The World, the Flesh, and the Devil

Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard.
― Anne Sexton

The ways of the world—how I hated that phrase, probably because I had so little experience with the failings of the flesh.

Not that I didn’t try.

I was a theology student being pursued by The Hound of Heaven in the person of Fr. Tom McKillop, the college vocational director; and when I wasn’t avoiding him, I was in the chapel carrying on nightly quarrels with Jesus hanging from the cross over the main altar.

“You’re free to follow your heart, Stephen,” The Lord would whisper in the candle lit chapel. Nobody but me heard him, because nobody but me was there. The other theology students were at The Pig with my roommate, Jack, getting wasted and chasing women.

Well, it really wasn’t called The Pig, but La Place Pigalle, but since its raison d’etre was the same, the epithet remained. Ca semblait approprié.

Jack and the Seminarians—they sounded like a retro rock group, and perhaps they were—retro, that is, but what exactly they were doing in a seminary was beyond me, but so were my motives for being there as well.

Keeping my options open, I opined, but that bird had flown along with many others who names I could no longer recall but who were part of my freshman fantasies and now a distant blur in memory.

I was beginning to doubt everything I believed—not about God, but me.

When did I become a Duns Scotus walled away from the world like a tonsured monk?

I used to like women—and they used to like me—that was real, wasn’t it? I couldn’t be sure anymore if those girls of my past were real or false memories. For all I knew, it was possible the people I saw everyday were illusions; and when I went back to my dorm room, they all disappeared.

Well, that was the feeling more and more lately—that nothing was real—least of all me, and of course, my memories.

Still, I still went to class in regular university—sat in The Coop with girls and flirted quite a bit. I just didn’t go out on dates, but always figured I could, if I really wanted.

I was free to follow my heart after all—but wait! Was that me, or The Lord playing with my brain?

See? I just didn’t know anymore what was God and what was me.

So that’s how I ended up one night at The Pig. If I was going to roast forever on a spit, it seemed an appropriate place to be.

I settled into my seat and persuaded Fast Eddie to leave a tray of draft.

Of course, I had to stifle the Lord’s whisper inside my head, so He began talking in French.

Vas-tu bien maintenant?

Yes, I’m doing just fine.

It was going to be a long night.

© 2018, John J Geddes. All rights reserved

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