Declan Smalls was anything but. A stocky man with a pudgy, comfortable face, thinning brown hair which threatened to grey first before disappearing entirely, little round glasses set in thin metal frames that helped to off-set the bags under his deep-set grey-blue eyes.
He was a 56 year old man, who even in this day of diet consciousness, exercise awareness, fiddle-with-your-DNA-just-because-you-can-ness, choose instead to let nature take its course and age him.
He was 56, but by comparison to his peers he would have seemed much older, and he didn't have a problem with that because Declan was in one of the few remaining lines of work where being aged actually augmented ones credibility.
Declan was a priest, but not your ordinary run of the mill priest, though he could pass for that. Declan was a Cathlican priest, a dying breed of traditional practices and dogmatic tolerance, and because of that he was the leader of a very thinning flock.
It's an odd irony that the most accepting and tolerant bodies attract the least followers; while the high anxiety religions, the ones whose constant message is that no one could possibly measure up to GOD™, have the largest number and most fervent of followers.
The truly delicious part of this irony is that each member of those flocks readily digests the delusions that they are one of the chosen. And they remain handily oblivious even when the regular chastising by their pastoral leader is directed at their extravagances, their indulgences, their path rather than just the equally corpulent, equally oblivious butt in the seat next to them.
Declan didn't have those problems. His parishioners didn't either, all twelve of them. Declan's church, the amalgamated, some would say, re-united Cathlican Church, had few, if any followers. In fact, the edifice Declan occupied each day from 814am to 447pm, Monday to Friday, and for four hours each Sunday was, in fact, the only Cathlican Church for a two hours drive; and was sadly, the only remaining church on the increasingly misnamed Church Street.
It was a proud building though. A two hundred and seventy four year old stone structure. Kept up by a litany of historical and preservation societies, all committed to saving landmarks they had no personal stake in, and less interest in visiting. And its lone spire majestically pierced the sky at the dizzying height of one hundred and three feet, a reference to some passage from The Book™.
It's attached school, long closed, and razed to the ground had been replaced by a gleaming office tower which dwarfed the church handily by some forty-two stories, also oddly relevant to another good book.
Nestled between the gothic stone church and the ultra post modern redux office edifice was the tiny century home, so called because it had been built three centuries past. Seeming lost between the incongruous giants, it was the residence for the rector of the Church of St George (Cathlican) which, as you might have guessed by now, was Declan Smalls.
And it was here, that the first player in our litany, ate, bathed and passed time enthralled by his one true religion, Hockey. He sat there, in the tiny room facing the oversized Televid display, and watched each Saturday night game proceed through it's four quarters, a concession to the money that still rankled the priest, while trying to scribble out the spine of the next days Homily.
It wasn't going well and Declan knew it. He knew it every time he held off doing the sermon until Saturday night, as though he was going to come up with some piece of brilliance during the game. Like he could construct anything relevant to say about anything other than Hockey.
Even during the usual evenings half-time rant by the venerable francophone commentator and local loudmouth, affectionately known as “Papa Hockey”, Declan knew he was going to pull out an old sermon from his files, three years back or if he felt particularly creative maybe six years, and then wing it through some impromptu relevance insertions, that is if he got up early enough to figure out what had been happening in the world this week. But the regulars would, of course, know this. Just as Declan knew most people tuned out the sermon after the first sixty seconds.
So the next day when he stood at the podium, the lectern, hands on either side of the thick dark wooden rails, and read from the page before him the same text he had read out from this same spot at least a hundred times before the only variable was how many times he'd use the phrase “In other words”.
Despite the phrase he started with, which always caught the dwindling numbers in the congregation off guard, because what he read was not from the beginning of the book but from a section very much near the end, a gospel in fact.
“In the beginning... was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” What circular rubbish Declan thought while he continued.
“He was in the beginning with God.” So who was He that was in the beginning with God? The question passed through Declan's mind without him even understanding what he was reading, oh right he thought, it's a gospel so He must be referring to the Son.
“All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” A comforting thought, were it true. Pity, we could use some of that light now, it's been getting pretty dark around here.
“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.” Well, that at least was clear enough, there shouldn't be too many questions in the line afterward on that part at least.
“He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.” Except for that, what in the world does that mean, it is the Son again or John?
“He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.” OK, pretty safe to say it's the Son again.
“But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.” Certainly a blue-hair will question that part.
“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.” Yes, definitely the Son.
“The Gospel according to John 1; verse one to fourteen. Thanks be to God.” Declan paused. Somewhere in the crowd he could hear shuffling, a cough or two.
Rearing up, looking out at the near comatose, Declan paused to think of his next words. He needed something to jar them awake after that whole bit, this from that, that without this. My word, he thought, John could ramble on about stuff. Pity they hadn't had marketing agents back then, the whole Bible could probably fit on a pamphlet and wouldn't the teaching be easy then.
But no, thought Declan, they wouldn't need teachers if the message were that simple. Ah the original writers of this had it right, make it long, make it flowery, keep it ambiguous, for every ”love thy neighbour” put in five hurdles, “Camels through eyes of needles” and such. A sentence of tolerance followed by ten on righteousness. Keep it unobtainable but full of promise. Now here's a franchise worth investing in, eh?
Still, he needed a message.
Declan cleared his throat and then began, in the measured way he had learned to speak, back when he was first in seminary, before he earned this rectory. He gave a dispassionate speech about something that he himself had long since lost, faith.
And as his eyes shifted from those who had tuned him out, to those who persisted in attending Advisory Board meetings simply to push his patience to its limits he wondered if this would be his lot in life, until his dying moments and once again glanced down at his notes. I'll tell you what I pray for, he thought, inspiration is what I pray for, every damn night. But he had long since resigned himself to the fact that was something he was never to receive.
Following the service, after the line of attendees, both regulars and infrequents shuffled past him, offering their platitudes on the service or simply saying, “Hello,” or “How could a God...” at least one would begin as they challenged a point from the service, asking their question as if there was an actual answer, as if the flock could ever understand what the Shepherd was doing.
There followed the basement fellowship, a time of gossip for the lifers before they were wheeled off to their rides.
Finally, after all that, Declan was left alone. Free to wander the church, around the altar, down between the pews and along the balcony. Free to run his hands gently across the organ pipes and finally to the main entrance where, through the tiny glass window he saw a street that only a lifetime ago had held such a different view than the one before him now.
Once there were churches here, they lined this street in particular but more than that they were all around the city, dotting the landscape like gothic monuments. Some were impressive cathedrals, nearly as ancient as the religions they serviced. Others were wonders in modern glass architecture. Nearly all are long gone now from the landscape, faded into both memory and time. Victims of circumstance and greed.
The seed of their demise was in the past. Metro had suffered for hosting the World Games, a disastrous move made worse by the drive of a short sighted egotistical mayor and a city moving headlong into recession. After decades of double-digit property tax increases, justified to pay for the mismanagement of the city by imbeciles both elected and appointed, the city was only now just starting to recover.
The increases had driven the corporations out of Metro, out to the 'burbs surrounding it never to return. This had dealt a serious blow to the city but in time there was recovery for economics are like the seasons.
For one, there were still plenty of customers in the city. They were stuck there, unable to sell their homes in the volatile climate, unable to move someplace cheaper. Inevitably corporations new arrived, companies keen on expanding their market, ready to take advantage of the generous tax incentives created to encourage investment and so, like a tide, retail outlets began to reappear amongst the urban ruins.
They weren't the same companies that had left, they were new, foreign conglomerates and franchises opening in the vacant districts and the neighborhoods re-bloomed like flowers in a mild spring.
As Metro coffers began to refill the civic leaders soon saw demand exceed supply and unable to extend the borders of Metro any further out they were forced to look within, it was then they saw the churches. Huge tracts of land in prime areas on which sat nearly vacant buildings of crumbling stone.
It took years of pressure and back room dealings to get the Federal government and the tax authorities to see it their way, to realize that most of the religions were fundamentally the same. Even within church bodies variations existed which fuzzied up the dividing lines between one and another.
So the bill was passed and became law. Each church body, each synod and assembly found that in order to retain tax exemptions they would have to provide clear evidence they were unique in their dogma, different enough from all others around, or face imposed amalgamation with bodies the state saw as theologically matched.
Under such fire some strange allegiances were made, one of which created the Cathlican faith which brings us back to Reverend Declan Smalls and St. George's Cathedral.
This church, the last of its kind, the only Christian house of worship free of the brimstone and treacle of the hell-fire establishments for nearly a days walk, certainly the only one within Metro itself. The final vestige and moniker on Church Street, the last of nearly a hundred similar structures all gone, lost to the ages. And at its helm Declan Smalls, a minor rector who simply had long since lost the ability to believe.
How could a God, indeed...
