The words forced an image to flash across Bill’s mind; demons feasting on the flesh of the damned, a long table made of stone, blood trickling down the sides like rain out of a swollen gutter. The face was a long, drawn-out scream that seemed to burst from the frozen mouth. The words had power, as if saying them was enough to conjure up those disciples of hell and call them to the table for supper.
“It’s a position of honor. Of great respect. You should feel special that you were chosen,” Pastor Wilson said, and the images were torn from Bill’s mind.
They sat in the first row of chairs. Pastor Wilson’s voice was soft now, almost a whisper. He was smiling.
The Hall was narrow like a galley kitchen, and the dark paneled walls reminded Bill of a weekend hunter’s trophy room. The carpet was soft and frayed in places near the wall. There was lighting by way of sconces with red matte glass coverings, and two ceiling fans. A single naked bulb dangled below the fan perched above the stage where Pastor Wilson stood during his sermons.
“It’s an obligation that is reserved for the strong of spirit. That is why I have chosen you,” the pastor continued.
Bill studied the floor. The whimsical patterns in the rug reminded him of something out of a Dr. Seuss book. The golden shapes swirled and twirled on a deep blue background, like a ship lost at sea. Bill often stared at these shapes during mass. They were hypnotic, melding with the pastor’s often exuberant sermons like a fine red wine paired with seared duck breast. Bill could get lost in those shapes. He shifted uncomfortably and kept his eyes trained on the floor.
“It’s just that—well, it creeps me out,” Bill finally managed.
Pastor Wilson stood, slapped his hands on his thighs and laughed. The crisp whap reverberated off the paneled walls of the narrow room and Bill looked up.
“Where is my head? How can I expect you to say yes to a thing when you probably don’t fully understand its meaning?”
“Well, I admit I never heard of it before,” Bill said. Crudely drawn tattoos stained his skin and he pursed his mouth tight.
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of, son. Most people aren’t familiar. I myself was ignorant to sin eating most of my life, but let me tell you what…” Pastor Wilson sat back down next to Bill and sidled in close. “When I learned about it, I was overtaken with the Lord’s passion. I thought; What an idea! What a concept! I knew then and there we had to incorporate sin eating into our congregation.”
His grip tightened around Bill’s shoulder, and he spoke with spirited enunciations, raising a hand up to the heavens and exemplifying his words by shaking his fist. He let go of Bill and hopped onto the stage with the agility of a man pushing forty rather than sixty. He went to the podium and stood behind it. The only light which shone in the Hall was the one above the stage. It seemed to create more shadow than illumination.
“Do you remember our mission statement, Brother Bill?”
A flood of adrenaline rushed through Bill’s veins.
“Serenity through passion, passion through forgiveness, forgiveness through strength,” he recited.
“And what do those words mean to you?”
Bill dropped his head slightly and furrowed his brow. What do those words mean? He had them memorized the first week after Pastor Wilson brought him here, but he had never been quizzed on their meaning. He doubted if anybody in the congregation had. They just were, like saying “good morning” or “hello.” What do those words mean? A touch of panic.
He had repeated the mantra so many times that the words apparently lost all meaning to him. Had he ever truly understood them? He repeated them to himself now as Pastor Wilson awaited his response, and he found that there was still comfort in them, like a child’s well-worn blanket.
“Son?”
Pastor Wilson expected an answer. Bill thought one up and tripped through it like a toddler walking through a bramble of low growth vines, clinging to that worn out blanket like Bill clung to these words.
“In order to find peace in our lives, in order to find happiness, we must—we must love those around us,”
“Very good,” Pastor Wilson paced the stage with his hands buried in his pockets.
“And in order to love those around us, we must look past their faults,”
“Excellent!”
“And in order to look past their faults–in order to forgive—we must—we must—be strong?”
Pastor Wilson threw his hands in the air and turned his back to Bill. “Oh! You were so close! So close, Bill. No, no, you had the first part of it dead on, but you fell off just there at the end,”
Bill thought that the dim light shining above Pastor Wilson suddenly grew brighter, as if God wanted the man on the stage to be seen more clearly.
“You are partially correct. In order to find happiness, we must love everyone around us, and in order to do that, we must forgive their sins. Where you fell off is thinking that the strength must come from us, rather than from the Lord. It comes from Him because He is the only being that possesses the strength of mind, the strength of will, the strength of love needed to forgive the sins of man.”
The fans were droning on, and a steady breeze filled the room, but Pastor Wilson was sweating, nonetheless. Mesmerized, Bill felt swaddled in the warm, passionate voice bellowing from the pulpit.
“But God is good, and God knows that in order for his servants to be happy, we too must be able to forgive. But how? If only He can truly forgive a person of their sins, how in the world could we ever find happiness through forgiveness? Well, God thought of a way,”
Bill sat, silent and still. Pastor Wilson had done it again, like he did every week, like he did every day when Bill repeated the words to himself.
When he lay in bed, tormented by his past, Pastor Wilson’s voice called out in the darkness. Serenity through passion, passion through forgiveness, forgiveness through strength.
When he woke in the morning and his first instinct was to cry, to give up, the words were what motivated him to plant his feet on the floor. Serenity through passion, passion through forgiveness, forgiveness through strength.
When anger overtook him and hate swallowed his heart, when death seemed the only release, the words always came. Serenity through passion, passion through forgiveness, forgiveness through strength.
They came like a dove in the storm, braving the treacherous winds to land on his shoulder and offer him peace.
Serenity through passion, passion through forgiveness, forgiveness through strength.
And when he couldn’t live up to those words, he offered himself up to Pastor Wilson. He begged for forgiveness because, to Bill, being forgiven by Pastor Wilson was as good as being forgiven by the Lord Himself. It was Pastor Wilson who’d taken him in, Pastor Wilson who’d fed him and clothed him and told him everything would be all right.
“I said, God thought of a way!”
The pastor’s voice boomed in the small room and Bill was once again ripped away from his thoughts. There was a long silence while Pastor Wilson stood there, looking down at Bill from his pulpit with a blank expression on his face. After a moment, he cocked an eyebrow and smiled.
“You have a troubled past, Bill. We never talked about the night I found you. I never asked you about the blood.”
Bill hung his head, closed his eyes, and tangled his hands together as he muttered the pastor’s words underneath his breath.
“Serenity through passion, passion through forgiveness, forgiveness through strength, serenity through passion, passion through forgiveness, forgiveness through strength serenitythroughpassionpassionthroughforgivenessforgivenessthroughstrength…”
“I never asked you because it didn’t matter to me. I don’t require explanations in order to forgive, but we must answer to the Lord because only He can save our souls.”
“Serenitythroughpassionpassionthroughforgivenessforgivenessthroughstrength…”
The pastor leaped off the stage like a lion chasing after a gazelle. He landed at Bill’s feet, lifted him up by the collar of the shirt, and slapped him across the face. The sound bounced off the walls and struck Bill’s ears almost as painfully as the slap itself. He stopped muttering at once and his eyes widened, his gaze drawn to the pastor’s own like a magnet.
“I offer you true salvation, and all you can do is babble.” He slapped Bill again.
“Rise up and earn forgiveness from the only being whose forgiveness matters. Take a stand, take my offer!”
He hugged Bill tight and whispered in his ear.
“Become my sin eater.”
