Please note that the characters and situations in this story are fictional
and are not intended to represent any real person, living or dead.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

by

Paul G. Bens, Jr.

Sebastian traded his love of God for the love of a Carpenter. He had no way of knowing he needn’t have, for the Father told him that Man could love Woman and God but Man could never love God and Man, and Sebastian believed what he was told.

The Carpenter was a lonely man, a wayfarer who did as wayfarers are wont: he stayed in towns only so long as his hands were needed and his mouth could be fed. He’d had no intention of falling for anyone, let alone a deeply religious youth whose age fell beneath his own by a good ten years.

Me? I loved Sebastian, too.  I was his best friend, his shoulder to cry on, and his first lover though we were never to be sexual. We prayed together, cried through our pains, reveled in each other’s stories, and held one another when days grew dark and dim. I loved him, and at times he seemed to love me with nearly the same intensity. Other times he would doubt my sincerity or his own, and we’d drift apart for a time only to return to each other.

We lived below the ground, Sebastian, the Carpenter and I. Being a vagabond, the Carpenter had no home; being in love with a vagabond, Sebastian had been thrown out of his. I had to go with them -- such was my love -- though I was never invited nor rebuked. I simply followed them one night as they scaled the iron impalements of Saint Mary’s Cemetery and broke into the crypt of Lila and Ignatz Biesack who had lived and died some two hundred years prior.

One of only four buried tombs within the sacred grounds, our home was a huge, cool room with stone walls quietly violated by rioting roots and crabgrasses and scented by Mother Earth’s delicious, musty bosom. It was dark, but not blindingly so as a lone clay pipe reached through the high ceiling, pierced the green earth, and brought down sunlight and fresh air and sometimes rain. Most beautifully, it brought to us the winking eyes of the night sky to act as our lullaby.

We got along as well as two lovers and a third-wheel could. I kept quiet, only wanting to be near Sebastian, and though they knew I was there, oft times they simply ignored me. It hurt. Not when the Carpenter treated me that way (for he hardly knew me), but the silences from Sebastian were heartbreaking. Only when the Carpenter left to earn his daily bread did Sebastian truly share with me. But that was enough, because I loved him.

I think the Carpenter truly loved Sebastian -- for a time anyway. At least he tried. That first night, I saw the signs of it. The Carpenter wanted to yank Lila and Ignatz from their rotting crates so that we might have a place to sleep away from the cold, hard floor. Sebastian would have none of it. As decrepit and decayed as they were, those caskets had been blessed by God and were the Biesacks’ holy resting places. Though he did not understand Sebastian’s respect for God, the Carpenter respected Sebastian, and instead we curled together -- Sebastian sandwiched between us -- on the dirty floor. We didn’t mind the coldness of seeping water. We had each other. The next day, the Carpenter brought home long planks of wood, dirty and full of rusted nails, and fashioned for us a sturdy bed. Though it had no mattress, nor pillows for the comfort of tired flesh, it was cozily fashioned by love; so it was enough.

On the third day, Sebastian cried softly when the Carpenter came home and carefully set about creating new coffins for Lila and Ignatz. The wood he had chosen was cheap and warped, but under his care those tossed-aside planks became beautiful, amber-hued tributes. He worked swiftly and confidently, and when he was done, together we placed the old caskets into the new and nailed the tops shut before settling in for the night, we in our new bed and they in theirs.

The fourth morning was heralded by a robin who stared down upon us from his chimney perch and seemed to sing just for us. The Carpenter no longer lay with us; rather he slumped against the far wall, a chisel in one hand and Sebastian’s tattered bible in the other. All about our heads was a strange snow which had fallen in the night, fine chips of wood, paper thin. As we rose, the shards of the Carpenter’s nighttime odyssey fell from Sebastian’s clothes and we beheld a most beautiful sight.

Not in shallow strokes, but in strong, deep, masculine carvings, the Carpenter had adorned the casket tops with loving commemorations of Sebastian’s faith. In amazing detail, Lila’s home depicted the beautiful Veronica wiping the brow of Christ as he carried humanity’s burden. Ignatz’ Christ was beautiful in his holy radiance as he freed the innocent lamb from a thorny snare.

Sebastian beamed when he saw them; knew them to be his favorite images, dog-eared in the Holy Word his lover clutched in exhausted sleep. Sebastian lay down beside the Carpenter, put his hand upon the shared bible, and slept. I let them, and they clung to each other for all that day and all the next.

It was on the sixth day -- the day of the Sabbath -- that Sebastian’s darkness took root and bloomed. The Carpenter knew not what to do as his lover cried in wrenching gasps and heaves. He could only be there, soothe a wounded heart, and listen to what words came out through the sobs.

“I don’t understand,” said Sebastian.

The Carpenter smoothed the wet and tangled hair of the man he held. “Understand what, baby?” He asked.

“Why I can’t have you and God.”

“Baby, you can.”

“No. The Father said it couldn’t be so. I’ve lost my God for loving you.”

The Carpenter did all he could to relieve Sebastian’s pain, though he was not its bearer. When Sebastian cried, he would steal the brightest blooms from nearby graves and paint the tomb's walls with their brilliance. But their colors never truly masked the cold stone beneath. When Sebastian stared autistically into the darkness, the Carpenter would wrap him in huge, warm arms, but their strength did not assuage Sebastian’s weakness.  And when Sebastian would scream and cry and pound upon his chest, the Carpenter let him do so and then sang him to sleep when the fury had faded away.

“You’re going to leave me, too,” said Sebastian one day as he watched the Carpenter load his tools into a bag.

“Never,” said the Carpenter. “I would never leave you. I’ll only be gone for a few days. I’ve a special job.”

Sebastian didn’t believe him. Even as the Carpenter caressed his face before turning into the sunlight of a new day, Sebastian was certain he would never return.

On that day Sebastian went to the House. I knew it was a mistake, but Sebastian needed comfort, and would not turn to me; so I did not stop him. I went with him, though he did not know it. I stayed my distance, just far enough away so as not to be noticed, but close enough to hear the words.

“There is no Christ to die for your sins,” the Father told him. “You must find salvation on your own, my son.”

“How?”

“You must renounce this Carpenter. You must atone for your sins to be welcomed back to God. You must prove your love for God is more important than your love of men.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Then you must ask yourself: ‘What would Jesus do?’”

Sebastian mumbled that phrase over and over again as he waited for the Carpenter’s return. He read his Bible for some clue. What would Jesus do?

On the third day, the Carpenter returned to us. Together, Sebastian and I watched as his form, crowned in light, came over the small hill of St. Mary’s. He carried on his back two great planks of wood that stooped him beneath their weight. His face was drenched in sweat, his hair was matted from the dirt of the road and hard work, but his face beamed when he saw Sebastian. And Sebastian seemed happy.

The cross was the most beautiful veneration I had ever seen. The timbers were rough-hewn, almost logs, but had been ordained with the most intricate of scroll work depicting God’s love of men. God’s name was inscribed in its Hebrew spelling at the greatest height and the names of each Apostle traveled down the center. On each outstretch of the arms were two additional names, Sebastian’s on the right; the Carpenters on the left.

We assembled it on the largest wall of our home, and when it was done, the Carpenter used rusted railroad spikes to attach it firmly to the battlement. As we stood back and looked at it we were amazed at the size, hardly smaller than what had been used on Golgotha. The Carpenter held Sebastian who cried.

“God is always here, now,” said the Carpenter as he dumped the contents of his satchel onto the floor. His tools clanked against more railroad spikes and a small wooden plank fell upon them all.

The same beautiful script adorned the simple piece of wood. Jesus died for our sins.  Sebastian read it aloud as the Carpenter climbed the crucifix and attached the placard high atop.

“Jesus died for our sins.” As the Carpenter and I slept that night, Sebastian kept repeating it over and over as the cruicifix loomed overhead. “Jesus died for our sins. Jesus died for our sins.”

The Carpenter meant well. He had brought God back to Sebastian and in doing so had lost the man he loved. Day after day they fought. Night after night, they chose to place me between them. Sebastian resorted to silence. The Carpenter depended on sighs.

One night, as Sebastian slept, the Carpenter spoke to me, though he seldom did so.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said, a tear streaming down his face.

I tried to hold him, but he wouldn’t let me; so whispers were my only tool. “Just understand him”

“I love him and he loves me, I know it,” said the Carpenter. “Why isn’t that enough?”

I had no answers that could console him.

When the Carpenter went away again, Sebastian knew he wouldn’t return, though he had promised an absence of only two days. On the first, all Sebastian could do is ask himself over and over “What would Jesus do?” When the second day came and went, and the Carpenter didn’t return, Sebastian did nothing but stare at the beautiful crucifix and read its message.

“Jesus died for our sin...Jesus died for our sin. Jesus died for our sin.”

On the fifth day, I tried to speak to Sebastian, but rage had taken hold. From their ornate coffins, he ripped the bodies of Ignatz and Lila and scattered their bones across the floor. He shattered his lover’s handiwork with his bare fists, splintering the caring face of Veronica and dissecting the lamb freed by Christ.

I tried to calm him, hold him, love him, but he would have none of it. He had given up God for the love of a Carpenter, and the Carpenter had left him. All he had left and all that was important was his fury.

“What would Jesus do?!”  He screamed over and over as he ripped pages from his beloved bible. “What would Jesus do?” And when there were no more pages to be destroyed, he turned to the cross, climbed upon the foothold, and ripped the plaque from it.

“What did Jesus do?” He cried.

And the words were before him.

Jesus died for our sins.

Sebastian knew what he thought he had to do.

He dug into the wall with his bare hands, pulling mud and rotting mortar from around a loosened stone. It fell to the floor with a thud. It was just large enough.

“Don’t do this,” I screamed at him, but he wouldn’t hear me.

He stripped off his clothes and stood naked before the crucifix.

“I love you,” I told him, but he didn’t believe me.

From the floor, Sebastian picked up his stone and then the few spikes the Carpenter had left behind.

The foothold gave his bare feet splinters, but Sebastian didn’t care. He placed his left foot gently over his right and placed the tip of a spike against his flesh. When the rock came down upon the stake, he didn’t scream in pain, though he nearly fell from his perch. He was surprised how easily the metal slid through his flesh, seemingly dodging every bone. He watched for a moment in fascination as his life’s blood poured from his feet, seeped into the wood, making it dark and glorious.

And then he took another spike and drove it into his side. He screamed as he pulled it out, and blood sprayed across the room.

All I could do was love him.

The hands were difficult. Sebastian could only use the bony fingers of his left hand to steady the spike as his right brought the stone against it. It took several attempts, but soon it was done, and the spike split flesh and wood and the Carpenter’s name.

I watched his life slip away. His body wilted from the lopsided crucifixion, hung down like a rag doll. I couldn’t free him. All I could do was love him, and show him the way to my Father.

On the seventh day, the Carpenter came over the hill. He carried with him a wooden icon that made him stumble. I recognized the face. It was my own. It was meant for the cross. It was God being given back to Sebastian.

The Carpenter cried as he entered our home. He lovingly took Sebastian from the cross, wiped him clean, and laid him upon the floor.  From the wood of his handiwork, he fashioned a simple casket and carved Sebastian’s name upon it. Carefully he placed Sebastian in the box, sealed the cover and placed my image atop. He gathered the bones of the Biesacks, placed them in their resting places, and repaired their homes as best he could.  And then he left us to our sleep -- the Biesacks in their bed and Sebastian and I in ours.
___________________

© Copyright 2000, Paul G. Bens, Jr.  All rights reserved.