The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Split Daughter of Eve by Catherine Gonick

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Deus Absconditus

Jesus looks at me from his cross and I suddenly know: He’s only
human. He says my name. Heaven has changed, but our
second-grade nun didn’t hear. She keeps reading aloud,
preparing the class for First Holy Communion.

My mother throws a coat over her nightgown to drive me
to mass, then waits in the car with a book. My father’s Jewish.
They’re both atheists.

If I could go outside, I might see God as an almost-face
in a cloud. And feel the warm breath of the Holy Ghost.
Those two like being invisible. When I asked why, Sister said,
It’s a mystery.

I stare at Jesus. He stays silent. What if he came down?
I could wipe the blood from his hands, comb his matted hair.
We could go for a walk. I would share my sandwich.

Jesus looks like he’s thinking it over. But he doesn’t move.
How am I supposed to live the rest of my life?

A priest comes in, points to a water stain under the crucifix
tells us it looks like Golgotha. I see a dingy wall and feel
embarrassed by the show. God deserves more.
Yet I need to be kind.

Certainty ends, longing begins. Many years later I learn
that when Pompey conquered Jerusalem, drove his chariot
through streets of golden stone, he entered the Holy of Holies,
the Temple’s most sacred space, and was amazed
to find it was an empty room.

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