York Minster. Lucy’d tried to cry off, but Tim hadn’t let her, so here she was – white stole priestwise about her neck, close at her training incumbent’s side, head down so as not to meet the eyes of anyone she knew. The clergy of the diocese had been summoned to the Minster, and there was one she knew would not be here.
She renewed her ordination vows in a whisper, almost lost between the confident voices on either side. Made the mistake of glancing up towards the altar, seeing the archbishop’s eyes looking towards her. Meeting her gaze? Bad enough to hear the voice, reminding them all of their duty… the urge rising in Lucy’s chest to scream out the accusation within. She’d sworn obedience, Ruth had offered nothing.
Well, she’d offered a meeting, which Lucy had turned down. There were a lot of things Lucy would like to say, none of which she should… better to keep them to herself. As for guidance, or care, she didn’t want it. Not anything Ruth had to offer. She’d knelt before her, twice, felt the weight of her hands on her head. Send down thy Holy Spirit on thy servant Lucy…
Forgive. Seven times seventy. Lucy wasn’t ready for that, wouldn’t be for a while yet.
Oh bitter irony, that she should come before Ruth again at communion. So many stations, so many others she might have received from… the urge to cross her hands over her chest, to bow her head and refuse the ministry… she held out her hands, cupped, eyes set on the ciborium, on the wafer in Ruth’s hand. Not at her face, not at the person. She was receiving Jesus, Ruth was just… inconveniently there.
She returned to her seat and knelt in a posture of prayer which conveniently hid her tears. The taste, the crumbs still caught on her tongue, the reproach. Give and you shall receive.
I want to forgive you, Ruth. God give me grace, I want to, I just don’t know how, when it’s not even me you’ve hurt. Why am I so angry, when it’s not even me you’ve hurt? When it’s not even your fault, really, when I know you did your best. Why am I so angry?
She wanted to escape, as soon as the service was done, but no, Tim dragged her across to the tables in the side aisle, where blessed oils were being decanted into labelled vials. A giant social meet-up, basically, in which you remembered once again that every member of clergy in the diocese knew every other, and Tim paraded her again around all of the priests she’d first met the previous year. Look how far my curate’s come! And the archbishop over there, instantly swarmed by acquaintances, scanning the crowd distractedly, eyes resting on Lucy. She should go, just a greeting. Just a smile, even. She shouldn't have turned down that meeting, really, but she really hadn't wanted to go. Just like she hadn't wanted to come today.
She looked away, looked for Tim, saw him beckoning her over to the table to claim their little jars. A decision made for her... though she could go afterwards, even just for a moment. But how could she keep calm? Chances were she’d say something she’d regret, in front of all these people, and embarrass herself.
“Ready to go?”
The barely veiled disappointment in Tim’s tone. She nodded without meeting his eye. “Yeah.”
She led the way to the door, glanced back one last time. Ruth was watching her again, her hands fidgeting together. Come on, you come to me. Save me the decision. But of course Ruth wouldn’t come, wouldn’t force herself on Lucy like that, not when Lucy didn’t want to talk to her. What was she thinking now, what could she possibly be thinking? After all she’d tried, after everything…
Lucy stopped. Looked at Tim.
“Changed your mind?” Like it was the most normal thing in the world.
“Do you think..?”
“You can't put it off forever.”
She sighed. “What should I say?”
“Now, you know I’m not going to tell you that.”
“What if she has to talk to other people?”
“I think you can trust her to handle that, can’t you?”
“I guess.” Lucy dithered again. “I can email later. More convenient.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“You don’t mind?”
“An extra ten minutes hanging out with my friends? What do you take me for?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “You’ll rescue me if necessary?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“It’s good to have such a supportive training incumbent.”
“I do my best.”
She glared and turned back before she lost her nerve. Why did there have to be so many people here, especially around the archbishop? But Ruth had seen her coming, and steered the crowd around her to let Lucy in. What should Lucy say? She should just have left, sent an email later. Should have taken that meeting when it was offered.
“Good afternoon, Lucy. I was hoping for a word. Excuse me…” Ruth extracted herself from her conversation and steered Lucy a few steps away. “Do you want to talk?”
“Not really, do you?” She heard the words coming out of her mouth, was shocked at herself. Ruth just raised her eyebrows.
“I was rather hoping to.” Ruth was twisting the ring on her finger, eyes fixed just behind Lucy’s head.
“Okay.” Why couldn’t she just be polite? This was unnecessary, would be even if Ruth were not her bishop.
“I’m sorry this has happened, it’s a great shock for all of us and no doubt especially so for you.”
“Must be worse for you.” The words fell out of her mouth before she could stop them, and she cringed inside.
“I’m not going to try to compare experiences. All that matters is that we have experienced a terrible, unexpected tragedy, and we both need to work out how to process it. This is why I wanted to meet you, because I'm worried about you. Let's go somewhere more private so we can talk.”
Lucy followed Ruth into the quire, head down. “I thought you’d sorted it, when you organised for her to go off. She seemed happier, like… and then…”
“I talked to her that morning. She was… not happy, but happier. And then the following morning, I assumed that she was in bed, perhaps after a night disturbed by the storm. It was a shock for all of us when we realised.”
“You didn’t check? When she wasn’t there in the morning?”
“I assumed she was having a lie in, as I said. The Sisters investigated, but they kept it from me until she was found. I’m afraid I was distracted by the aftermath of the storm, and my own exhaustion after a disturbed night. Even if I had noticed then, of course, it would have been too late, and there would have been nothing more I could have added. It’s easy to look back and think of all the ways…”
Every single morning. Good morning Sam, called up the stairs, the desperate wait by the door for a reply. “But you knew she’d tried before. You saw her the previous day, you didn’t suspect?”
“No, I didn’t. It’s easy to see looking back, harder to notice at the time when there are a great many other things vying for one’s attention. This time, she didn’t come to anyone.”
Lucy scuffed at the ground with her shoe. She’d polished them yesterday evening, but they were already looking rough. “You saw her the day she did it.”
“I did. I asked how she was doing, she didn’t really answer but she did say she was applying for jobs. Struggling with rejections, but trying. I asked if she wanted to talk, she told me she didn’t.”
“But you didn’t push her.”
“Of course not.”
“If you had she might... you might have... you might...”
"Might what?" Ruth's tone had hardened.
Lucy kept her mouth shut. Should have done that before.
Ruth gave her a minute to reply, before continuing. “You think I was too harsh? You think if I’d handled this differently none of this would have happened? You think I see my duty as more important than her life?”
“Of course… of course not.”
“You think your grief gives you permission to accuse me?”
“No…”
Ruth stood up abruptly, opened the hidden door to the cathedra and gestured to it. “Go on, take a seat.”
Lucy took half a step back, shook her head.
“Go on, be my guest.”
She shook her head more frantically. “I’d rather not.”
“Go on.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean…” She took another step back and looked at the ground, wished she could turn around and run back out to Tim. Then she heard Ruth sigh, glanced up to see her climbing the steps, taking the seat herself, leaning on the desk to look down with glittering eyes.
“I’m sorry, Lucy. I'm sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
“I…”
“You know I’ve asked myself every one of those questions?” Ruth held out a hand. “Come here – I’m not going to make you sit here, just stand by me.”
Lucy climbed the steps slowly. She’d overstepped all of the boundaries, Ruth had made that clear.
“Look up,” Ruth pointed at the canopy, “and imagine sitting in this seat. The weight of all that above you, ready to come crashing down in a moment. A spire, reaching to heaven, too high for me to touch even the base. Enthronement isn’t the exaltation of the individual, but the diminishing, into a tiny part of something bigger. Something so much bigger, ready to crush you at a moment’s notice. You think I’m superhuman because of my role? My calling doesn’t make things easier for me, just like yours doesn’t make things easier for you. It just gives me higher standards, to fail to live up to.”
Lucy looked down at her, while she gazed into space, one eye bruised and the other with a kind of fog. Under the desk in front of her, a pile of books and service sheets, three pencils, an empty glass, and a magnifying glass.
“You think I treated Samantha harshly. I feel the same, but I’m going to try to explain why, so that you understand why I did what I did. You know that the souls of all those within Foxley are entrusted to Tim?”
Lucy nodded, seeing where she was going. “And all those in the diocese is ultimately yours.”
“That’s right – the cure of souls for thousands, hundreds of thousands. So when Samantha behaved as she did, she was representing me, in a post in which I had set her. She betrayed my trust – and yes, I know it feels like an overreaction for one offence, but not only that but she was rude to Janice, my representative, and she took pride in her actions in talking to the press. And so I could not trust her to continue to represent me. Had it been less public, might I have given her a second chance? Perhaps. But I was given advice, and this was to offer her the choice I did - resignation, or a long and painful legal process which would likely have resulted in suspension, if not dismissal. It’s a great responsibility that we have, as priests, as representatives of Christ, that’s why I demand high standards. You are given a key. If you abuse your position, the key will be taken away.”
Ruth sighed. “But who do I answer to? Mostly, I police myself, and one day I will have to give account to Christ, for all of this. You think that doesn’t terrify me, sometimes? When I have to make decisions which can’t simply be resolved into love and welcome, where I have to judge between one person and another, and call someone to repentance. Did I mess this one up, could I have handled it better and prevented Samantha’s death? You don’t need to ask me that, I’m asking it of myself. I’m justifying myself to you as I try to justify to myself, to God. I want you, perhaps not to excuse, but to understand.”
Lucy studied her shoes. “I’m sorry.” She was silent for a minute. “I just… it’s so unexpected. We talked on the phone, she seemed to be doing better, you did so well with her in that meeting…”
“You know she left a note?”
Lucy looked up sharply. “No.”
“She was in a good place, with God, I think the Sisters had done some good there too. She did it because she couldn’t see any way to live – practically. She’d been rejected from a lot of jobs, was afraid to apply to anything requiring references. And then she got the medical bill, from her first suicide attempt. Her resignation meant the termination of her occupational health insurance, and despite receiving a prompt to do so she never replaced it, so her claim was rejected. She left the bill with her note, in which she apologised for the upset it would cause and hoped that everyone would be able to move on now she was gone, and how she was desperate to be with Christ and hoped she would find mercy there since the world had none for her. I wish I could show it to you, but it was sent to her parents.”
Lucy blinked. “I wish she’d told me.”
“As do I.” Ruth sighed. “We’re left to pray for her and her family, and for all who mourn her.”
“And her funeral?”
“In the hands of her parents. They want minimum fuss, non-religious.”
“She was a priest!”
“They blame the Church. Not without cause. I’m sad, of course, but it’s a matter for them to decide.”
“She’d want a service.”
“She’s not here to see it. And I have remembered her at Mass, you might do the same. Discuss it with Tim.” Ruth arranged the pile of books, centring each perfectly above the one below, lined the pencils up next to them at inch spacing, minute adjustments until they were parallel. “How are you coping? It’s hard, but especially to face it during Passiontide…”
Lucy thought for a minute, deciding how honest to be. “I dunno. I’m just… empty? Angry? I almost left without coming to speak to you.”
“I was almost resigned that you’d already left. I know you quite well but… clericals all look the same - I'm having cataracts done, by the way. Thank you for coming back.”
“I was going to email, otherwise. Would probably have been more rational, and a lot more polite.”
“Sometimes, emotions need to come out. I’m sorry for pulling rank, there’s no excuse for that and I can only ask your forgiveness.” She fingered the wooden carvings on the arms of the seat. “You know, in Norwich, there’s a flue under the cathedra, at the bottom of which used to be kept the cathedral’s relics? The flue was there so that the holy aura of the relics could be carried up and offer divine inspiration to the bishop when he sat there to make his decisions. It’s a highly impractical seat – up an entire flight of stairs, which must be lethal to descend in a cassock – but the idea of the bishop sitting down for a bit to recharge on holiness, that amuses me. Besides the fact that a convenient source of divine inspiration would be most welcome.”
“Mmm.” Lucy looked down at the archbishop. “How are you?”
She sighed. “It’s difficult, I will get through. I have people who support me. You’re preaching this weekend?”
“Main one at St James tonight, a short one tomorrow, and an all-age Easter talk at St Luke’s on Sunday.”
“Tim’s keeping you busy, then.”
“He’s threatening to make me do the lot next year.”
“You’ve written them?”
“Yep, just need to tidy up the all-age one.”
“Good. Good Friday is always difficult, looking straight into mortality, but Easter can be harder in times like this. The advice I’ve been given a few times is to preach the sermon you need to hear, It doesn’t have to be happy all the way, there’s no resurrection without death and jumping straight from crucifixion to celebration can rather miss the point. And that doesn’t apply only to preaching, of course – Easter will be hard, for all of us who are mourning Samantha. Give yourself space. After all, the disciples continued mourning after the women told them that Jesus was alive.”
Lucy nodded. “It feels so… final. We’re talking about her in past tense. Though at the same time, I keep expecting to come home and see her on the doorstep, or thinking she’s sitting on the sofa in the living room, or thinking of the spare room as ‘Sam’s room’, or… it’s kind of like having a ghost. We trained together, we were in the same tutor group, we were deaconed together, we should have been priested together. As priests, we might get used to death, but it’s… different.”
“it’s always different. The death of a family member, the death of a child, death by accident or suicide, murder… even just the death of someone you knew well in the parish, or someone with no friends or relatives to attend the funeral. Or just the death of another person, someone else’s mum or brother or grandparent, some other individual. Don’t expect to get used to it, every single one will take a little piece of you. Ones like this, a big piece. Cry. Talk about it with Tim, as many times as necessary, and with your spiritual director. Pray, if you can bear to, otherwise talk to other people until you can.”
Lucy looked at the ground, and Ruth touched her hand. “Talk to me?”
Lucy hesitated. “It’s like… talking to nothing. Didn't do Sam any good.”
“It did Sam a lot of good. It kept her going, even made her happy, it let her fight off despair for as long as she did.”
“But in the end…”
“She died with hope. It’s not much, it doesn’t really change anything, but I’m sure it was a great comfort to her.”
“She might not have done it, if she hadn’t believed.”
Ruth shook her head. The first time she tried, she firmly believed she was damned, and yet she still did it.”
“You've thought about all this.”
Ruth just squeezed her hand. “Do you want to sit down? Not here, I mean… I’m happy to move...”
Lucy shrugged, and then sat down on the top step by Ruth’s feet. “It’s fine.”
“Sure? I’ll put off climbing down, then. Where were we? You’re still trying to pray?”
“Well, daily office.”
“I’m with you there. It’s hard work. Vital, but impossible at the times when we need it most.”
A strange confession to hear from Ruth’s lips. But she was human, as Lucy needed to remember. “What do you do?”
“Go through the motions until I find it again? Jesus went off up the mountain by himself at intervals, and took his disciples with him when they’d been through a period of trial. When it’s most frustrating and feels most pointless, that’s when we have to stop and take the time to rest and listen. In a way, I suppose this is a good time, because we’ve got it built in – as we keep vigil tonight, staying awake through sorrow and exhaustion, as we feel Jesus’ pain and fear. Remember, we pray with Jesus, as he pleads to escape the trials ahead – a prayer which will not be granted. Somehow, we have to repeat his promise – “not my will, but yours”. The hardest promise to make. We made it when we chose to seek ordination, of course, but it’s one of those offerings that must be renewed again and again. We will have to sit, tonight, and wrestle with ourselves to try to make it again.”
Lucy hunched her shoulders. “I’d just like a break, y’know? For it to be easy, just for once.”
“For God to give something back?”
She hadn’t quite dared say it herself. “Yeah.”
“You’ve had moments, haven’t you? Moments of joy, of knowing God’s presence, moments when everything’s felt worthwhile, haven’t you? That’s why you’re here.”
“Maybe, I guess? Far more when it’s all felt impossible.”
“And yet you’re here.”
“It’s hard to say no to an omnipotent being who created you.”
“And yet…”
“It’s a choice I have. Is it, though?”
Ruth placed a tentative hand on her shoulder, and Lucy leant into it, so tired of facing everything on her own.
“You always have a choice. Even now. If you want to walk away… you can walk away.”
“Can I, though?”
“You can. You don’t want to, really, though.”
“Maybe I do.”
“Do you?”
She struggled. “I… don’t know. I don’t know. I just want… for it to stop hurting.”
“Oh, Lucy.” Ruth squeezed her shoulder comfortingly. “Everything has a price, you know. When we’re told at ordination, to pray that our hearts may daily be enlarged, we don’t get a warning. The bigger your heart is, the more you love, the more it hurts when it’s broken. The more often it’s broken.”
“I didn’t even like her that much. We were just… in a tutor group together, at college. Plenty of others I got on better with. And then she came and… made her home in my house, kept me busy for weeks, put me through as much stress as everything in curacy put together, because I’m incapable of saying no. And now… I feel like this. I’m questioning everything. She was barely even a friend.”
“You’ve got a big, open heart, it’s a blessing and a curse.”
“I don’t want it.”
“You don’t get a choice.”
“You said I always had a choice.”
Ruth didn’t answer.
“I just want a break.”
“And I wish I could give you one, but you’re going to have to go and wash feet and share the Eucharist and keep vigil in the garden, and then tomorrow you’re going to have to listen to the Passion and watch the one you love die – because you do love him, despite your anger. And all that on top of your own heartache. And it’s going to hurt, more than you think you can bear, but you’re going to get through. And God’s with you, even when he feels far away, even when you feel as alone as Jesus on the cross. His heart is aching just like yours, at Sam’s death, at your pain. And it’s no use asking why it was allowed to happen, you’ve just got to get on and deal with the fact that it did, and wait for it to get better, and not let it destroy your faith. Will you let me pray for you?”
Lucy nodded, felt Ruth’s hand still on her shoulder. Looked down, at the Archbishop’s shoe, and listened to the words.
“Pray for me too, Lucy, please.” Ruth gave her shoulder a final squeeze and then offered her a hand up. “You are in my prayers. Thank you for coming to talk to me, you know where I am if you want to meet again.”
“Thank you.”
“And don’t give up. God is with you.”