Unjust Doubt

My little one said to me — his sharp eyes playing havoc with my reverie, his dark features tinging his gaze with a duskiness and a hardness I had never known in him before, as he shook me violently by the shoulder, after staring in wonder at the fourth funeral to pass before the balcony without asking leave within the space of two days — days which, in the world of childhood, are years — on its way to the eternal resting place:

"Mama! Mama! I don't love God, and I won't pray to Him before I sleep, or after I wake up..."

It was as though these two words were a charm against my stupor, for I came to, stunned all over again, and took refuge in God from what I was hearing... Then I sat my little one on my knee, stroked his head with my hand, soothed his revolt with a kiss on the eye and another on the cheek, and asked him, teasing and half-laughing:

"Tell me, who told you this muddle, Walid?"

He slipped suddenly from my hands to tell me with assurance, in his own particular language, having forgotten the answer to what I had asked:

"If God were loving and kind, the way you all say, He wouldn't make people die like this!!"

And he pointed with his small, tender hand at the coffin moving slowly along to strains of muted music; then he turned to assure me once more that he did not love this One who puts people to sleep.

I said — tongue-tied, and seeing no way out but to maneuver around him "philosophically," lest he come to think that with this nonsense he, a boy of four, had triumphed over his grown mother... the grown mother whose opinions he respected as a matter of course, or so I had imagined until that very hour:

"But death is beautiful, Walid; it takes a person to paradise, to live there a better life than the one he lives here..."

But he cut me off, the words now pouring from his mouth in a headlong rush, as though they all wanted to merge into a single utterance:

"But couldn't God carry a person from here to paradise without making him die, and without putting him in the dirt to choke and suffer, and be afraid, and get cold and hungry..."

And what he meant showed in his dark eyes — indeed in every line of his face: he was revolted by this treatment, he was indignant at it; on this point there was, for him, no amending, no excuse, no softening...

I said — quite at a loss, and careful not to enlarge upon the explanation after his fashion, lest he enlarge upon the indictment however it suited him:

"Listen, Walid. God carries a person from here to heaven without hurting him, because in that state he is like someone asleep: he feels no choking and no fear, and he is neither cold nor hungry."

At this his face brightened, and he asked me:

"But why do people put the dead person in the dirt, if God can carry him from here to paradise without their help?"

I said: "That is because people are meddlesome; they want to interfere in everything — like meddlesome little boys, for instance, who fluster their parents with all their questions..."

He said, without remarking at all on my point, which he had understood:

"Then when I grow up, I will make people leave their dead to this 'God,' who is more merciful than they are, it seems to me..."

I said: "Do then what you mean to do; and come now, take this ball and play with it with your older brother — perhaps you will beat him."

He believes in God with the utmost faith; and yet he has a mad need for total reassurance, without any restriction of philosophizing, without any condition of philosophy...

And I was somewhat relieved, for I had turned his indignation from death onto people; and I watched him run off with his ball, calling to his brother and challenging him... And I felt my tired thoughts running likewise, leaping across tens of years into the future... and there was the meddlesome little one, a young man of strong mettle, his garments brimming with hopes, the world walking in his train with all it holds — and more than it holds; and yet there, in the depths of his human soul, an insistent question which he strikes off his account hundreds of times a day, and barely succeeds in hiding from his own soul's eye.

He believes in God with the utmost faith; and yet he has a mad need for reassurance — total reassurance, without any restriction of philosophizing, without any condition of philosophy...

Wilt Thou not spare him, O Lord, this rugged darkness in which I am sunk, this engulfing confusion?!
Wilt Thou not grant him the grace of a settled mind, that he may bestir himself to the service of humanity, on a foot that no weakness shakes and no unjust doubt sets trembling?!