The Final Testament of the Holy Bible Part 12

They got an army out there trying to find you.

Michael got us first.

You lucky.

I know.

They catch you they taking you away.

I know.

I don't want that.

Neither do I.

We can't go back.

We'll find somewhere else.

We gotta leave everything behind.

That doesn't matter to me.

He put his arms around her and hugged her and kissed her neck and her cheek and her lips again. And even though he seemed to love everyone, and make everyone feel loved, I could tell he loved her differently. Like he knew that no matter what he did or where he went he would always come back to her, and she knew the same thing. It was real sweet the way they held each other and kissed each other, really the sweetest thing I'd ever seen, including all the sappy stuff on TV and in the movies. There were no barriers between them. Like they accepted each other completely, and loved each other truly. I guess that's the way it's supposed to be between everyone. Love without conditions, love for the sake of love, love even though we're different. But it's never actually like that. Most of the time love is closer to something like hate. But with them it was beautiful.

They separated and the girl looked over at me. Ben introduced us and the girl, Mariaangeles, smiled and said h.e.l.lo. The people over at the table, an older woman who was fat like me, and a younger woman, and three men, including the one who had brought us here, were all still listening to the police scanner. One of the men looked over and smiled and said they're leaving, motherf.u.c.kers are leaving, and everyone started laughing. Ben smiled and walked over to the woman and kissed her on the cheek and said thank you. I asked Mariaangeles what had happened, and she said the woman monitored the scanner for some people in the projects and let them know when the police were coming. She had heard they were coming for a white man in his early thirties, with dark hair, who was heavily scarred. The only person who fit the description was Ben. She said Ben was known in the area because he was the only white person living there, and because he helped people, and gave them food and money. She said some people believed he could make sick children well and make drug addicts and alcoholics stop taking drugs and drinking. That people called him the Prophet, and believed he was a holy man, and they loved him and watched out for him. So the lookouts, who were normally there for other reasons, which I didn't ask about, had come to their apartment and brought her away, and watched for Ben to make sure he didn't get caught. I asked why the police and FBI were looking for Ben, and she said because he skipped bail after he got arrested for living in the subway tunnels. I asked if that was really something they would need all those guns for, and she said it was because Ben was living there with a black man who had a bunch of guns. I asked her where they would go now, and she said they'd figure something out, that there were people who would help take care of them, people who loved Ben, and they would give them somewhere to live.

I looked over at Ben, who was sitting with the people at the table. They were all speaking Spanish, which he seemed to speak just like them. The word policia kept being used and they were laughing a lot. Watching them, they looked like a family, a really really happy family. I was a little bit jealous, because they looked like the family I had always wished my family was, smiling and joking and being nice to each other. It didn't even matter that they all looked different from me. I wanted to be one of them. I had been living alone for a long time, and I had my parents' whole house and whole farm all to myself. It was not a happy place and never had been. It hadn't been awful or violent or scary, it was just empty. An empty house and empty fields. And I was empty. And I was tired of it. Tired of being sad and alone. I wanted to know what it was like to smile there and be happy there and to know love there. I wanted to hear someone laughing in my house. I couldn't remember ever having heard it, unless it was me laughing at a TV show that I was watching alone while I ate dinner or something. I wanted to come home from my job, which really stunk, just standing checking people out at a superstore all day, and feel like there was something or someone at home waiting for me. Who might even be happy or excited to see me.

Mariaangeles came out of a bedroom with a little girl. A beautiful little girl who looked just like her, though she sure seemed young to have a child. The girl ran over to Ben and gave him a hug and sat on his lap. Everyone was still talking in Spanish. I didn't know what they were saying at all, but I imagined they were talking about where they were going to go and what they were going to do. I sat down at the end of the table, in the only empty chair. I felt happy to sit down and be part of the table. And I had an idea. It was a great idea, I thought. A wonderful, really fun idea. I raised my hand, but n.o.body noticed, so I raised it a little higher, and waved it a little. Ben looked over at me.

You don't have to raise your hand.

I don't speak Spanish, so I wasn't sure about the rules.

There are no rules.

I didn't want to be rude.

You're not.

I have an idea.

About what?

About where to go.

We're okay here.

But those men, they're going to come back.

Yes.

And they'll keep coming back until they get you.

Probably.

I have a farm. It's upstate. There's a big house and land, and it's just me. I live there all by myself.

It's not just me.

Whoever you want could come. I'd like it a lot.

They might come for me there as well.

Oh man, if you think you have a good system here, we could really have one there. Our nearest neighbor is a mile away. We'd know for sure if someone was coming.

He smiled.

You're sure you want us.

I smiled.

Yes. I'd love it. It would be so fun.

And the yard would be awesome for the little girl. We could get her a wagon or a bike or something.

Her name is Mercedes.

I smiled at her.

Hi, Mercedes.

She smiled at me. He tickled her.

You want to move somewhere with a yard?

She laughed.

Yes.

He looked at Mariaangeles, smiled.

She smiled at him.

She seems okay to me.

He breathed through his nose and nodded.

She is.

I ain't ever lived anywhere but here. Be nice to get out.

Yes.

She looked at me.

You sure?

I nodded.

Yes.

She smiled.

Let's go.

I smiled.

No way.

You asked for it, white girl, you got it. I hope you know what you in for.

I laughed and she laughed and I stood up and hugged her and she hugged me. The man who drove us asked when we wanted to leave and Ben smiled and said let's go now. The man stood and said cool with me and the old woman gave all of us hugs. One of the other women asked Mariaangeles when she'd be back and Mariaangeles said if she was lucky, never. We took the elevator back down from the seventh floor and we left.

I didn't even go back to the hotel and get my stuff. The man put my address into the computer in his car, and off we went. The drive was real easy. And it was fun too. We listened to the radio and sang along with some of the songs whenever we knew the words. Ben could sing beautifully if he wanted to, like an opera singer or something, but mostly he just sang for laughs. He'd make faces and do little disco dances and pretend to be crying during the love songs. He'd take Mercedes' hands and make her laugh and laugh over and over again. During a duet, he and Mariaangeles took the separate parts and sang to each other. We stopped a couple of times for food and bathroom breaks and stuff, but Ben didn't really eat anything. He would drink water and stand outside, staring up at the sky. I asked one time if he was looking at G.o.d or talking to G.o.d or something, and he just laughed and said no, he just liked looking at the stars and that he couldn't see them in the city. I looked up, and the stars were just coming out, and I have to say, they were pretty cool.

The drive took five hours. When we arrived, the house was dark and there were no lights. Mariaangeles said she'd never been out of the city before and Mercedes started crying. Ben held her and whispered in her ear and she stopped right away. The house was big and white and old. It had six bedrooms and four bathrooms and was sort of falling apart a little bit. There was a barn and the fields were overrun with weeds and little baby trees. When we pulled up right in front of the house, Ben got out and smiled and looked up at the sky again. I went right inside and turned on the lights. Mariaangeles brought Mercedes in and I told them to take whatever rooms they wanted, and the man who drove came in and I made him some food I had in the fridge. Ben stayed outside. I got a little worried and looked out the window and saw him walking into one of the fields. The moon was only out a little bit, and before I could go out to him he disappeared.

I waited up for him and watched TV. There are so many good shows on late at night. He never came back, though, and I fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up the next morning, I could hear Ben standing near the front door with the man, and I heard him say: It could be tomorrow, or it could be in five years, but there's no stopping it. Protect the good around you. Love the good you know. Keep them safe.

How do I know who's good?

You know.

I can't tell the way you can.

We all know good and bad in our hearts. We can see and feel it. Trust yourself.

You sure you gonna be okay up here?

Yes.

What if they come for you?

Then they come.

They gonna lock your a.s.s away if they get you.

They won't get me unless I let them.

You gonna?

Live your life. Love your children. Don't believe what you're told. Forget the lies of religion and government. And don't worry about me.

You need money?

No.

Anything?

No, thank you.

Get in touch if you do.

Go, my friend.

Ben hugged the man, and the man turned and got in his truck and pulled out. Ben came inside and smiled at me and kissed me. He asked how I was and I said great and he said thank you again for having us here, it's a beautiful place, a perfect place. I said sure and he hugged me and it felt great. When he let go of me, I missed him right away, even though he was right there. He asked what I was going to do for the day and I told him I had to go to work. He asked if I minded if he did some work around the house and I laughed and told him to do whatever he wanted. He smiled and said thank you, and walked away. I got dressed and went to work. The store I worked in was the biggest store ever, the size of a whole bunch of football fields. It sold everything you could ever imagine, though the most popular things were steaks, beer, and guns. I just rang things up all day. I sat on a little stool when I could, but mostly I was standing up, which isn't easy for someone like me. On my breaks, I went to the break room and ate. I had a couple of people I talked to at work, but mostly I didn't talk to anyone. I sat by myself and watched TV. On the first day with Ben and Mariaangeles and Mercedes, I could hardly sit at all. And I didn't mind being alone. I kept wondering what they were doing, or thinking about them walking around the house and the yard. I always tried to be cheerful with customers, but I was extra cheerful. And it didn't even bother me when they ignored me.

When I came home, I couldn't even believe it. The whole house was clean. Really really clean. Everything had been wiped down and the floors were all mopped. Even the kitchen was clean and the fridge was scrubbed. The yard, which I only had done three times a year, was totally cut. We had a push mower, so I knew it must have been hard work. I started looking around the house for everyone. I found Mercedes in her room, playing with a doll. I don't know where they'd found it, but it was one of mine from when I was a little girl. It was cheap but pretty cute, with a little pink dress and plastic hair, and I hadn't seen it in years and years. I went in and started playing with her. And she wanted to play with me. And it was awesome. Just playing with this little girl. Who didn't look at me and think bad things about me and wasn't scared of me. She was just happy. We played dance and nurse and singer. We played going to the grocery store and ice cream summer day. And the rest of the world disappeared. The rest of the world didn't even matter. I felt like I felt with Ben. Like what was important was right now, not sometime in the past or sometime in the future. It felt like life was what it is supposed to be.

We played for a long time, and near the end I heard some noise down the hall. I hadn't seen or heard Ben or Mariaangeles, but figured they must be around somewhere in the house. I stood up and told Mercedes I would be right back and went down the hall. The noises were closer. They were clearly hanky panky noises. They made me nervous and scared, but also pretty excited. The door was sort of open and I peeked around the edge. Mariaangeles was on top of him and she was really moving her hips. It looked like she was dancing or something. Ben was watching her, and smiling, and his hands were moving up and down on her body. I started to move away but Ben saw me. He smiled wider and motioned for me to come into the room, but I was too embarra.s.sed and ran back down the hall and went back in with Mercedes. I kept hearing the noises for another half an hour or so. I had always thought of s.e.x as dirty or bad. Something you weren't supposed to be open about with other people. Something that was against the rules of the church and G.o.d and that laws were made against. But they sounded happy. And when Ben was inside me, it was the best feeling I had ever had in my whole life. I had been in churches with my parents many times. And I had never felt anything in them. It was just boring. And it seemed old and silly. But when I felt that feeling with Ben, when I saw the light, and saw forever, and felt them, that was G.o.d.

When the noises stopped, Ben and Mariaangeles came into the room. Mercedes was really happy to see them, and we all went and had dinner together. I wasn't sure how to act after what I had seen, but they just acted the way they always seemed to act, which was really happy. Dinner was great, my favorite, macaroni and cheese. After dinner, Mariaangeles took Mercedes upstairs to give her a bath and put her to bed. Ben smiled and walked over and kissed me. It was a long kiss. A real French kiss. I wasn't sure what to do so I just did it back. And it kept going. We kept going. Kissing like teenagers or something. And he pulled me out of my chair and started taking off my clothes. Thinking back, I can't even believe it, but at the time I couldn't think at all. I was just feeling so awesome. He took off my clothes right there in the dining room. And we went down on the floor. And he started going over my whole body. He was using his hands and his mouth and his tongue. Everywhere on me and in me. And I just closed my eyes and let him do whatever he wanted. It was wonderful. Like the best thing ever. He was whispering while he did it. And I tried to listen but it took me away from what he was doing to me. But what I could hear was about G.o.d. That this was G.o.d. That what I was feeling was G.o.d. That G.o.d in books could never make me feel like this. That I would never feel this way if it wasn't right, if it wasn't natural, if it wasn't part of G.o.d, the true G.o.d.

As he was doing all those things to me, I heard Mariaangeles come into the room and laugh. I opened my eyes and I was really embarra.s.sed. Ben was the only person except for my parents who had ever seen me naked. I started to get up but she shook her head and smiled and kneeled next to me and put her hands on my shoulders and held me down and started kissing me. Something in me said it was wrong, but it wasn't. It felt as good as it did with Ben. And I did it back to her. Even though I had always been taught that being gay or doing gay s.e.x things was against G.o.d's way, it didn't feel that way. G.o.d doesn't care if a man kisses a man, or a woman kisses a woman, or a woman and man kiss. G.o.d doesn't care at all. It's just love. Kissing or touching of any kind is just an expression of love, and it doesn't matter who is doing it. Anybody who says G.o.d believes something else doesn't know what they're talking about at all.

We were together for the rest of the night. On the floor in the dining room and then upstairs in my bedroom and then in the bathtub. What a night it was. My oh my, I saw G.o.d over and over, and I saw eternity, and I felt complete peace and understanding, and I felt loved, boy, did I feel loved, more loved than just about anybody on the whole earth that day, I think. When it was over, we all fell asleep together, right in the same bed. Ben was in the middle, and me and Mariaangeles were on either side of him. I slept really great and didn't even have any bad dreams. When I woke up in the morning, Ben was gone. Mariaangeles was still sleeping, but Ben was gone.

I got up and went to work, same as I did every day. When I came home, more projects had been done, like there was some wood stacked up and the barn was being cleaned out. Ben and Mariaangeles and me and Mercedes all had dinner together, and Mariaangeles put Mercedes to sleep. When she was done, we all went to my bedroom and did the same thing we had done the night before. We touched each other and we kissed each other and we licked each other. And we made each other feel wonderful. And we loved each other. That was what it was all about. What life is about. Loving each other. A man who was Jewish who could talk to G.o.d and a black Dominican girl from the Bronx and a fat white cas.h.i.+er from the middle of nowhere. We didn't care about color or religion or money or what kind of school we'd gone to or what kinds of jobs we had had or what our families were like or even what our bodies looked like. We didn't care that we weren't married. Or that we were sinners. Or that some people would even say we were d.a.m.ned to h.e.l.l. We just loved each other. For what we were. Which is how it's supposed to be. True love isn't about anything other than how it makes you feel. And if it makes you feel good, keep doing it, regardless of how other people may think of it or feel.

We fell into a routine. I would go to my job. Ben and Mariaangeles would work around the farm. We would have dinner together and go to bed. He was never there when I woke up. I asked one day where he went at night all alone. He said sometimes he went into the woods or the barn and had seizures, and sometimes he laid in the gra.s.s and stared at the stars, and he said sometimes he walked to town, which was three miles away, and went looking for things other people had thrown away, like food and clothes and stuff. I told him he was being silly and that he didn't need to do that anymore because I could buy everything we needed at the store with my employee discount. He said he didn't want bought things. That buying things just fed the system that was destroying the world. I asked him if he really thought the world was being destroyed and he smiled and said yes, it is, and it will be final soon. I asked him if he was mad that I worked at the store and he laughed and said of course not. He kissed me on the cheek and said that it wasn't his place or anyone else's to tell me how to live. I told him I wouldn't mind quitting my job and he said I should do what I wanted to do, that my life was my own, and when it was over, it was over, and that I should do and see and try and feel and experience everything I could and everything I wanted to. I told him I didn't know what I wanted, and he smiled again and said yes, you do, we all do, we just need to be honest with ourselves about it, and stop being scared of it. Fear, he said, ran all of our lives. Fear, he said, after religion, was the most destructive force in the world.

Other people also started coming to the house. At first it was just one or two a week. I don't know how they knew Ben or how they knew where he was. They would be there when I came home, or they would knock on the door. They all seemed crazy or sad or sick or on drugs. Ben would walk with them. He would go walking into the fields where my daddy used to farm. The fields were overgrown and scary. Even though I knew better, and I was grown up, I was always sure there was something evil in them, like a monster or something. Ben would walk in there with people, and sometimes they would come back in five minutes and sometimes they would come back in five hours, but the people were always better. I didn't really know what to think about it. Something was going on out there, but it was hard to really think about it for real. Miracles were something people talked about, and I would read about in the newspaper, and people would pray really super hard for, but they never really seemed to happen, or if they did it was like one in a billion times. But people kept praying for them, millions of people did it, every single day they did it. Some of them were going to get lucky. And that was really all it was for them, and for their praying for miracles, just dumb luck. Something good is bound to happen like one in a billion times. Really most of the people who prayed for miracles were just wasting their time. It was silly. They begged and pleaded for some kind of help that never came. They should have spent the time having fun or something. Especially if it was for health reasons. They could at least have some kind of fun before they died instead of praying. And when these not really real miracles did happen, there wasn't really any reason for them. Like the people involved couldn't say what had happened or why it had happened. Not for real, at least. But with Ben it was different. Sick people would walk into the fields with him, and they would walk out healthy. Drug addicts would walk in with him and come out without wanting drugs anymore. People on crutches would come out running. I saw a couple of people with sungla.s.ses and white canes come out smiling and blinking. A man in a wheelchair skipped across the lawn. It was crazy. And beautiful. It was miracles for real. Not praying to some thing that wasn't even there and couldn't even listen. Not praying for some promise in a book that never made any of its promises come true. But having someone actually do something that changed someone. Knowing that because you met this one person, and he did something, that your life was totally different and totally better. That was a miracle. And Ben could make miracles happen. He could make prayers, which really are pretty useless considering how many there are and how little they actually do, he could make prayers actually come true. I don't know how he did it, except to say that he was the Messiah, and he had the same powers that that Jesus Christ man had, if that man was even real. He could make miracles. I've never heard of anyone else who could do it. But he could, for real. And it wasn't like it was easy or just some little thing. After he did it, he would always come out looking worse than when he went in. Like whatever he did took something from him. Like he was giving something of himself to the people so they could be better. Sometimes he didn't come back at all. The people would say he'd told them he was going to have a seizure and they should leave him. Or he'd walk out of the field and just have the seizure right in the yard. They were really terrible scary ones. He'd shake and grunt and spit and stuff would come out of his mouth. I'd get really worried and want to go help him, but I knew he wouldn't want that, so I'd usually just bite my nails on the porch. Once I asked why he did it, gave people the miracles. He said he did it because he loved them, and that miracles aren't done, miracles are given. And that anyone could do it. If people were willing to love enough, and to give enough, that anyone could change someone's life. And that that was the easy way to describe G.o.d on earth. People changing other people's lives. Not some heavenly being, or some made-up superhero, but people changing other people's lives.

After they were done with Ben in the fields, most of the people would leave. Some of them, though, would stay with us. It was pretty funny. They weren't like normal people. Or at least that's what I thought at first. They were men who dressed up like ladies, and ladies who looked like men, and they were people who were gay and people who liked men and women. They were homeless people who were on drugs, and they were black people and Hispanic people and Asian people and Arab people and people who were so mixed up I didn't know what they were. There were women who had definitely done some dirty things, and maybe even sold themselves for money. There were men who were the same way, even. There were criminals and drug dealers and beggars and people who had nowhere else to go. If I had seen these people on the street, I would have definitely been scared of them. If I had seen them in my town, I would have hoped the police were somewhere really close. All the G.o.d-fearing, church-going people I knew would have said they were d.a.m.ned to h.e.l.l for being sinners. They would have said these people were going to h.e.l.l for sure. But when they were in my house I loved them. And I loved them because I saw Ben loved them. I saw him hug them and kiss them. I saw them cry in his arms. I saw him spend hours listening to them and talking to them and laughing with them. I saw him heal them and change them. I saw him treat them like they were real people, which almost all of them said hadn't been done in a really long time. I saw Ben have s.e.x with them, and all of them wanted to have s.e.x with him, and he with all of them, and saw him marry them. Some of them came to the farm together and were in love or fell in love while they were with us. Men and men and women and women and men and women, every combination you could imagine, gay ones and straight ones. Ben told them that marriage wasn't about a man and a woman being together, it was about people in love being together. And he said that laws and restrictions against love and marriage, regardless of who was in the marriage and who they loved, weren't the way of G.o.d. G.o.d didn't care about those things. G.o.d was beyond those things. Marriage is a human issue, and all humans should be allowed to partic.i.p.ate in it, regardless of how they love. And I followed his example. I talked and laughed and listened and hugged and kissed and had s.e.x. I went to the weddings and cried and cheered, I was so happy for everyone, and I danced after, danced until my legs and feet hurt like crazy. I didn't think about anything except that I was loving people. That that was what mattered. That we were all human beings and we were loving other human beings. And that's G.o.d. Not some silly man with a beard wearing a robe, sitting in a gold chair in the clouds. Not some angry man who knows everything and says what is right and wrong. Not some old man in Italy talking nonsense, or some crazy man in the American South judging everyone. Not some man in Pakistan who thinks he has the right to kill, or some man in Israel who thinks he has the right to oppress. G.o.d is not a person or a man or even a being of any kind. G.o.d is loving other human beings. G.o.d is treating everyone you meet as if you love them. G.o.d is forgetting we're all different and loving each other as if we're all the same. G.o.d is what you feel when there's love in your heart. It's an awesome feeling. And it's the real G.o.d. The only real G.o.d.

People kept coming. And some who seemed to know Ben from before. A lady doctor from the city who said she had treated Ben in the hospital. A man who used to be his boss when he was working at a construction site. A sweet gay boy who was as pretty as any girl and who used to live with Ben's brother and who loved Ben and who Ben loved, and they kissed a lot and spent a lot of time in bed. An FBI agent who hugged Ben and cried and said thank you over and over again. Some people would stay for a day or two days, some would come and go, and some never left. Pretty soon people filled up all the bedrooms, and the attic, and the bas.e.m.e.nt, and the living room, and the TV room. They were everywhere, really. And then they started sleeping outside. In the barn and in tents. Over the course of a couple of months, we went from the four of us to thirty or forty people, all living on my farm, and even more kept coming. I couldn't believe it. It was super fun. The house had never been cleaner. We started growing vegetables. And some of the people brought money and I'd buy things like food and blankets and fruit with my store discount. All day people would do jobs. Some would clean or make dinner or plant food in the garden. People would take care of Mercedes. People would go into town at night and go through dumpsters. And at night we would all sit around the front yard and Ben would talk to us. I wouldn't say it was preaching. Preachers are always trying to convince you they're right. Preachers are always trying to make you believe what they believe. Preachers are always trying to tell you if you don't listen to them you're going to pay some price. Ben didn't care if we believed. He said everybody should have the right to believe whatever they wanted. He didn't need to convince anybody. All anybody had to do to be convinced by Ben was look at him. When you saw him, you knew he was different from the rest of us. You knew he was special, or even something really beyond special. He was divine. He was what people prayed for and begged for and spent their whole lives wors.h.i.+pping. He was the real Prophet. He was the real Son of G.o.d. He was the real Jesus Christ born again. He was the real Messiah. He was everything all of the crazy religious people all over the world had been praying for and waiting for for all of these thousands of years. He was G.o.d. He was G.o.d.

And even though he told us all, every single one of us, that we didn't have to believe what he said, we did believe it, we believed everything he said, even when it was kooky. I remember the first night it happened. The sky was clear and there was no moon and it was warm. There were millions and billions of stars out, so many I couldn't even begin to count or guess how many there were. Ben had been in the house, having a seizure. Everyone knew to leave him alone when that was happening. Even if it had been happening in the kitchen or where we could see him, he told us all to leave him alone. He was having this seizure in the living room that night, right on our old carpet. He had been talking during it, talking in some weird language that sounded really old and scary and serious. Everyone had left the house and gone out to the lawn. We were just sitting on the gra.s.s, looking up and not saying anything because it was so beautiful we couldn't even believe it. It was when there were only eight or nine of us at the house. Me and Mariaangeles and Mercedes sleeping in her arms, and a gay man and two transvest.i.tes and a woman who had been a crack smoker when she came but wasn't anymore, and maybe someone else. Ben walked out and sat down with us. He took the crack lady's hand because she was having a really hard time being off her drugs. He kissed her on the head, and she smiled. One of the men asked him if he was okay, and he said yes. He asked if he knew he was talking when he was having his seizure, and Ben said yes. The man asked if he knew what he was saying, and Ben said yes, I was speaking to G.o.d. Everyone was quiet for a couple of seconds. Like they couldn't believe it, or maybe like they could believe it and did believe it but it was awesome and there was nothing to say. Me and Mariaangeles both knew already. The others looked at each other and one of the men smiled and said I told you, that's what I heard, that's why we're here. The other man asked Ben what G.o.d said to him, and Ben smiled and said G.o.d wanted to tell you h.e.l.lo, and to make sure you know you are welcome to stay here for as long as you like.

We all laughed. Ben laid down on the ground so he could stare up at the stars and brought the woman down with him and held her in his arms. It was really super sweet. She had been shaking before, her hands and her whole body and even her lips had been twitching and shaking. Ben just held her and ran his hand through her hair over and over and she got really calm and peaceful. We all laid down on the ground like him, like we wanted to see whatever it was he was looking at, and because he looked real comfortable. And Ben just looked up at the stars, and so did everyone else, and they went on forever and ever and ever. n.o.body said anything for a long time. We just stared. And I saw stars that twinkled, and stars that looked like they moved, and really bright stars and stars that I could barely even see at all. I tried to count them, but there were too many, so I tried to count them in just one little square in the sky, but there were too many to do even that. Eventually I just got lost in them. I wasn't even thinking about anything. I was just staring at the wonder of the sky and stuff. And everyone else was the same way. We were lost, and when we had all forgotten he was going to, Ben spoke.

G.o.d isn't what you think, or imagine, or have been taught to believe. Much of what you have been taught to believe about everything in this world is wrong, but so much of it is tied to notions of G.o.d that it's easiest to start there first. We are animals. We were not created in the image of anyone or anything. We are a biological accident, and we are what we are now because of a long process of natural selection, and occasional spontaneous genetic abnormalities that made us stronger, and eventually became part of us. We started as single cells in swamp water, and rose from there, became fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, apes. It happened over the course of billions of years. The idea that this planet, this solar system, this galaxy, and this universe were created five thousand years ago is ridiculous. We know better. We might not have then, but we do now. And even then, when the stories were created, regardless of what culture they came from, they weren't created because the people creating them actually believed them, they were created in order to consolidate power, and to enslave people. They were created because a few men understood that if they claimed some direct relations.h.i.+p with G.o.d, some unique understanding of G.o.d, and that G.o.d was a G.o.d that created all life, and judged life, and knew everything everyone did at any given moment, and if that G.o.d was a G.o.d that controlled fate, and decided who would live and when we would die, and after death granted eternal life in either Paradise or h.e.l.l, they could use that power, that supposed relations.h.i.+p, that supposed understanding, to make people live as they told them to live, and make them do what they wanted them to do. They could use that power to make people slaves. Religion. It's remarkably simple. A beautiful con. The longest running fraud in human history. I know G.o.d. G.o.d created all, knows all, and is all-powerful. Do what I say G.o.d tells me you should, which also happens to make you subservient to me, or you will burn forever. The Christians are the masters of it. They have built empires with their scam, murdered, tortured, and terrorized literally billions of people. All in the name of their bearded superhero, in the name of their crucified fiction. In today's world the Roman Catholics, American evangelists, and fundamentalist Muslims are particularly good, though all are guilty: the Jews, the Christians, the Muslims, all the leaders of all the various sects and denominations, anyone on earth who thinks there is one G.o.d with the power to know and judge all. They're all wrong. And they are either slave masters, or they are slaves, wors.h.i.+pping things that don't exist. G.o.d is not a man. G.o.d is not a reflection of man. G.o.d is not a being or a spirit or a consciousness. G.o.d does not live in some place with a staff who does G.o.d's work. G.o.d is not a he or a she. G.o.d does not have an army of angels or a mortal enemy who was cast out of his kingdom. In terms that mean something to us, G.o.d is nothing. G.o.d plays no part in our lives. G.o.d doesn't care about earth or about humanity. G.o.d doesn't care about the petty dramas that mean so much to us. G.o.d doesn't care what we say or who we f.u.c.k or what we do with our bodies or who we love or who we marry. G.o.d doesn't care if we rest on Sundays or if we go to some building to sing songs and say prayers and chant and listen to sermons. G.o.d doesn't care if we kill in G.o.d's name. G.o.d doesn't give a f.u.c.k. G.o.d does not give a f.u.c.k. Look up. There are twenty-five hundred stars visible in the night sky. Twenty-five hundred. Not that big a number. In our galaxy, our little galaxy, there are three hundred billion more that we can't see. Three hundred billion. We don't know how many galaxies there are because we don't have the technology to know, if it is even possible to know. There are estimates, guesses, darts thrown at a board. Some say a hundred billion, some say five hundred billion, some a trillion. Some say the universe is infinite, which is a concept we pretend to understand, but is beyond our minds. Humans worry about eating, finding shelter, f.u.c.king. We worry about jobs and money. We worry about cla.s.s and status and what other people think of us. We worry about rules imposed on us by men who know nothing. We worry about death and when it is going to find us. We can't conceive of infinity. We can't grasp the idea of something that has no boundaries and no end. And that's where G.o.d is. That's what G.o.d is. Beyond our minds. Beyond our understanding. Beyond anything we can categorize or write about or preach about or place into one of our systems of rules. G.o.d is infinite. An infinite number of galaxies, an infinite number of stars, an infinite number of planets. Look up. Try to imagine infinity. Your mind shuts down and moves back to some number you can understand, some image you can grasp. Look up. Beyond what you see, beyond what lies behind what you see, beyond what lies behind what lies behind. What stretches out forever. That's G.o.d. All of it is G.o.d. An infinite G.o.d that we can't understand. That does not care about our little lives. That is beyond caring about anything, anywhere in this infinite universe. Look up and see G.o.d. Look up. Look up.

And we did. We looked up at all those pretty stars, and they were there s.h.i.+ning and blinking and maybe moving around a little, but that was probably my eyes playing tricks on me. I tried to imagine all those numbers of billions and trillions and think about things just going on forever and ever and I couldn't do it, just like he said. My brain would come back to stars I could see and to the little sliver of moon glowing and the gra.s.s I was lying down on that was tickling my arms and the sounds of crickets playing and bugs winging real fast and a sweet little breeze moving through the trees and the other people around me breathing, just looking up and breathing.

After that we started doing it every night. It wasn't like it was required or anything, not like school or church, n.o.body was going to get in trouble, but almost everybody did it. We'd have dinner and go outside and lie on the gra.s.s and Ben would talk. He'd talk about life, about what he thought of it, and how he lived it, and about our world, about how we had allowed it to be destroyed, and about how it was going to end soon. He said life was simple, we were born and we were going to die. There was nothing for us before we were born, and there would be nothing for us after we died. While we were here we had choices. While we were alive we had choices. We could choose to be and do whatever we wanted. We could choose to become part of society, and follow its rules, which were mostly designed to control us and keep us in whatever place we were born into, or we could make our own rules and live our own lives. For him, he'd say, life was about love and f.u.c.king and helping other people. Life was about feeling everything he could and experiencing everything he could. Life wasn't about the acc.u.mulation of money and possessions, but the acc.u.mulation of friends. He'd talk about living simply. That the more complicated our lives became the more miserable we were. The more we had the more we wanted. The harder we worked the less we lived. He'd talk about patience, and say that there was nothing in life that was made better by being anxious or nervous or aggressive. He'd talk about compa.s.sion, how we should have it for ourselves and for other people and for the earth, and that if he could stop people from inflicting pain on everything around them, that the world might have a chance to survive, and that we might have a chance to survive. He said we needed to let go of the idea of death. That death was the end, very simply, and nothing more. That when death came it was blackness and silence and peace, but nothing we could experience. That our obsession with death was killing us. That our obsession with life after death, which did not exist, was destroying what we did have, which was consciousness and all of its gifts, the greatest of which was love. He said life, not death, was the great mystery we all must confront. He said it over and over again. Life, not death, was the great mystery we must confront.