Declan was kneeling. And praying. There had been no conscious thought to do either yet he did both. Around him the deep bass thrumming and high pitched oscillations came together like an angelic chorus cresting with the light and bathing them all in its purity.
He knelt because he was compelled to do so, not from habit for as the leader of the services he was rarely in a position to kneel but because. All those times his Father had answered a question he posed with “because” finally made sense. He knelt, just because. He prayed, just because.
A lifetime of need and want, a career seeking the sensation of God, believing he had felt IT descend upon him, now knowing that he had never actually felt anything but wishfulness, all that was cast aside as he was finally and truthfully filled with the Holy Spirit. He knew now what he had always wondered. He knew the truth of salvation and was filled, replenished and anew with the gift of Holy Grace.
Declan's breath grew short, his skin cold and his eyes filled with the tears of absolute joy. He knelt letting the universe wash over him like a cleansing baptism on the atomic level, revelling in the communion of spirit, experiencing pure joy and completely at peace until Daniel's hand absent-mindedly broke through his state of bliss with its persistent tapping on his shoulder.
This was not the time for that, he thought as he opened his eyes, blinked through the tears and like a school kid throwing a warning glare to a fellow student during an onerous lecture he shot a glance toward Daniel. A glance that caught that Daniel and everyone else was staring as one at the Flux Portal. The old Priest's jaw fell slack as he too saw the presence before them.
A perfect figure, ageless, with a shock of fire red hair that shrouded her head and cascaded down her shoulders. A woman, a nude woman. Full formed, toned where muscle should be, soft and round where desire would demand it. She stood there gathering herself as the last traces of the transfer sparkled away from her and looked back at them in a mix of bewilderment and delight.
Her eyes, despite the rest of her, there on display, it was her eyes which drew Declan's gaze. Crisp vibrant electric blue eyes with the most black of irises in creation. Her face, both soft and authoritative, the perfect balance of serene and sensual it radiated as though a beacon.
Declan, who was normally troubled by public, and in typical Anglican fashion, even private displays of nudity, instantly saw her nakedness for what it was. Like a newborn, innocent and pure, like Adam and Eve before the Apple, she stood there. She did not awaken desire in him, though that was not beyond him yet.
And yet, even with the sense that she completed the connection to the Holy Spirit, the back of Declan's mind posed one cynical thought that took root and began to grow. If she was who she was supposed to be then that meant God was a woman.
