removed the pack from his shirt pocket, shook a single cigarette loose and tucked it behind his ear before crushing the pack in his hand and tossing them away.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The river flowed, the stars looked down at him, yet the universe offered no comfort. He just sat there, listening. The wind moved through the branches. His breathing was slow, steady, and deliberate, yet he could not shake the creeping anxiety within him. It was the same anxiety, the same fear he felt while in his room at the seminary. The same deafening silence.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A strange thought occurred to him. It wasn\u2019t an answer. Just a thought. Every time he called, the silence had been with him. In the ashrams, the churches, the meditations, the books, the seminary, the silence was ever present, unbroken, endless, and he hated it. It frightened him. There was no escaping it. What if there was no salvation, he thought? What if there were no guarantees, no reward, no punishment, nothing? What if it all simply was, cold, immense, and indifferent? And there he was, within it, small, temporary, yet conscious, capable of asking questions greater than himself, but to what end?<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The wind pushed against the trees, dropping acorns and bits of broken twigs and dead leaves. Somewhere, a creature stirred in the darkness. He could hear it, but he couldn\u2019t see it. What kind of nocturnal creature was it? The river flowed before him, pulling along a lifetime of memories, and endless flow, like time. Above him, the stars, the immense space, endless and foreboding. He closed his eyes and listened. Again nothing, silence.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018How long will you hide your face from me\u2026?\u2019, he thought. He read that psalm often at the seminary, perhaps too often. \u2018My God, my God, why have thou forsaken me\u2026?\u2019, he said aloud, looking up at the sky, the stars, the void. \u2018I cry by day but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Again the wind stirred the trees. The nocturnal creature continued foraging. The river flowed. Perhaps the mystery was not why God refused to speak, but why, in all that silence, he continued to ask.<\/p>\n New York City<\/em><\/p>\n June 2026<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Julian Gallo Before he entered, and subsequently left, the seminary, he wandered through religions as if exploring abandoned homes. He had visited ashrams, practiced yoga, attended meditation classes, or simply found the time for himself to read and read and read, absorbing as much as he could. 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