Two Excerpts from Grass by Sheri S. Tepper...
There was silence in the confessional, silence lasting long enough for Marjorie to wonder whether Father James might not really have fallen asleep. Not that she blamed him. Their sins were all boring enough, repetitive enough. They had enough capital sins roiling around to condemn them all. Pride, that was Rigo's bent. Sloth, Eugenie's trademark. Envy, that was for Stella. And she, Marjorie, boiling with uncharitable anger toward them all. Herself, who had always tried so hard not to be guilty of anything!
"Marjorie." Father James recalled her to herself. "I cut my hand upon a grass blade a few days ago, a bad cut. It hurt a great deal. Grass cuts do not seem to heal easily, either."
"That's true," she murmured, familiar with the experience but wondering what he was getting at.
"It came to me suddenly as I was standing there bleeding all over the ground that I could see the cut there between my fingers but I could not heal it. I could observe it, but I couldn't do anything about it even though I greatly desired to do so. I could not command the cells at the edges of the wound to close. I was not, am not privy to their operations. I am too gross to enter my own cells and observe their function. Nor can you do so, nor any of us.
"But suppose, just suppose, that you could create … oh, a virus that sees and reproduces and thinks! Suppose you could send it into your body, commanding it to multiply and find whatever disease or evil there may be and destroy it. Suppose you could send these creatures to the site of the wound with an order to stitch it up and repair it. You would not be able to see them with your naked eye. You would be unable to know how many of them there were in the fight. You would not know where each one of them was or what it was doing, what agonies of effort each was expending or whether some gave up the battle out of fatigue or despair. All you would know is that you had created a tribe of warriors and sent it into battle. Until you healed or died, you would not know whether that battle was won."
"I don't understand, Father."
"I wonder sometimes if this is what God has done with us."
Marjorie groped for his meaning. "Wouldn't that limit God's omnipotence?"
"Perhaps not. It might be an expression of that omnipotence. In the microcosm, perhaps He needs — or chooses — to create help. Perhaps He has created help. Perhaps he creates in us the biological equivalent of microscopes and antibiotics."
"You are saying God cannot intervene in this plague?"
The invisible person beyond the grating sighed. "I am saying that perhaps God has already done his intervening by creating us. Perhaps He intends us to do what we keep praying He will do. Having designed us for a particular task, he has sent us into battle. We do not particularly enjoy the battle, so we keep begging him to let us off. He pays no attention because He does not keep track of us individually. He does not know where in the body we are or how many of us there are. He does not check to see whether we despair or persevere. Only if the body of the universe is healed will he know whether we have done what we were sent to do!" The young priest coughed. After a moment, Marjorie realized he was laughing. Was it at her, or at himself? "Do you know of the uncertainty principle, Marjorie?"
"I am educated," she snorted, very much annoyed with him.
"Then you know that with very small things, we cannot both know where they are and what they are doing. The act of observing them always changes what they are doing. Perhaps God does not look at us individually because to do so would interrupt our work, interfere with our free will…."
"Is this doctrine, Father?" she asked doubtfully, annoyed, wondering what had come over him.
Another sigh. "No, Marjorie. It is the maundering of a homesick priest. Of course it isn't doctrine. You know your way around the catechism better than that." He rubbed his head, thankful for the seal of the confessional. Even though Marjorie needed to take herself far less seriously, Father Sandoval would not appreciate what he had just said….
….It was not until later, as evening drew on, that she remembered what Father James had said about thinking viruses and guilt and sin. Once she began considering the questions he had asked, she could not get them out of her mind.
In the chapel, meantime, Father James knelt to beg forgiveness for himself. It had been wicked of him to challenge Marjorie's faith when what he was really wanting was to shore up his own.
"A very small being to see you, O God," the angelic servitor announced. The servitor looked very much like Father Sandoval except that he had wings. Marjorie paused in the vaulted and gauzy doorway to inspect them. They were not swans' wings, which she had expected, but translucent insect wings, like those of a giant dragonfly. Anatomically, they made more sense than bird wings, since they were in addition to, rather than in place of, the upper appendages. The angel glared at her.
"Yes, yes," said God patiently. "Come in."
God stood before a tall window draped in cloud. Outside were the gardens of Opal Hill, stretching away in vista upon vista. After a moment, Marjorie realized the garden was made of stars.
"How do you do," Marjorie heard herself saying. He looked like someone she knew. Smaller than she had thought He would be. Very bony about the face, with huge eyes, though the person she knew, whoever he was, had never worn his hair as long as God wore His, a dark curling about his shoulders, a white mane at his temples. "Welcome, very small being," He said, smiling. Light filled the universe. "Was something bothering you?"
"I can learn to accept that you do not know my name," Marjorie said. "Though it came as a shock — "
"Wait," He said. "I know the true names of everything. What do you mean I do not know your name?"
"I mean you don't know I'm Marjorie."
"Marjorie," he mouthed, as though He found the sound unfamiliar. "True, I did not know you were called Marjorie."
"It seems very harsh. Very cruel. To be a virus."
"I would not have said virus, but you believe it's cruel to be something that will spread?" he asked. "Even if that's what's needed?"
"You must be having a difficult time. Very small beings do have difficult times. That's what I create them for. If there weren't difficult concepts to pull out of nothing and build into creation, One wouldn't need very small beings. The large parts almost make themselves." He gestured at the universe spinning beneath them. "Elementary chemistry, a little exceptional mathematics, and there it is, working away like a furnace. It's the details that take time to grow, to evolve, to become. The oil in the bearings, so to speak. What are you working on now?"
"I'm not sure," she said.
The angel in the doorway spoke impatiently. "The very small being is working on mercy, Sir. And justice. And guilt."
"Mercy? And Justice? Interesting concepts. Almost worthy of direct creation rather than letting them evolve. I wouldn't waste my time on guilt. Still, I have confidence you'll all work your way through the permutations to the proper ends…."
"I don't have much confidence," she said. "A lot of what I've been taught isn't making sense."
"That's the nature of teaching. Something happens, and intelligence first apprehends it, then makes up a rule about it, then tries to pass the rule along. Very small beings invariably operate in that way. However, by the time the information is passed on, new things are happening that the old rule doesn't fit. Eventually intelligence learns to stop making rules and understand the flow."
"I was told that the eternal verities — "
"Like what?" God laughed. "If there were any, I should know! I have created a universe based on change, and a very small being speaks to me of eternal verities!"
"I didn't mean to offend. It's just, if there are no verities, how do we know what's true?"
"You don't offend. I don't create things that are offensive to me. As for truth, what's true is what's written. Every created thing bears my intention written in it. Rocks. Stars. Very small beings. Everything only runs one way naturally, the way I meant it to. The trouble is that very small beings write books that contradict the rocks, then say I wrote the books and the rocks are lies." He laughed. The universe trembled. "They invent rules of behavior that even angels can't obey, and they say I thought them up. Pride of authorship." He chuckled. "They say, ‘Oh, these words are eternal, so God must have written them.'"
"Your Awesomeness," said the angel from the door. "Your meeting to review the Arbai failure — "
"Ah, tsk," said God. "Now there's an example. I failed completely with that one. Tried something new, but they were too good to do any good, you know?"
"I've been told that's what you want," she said. "For us to be good!"
He patted her on the shoulder. "Too good is good for nothing. A chisel has to have an edge, my dear. Otherwise it simply stirs things around without ever cutting through to causes and realities…."
"Your Awesomeness," the angel said again, testily. "Very small being, you're keeping God from his work."
"Remember," said God, "While it is true I did not know that you believe your name is Marjorie, I do know who you really are…"
"Marjorie," the angel said.
"My God, Marjorie!" The hand on her shoulder shook her even more impatiently.
"Father James," she moaned, unsurprised. She was lying on her back, staring up at the sun-smeared foliage above her.
"I thought he'd killed you."
"He talked to me. He told me — "
"I thought that damned climber had killed you!"
She sat up. Her head hurt. She felt a sense of wrongness, of removal.
"You must have hit your head."
She remembered the confrontation on the platform, the railing. "Did that young man hit me?"
"He knocked you over the railing. You fell."
