The snake and the silence

Well, now that I'm properly settled, maybe I can finally tell a bit of this.

Not long ago, I believed God hated me. Maybe I was everything people said I was. As the saying goes, a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth.

They said I served the evil one, that I was far from God. And why? Because I was different? Since I was a kid, I liked things that weren't common. Fairy tales? Never. I liked ghost stories, lost souls and demons. Superhero movies, epic adventures? No and no. Put on The Exorcist, please. Horror made me calm, but that didn't mean my master was the devil.

And in the middle of all that, I was always the friend who listened. In the dark moments, I was the one who showed up. So when the sky closed in, when the pain came, when things fell apart, the same people who called me bad were the ones knocking on my door.

I talked to God a lot. And yes, I was just different. God always stayed silent. He never answered me, and in a way that made me feel rejected, unwanted, a persona non grata to the Almighty. Maybe he was my listener while I was busy listening to everyone else's prayers.

But he stayed quiet the whole time. Sometimes his silence made me really pissed off, and I even blasphemed. Everyone said I was going to hell anyway, so what difference did it make? They called me evil, bad, and worse. But when I look at my own life honestly, I never harmed anyone.

Then that rainy morning came.

I have a strange habit, like everything else in my life: I walk in the middle of the night. I go to bed early and take long walks before dawn. The walks help my brain chemistry settle. They bring a kind of pleasure, quiet my anxiety and let me see clearly the day that's about to be born.

It was a winter night. I put on warm clothes and got my dog ready, an Amstaff, to keep me company and keep unwanted night figures away, the drugged-up troublemakers that wander around at that hour. Then we left. I live at the top of a hill, and on my walks I usually cross the whole town to the airport, then come back.

As we passed through downtown, I saw homeless people lying on the sidewalks, covered with the few blankets and rags they had. An almost ethereal indignation ran through my body. It seemed God had ignored more people than just me.

What had these poor souls done that was so bad, to deserve that?

I demanded an answer from God, in a way I could understand.

Because here's the funny part. I, the bad one, the evil one, the devil's servant, have a contradictory habit of helping people. Years ago, I ran online support groups for people with mental illness. I spent whole nights awake trying to talk people out of suicide, explaining that everything passes, pain included, or at least giving a kind word to souls who just needed to let it out. Back then I didn't have much money. In 2012 I started helping in person, at a nursing home. In 2015 I went to work with people recovering from addiction.

Then I managed to build my company and start my little empire, and I ran out of time. When I couldn't go to those places anymore, I met the pastor of a church who had excellent ideas. He had a dream: to take in homeless people, addicts and everyone else society had thrown away. He didn't have the resources, and now I did, so I offered to pay for his dream. I became the project's sponsor.

But back to the walk with my dog.

We went all the way to the airport, and my indignation grew with every poor soul I saw out in the cold. And then I finally said it, out loud:

"God, if you exist, I need you to answer me."

We reached the airport and turned back.

I was about to turn onto my street when I saw a homeless man crying in despair. It was around 6:30 in the morning, and he was sobbing like a child.

My soft heart and I decided to stop.

"What happened to you? Drugs? Alcohol?"

He looked at me with something like happiness in his eyes and said:

"Can I pet your dog?"

Of course I let him, and I asked him to tell me his story. Just a poor devil. Everything he had tried in life had gone wrong, and his family had given up on him. My anger at the God who kept silent with me grew even more.

I went home, sat in my chair, lit a cigarette and, on an impulse, decided: I'm going to fix this man's life.

I went back and told him it was his lucky day. We found the cheapest little studio we could, so he could get off the street, and after a few calls I got him a job. I helped him for three or four months, until he was stable and could walk on his own.

Then time passed.

One day, the pastor told me one of the residents had had a psychotic break. He had tried to attack the pastor, and then tried to kill himself.

The surprise was finding out who it was. I knew him. He was sweet and calm. The pastor, already an old man, was scared and called an ambulance, and the young man was saved.

I remember it well. It was a Sunday, 9 p.m., a cold day. The pastor called and asked for my help, because he couldn't take this resident back. He was old, and he was afraid the young man might have another episode and try to hurt him, or worse, succeed.

So there we were at the hospital, the young man and me.

What was I going to do? I live with my mother. I couldn't bring him home and put my family at risk, but I couldn't leave him on the street either. He told me he would go back to his hometown the next day. That's when it came to me. I would call the man I had taken off the street and ask if my friend could spend one night at his place, just one, so he could be on his way in the morning.

He gave me at least five different excuses. He had become proud. He had no wish at all to do for someone else a fraction of what had been done for him.

As for my friend, I couldn't do much. He slept at the bus station and left for his hometown the next day.

Well, that's how it went.

A few months later, I was passing an intersection in my small town, and imagine my surprise when I saw him again. The same man, back on the street.

And I saw that God had answered me.

Not with a voice, and not with the explanation I had demanded that night. Nobody deserves the cold of a sidewalk, and I still believe that. But I understood that you can give someone a roof, a job and a fresh start, and it won't hold if there's nothing inside to hold it. There are people who, even if they had a lot, would do little with it.

God never stopped answering me. I was the one who didn't know how to read the answer.