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Doubting Thomas Donovan eyed me narrowly when I solved a string of gruesome animal killings.
She muttered “but he’s godless” as I recounted the Stations of the Cross backwards and overlaid the plan of a Gothic cathedral on a map of Westminster landmarks.
Zombie cat, boxed dog, crucified rabbit at Her Majesty the Defender of the Faith’s haunts along an imagined church aisle? The Met’s Christians are as fumbling as the rest.
Every atheist I know is better acquainted with theology than most believers. We have examined rather than accepted.
Rejecting reason is religion’s biggest sin. Galileo’s heretical heliocentrism wasn’t exonerated until 1992. I’m no astronomy expert, but really.
Their own special book calls faith the assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen. It’s scientifically inexcusable.
And yet the few times I’ve heard John recite The Lord’s Prayer, it’s sounded… not ridiculous, somehow.
So many things about him are mysteries. It may be he feels something I cannot.
Here is what I do know of holy communion: My body joined to his, between us a thousand muscles tensing in orgasm, his growled benediction of Jesus, fuck, Sherlock. Then his blessed laughter, and the way he loses the power of wakefulness but not of smiling. That is the peace which passes all understanding, though you call it blasphemy.