Heretics book 3 - The Apocryphile Press

282 :: JOHN R. MABRY
She wrote. “Good, good. This is all good. Anything else?”
“What—?” In what way was this good? he wondered. He
teetered on the brink of exasperation with her. But he gave
in and continued to play it her way. “Yes. I drink too much.
I worry about myself. About being an addict.”
She looked up from her clipboard and Richard could see
the emotion in the corners of her eyes.
“Let’s pray!” she announced, grabbing his hand.
Richard resisted inside, hating at that moment the rollercoaster
ride that every session with Mother Maggie turned
out to be. Yet for being such a workout, they were almost
always transformative, and it was with great effort that he
tried to get his ego, fears, and resistances out of the way. Not
that there was any way to stop her. She had already turned
her face to heaven and parted her hands, her misshapen
palms held upwards in entreaty to God.
“Lord of Heaven, we give thee joyful thanks for the gifts
thou hast given Father Richard, thy servant, in the form of
these icky feelings. We thank thee for his feelings of damnation,
for because of them he will never presume himself to be
superior to anyone. He will not think he is special, or elect,
or somehow favored by thee over another. We thank thee
that he feels like a fake, for then he will never assume that he
knows what he is doing, and will never make bullshit pronouncements
about what you allegedly want. For these gifts
of humility we give thee hearty thanks—”
Ouch, Richard thought.
“We thank thee for his bisexuality, for his confusion and
struggle, for thou hast given him the special gift of being able
to love all peoples, regardless of their genitalia—”
Richard winced painfully but restrained himself from
interrupting.
“And finally we thank thee for his troubled relationship
with alcohol, for the longing for transcendence it represents.