Yesterday I went to church. I haven't been to any churches since I left home, as you might have guessed from their absence in my letters. I knew that some churches are full of heretical sinners and that you'd rather I not set foot in them, so I chose to be on the safe side. But this time I was desperate and hoped that at least they could help me with a little, impartial thing. I slipped in behind the pews unnoticed and listened to the sermon with only a little bit of trust, knowing that it could very well have been incorrect as you have said of many sermons in the past. But afterward I stood near a group of nuns until one asked if she could help me. Now, I might have made things easy for myself and gone into excruciating detail about all my insane little dilemmas, but I never have the clarity of thought for that sort of thing, so I merely asked if I could borrow a Bible. They gave me one to keep. I named it Mr. Leather.
As soon as I found a warmish spot (near
What I did eventually find was that this was not a Christian Bible after all. You raised me to be a Christian and to know about God, whereas this book, although "Holy Bible" was printed on the cover in big golden letters, was full of crazy, incompatible, incomprehensible Roman mythology such as, "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." In other places it said, "As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him" and "But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy." Who writes this stuff?
The nuns gave me a very peculiar look when I returned Mr. Leather to them and said it wasn't the book I had been looking for. I felt bad.
My quest has not ended. I will find out what to do with my confusing life and my tarnished soul, and I will find how to make the personal acquaintance of your God.
Sincerely yours,
Shaqad
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