I can understand your abhorrence to war, but to eliminate all use of force under every circumstance is naïve, suicidally idealistic, and in the most morally repugnant sense shirks adult responsibility. Pacifists allow their consciences to be free while still subsisting on the fruits of war.
Jarvis tried to argue back, but it was too late. He was already in love.
—How can you call the anonymous killing of strangers you’ve never met morally justified under any humane religion?
—In a theoretical argument about an uncomplicated world, you’re completely right. In this world, however, your argument is complete sheep’s balls!
—Miss Avisham!
—Sorry, Professor, but suppose, whatever-your-name-is, we’d taken a pacifist stance against Pistolet? Where would we be then?
—Don’t you believe the moral high ground would have eventually won out?
—Eventually? Eventually? You arrogant, self-satisfied, brainless pile of treacle. How many more people would your ‘eventually’ have allowed Pistolet to kill? How many more millions deserved to be tortured, raped, and murdered because of your grand ‘eventually'?
—Surely you concede that if we’d acted earlier on, with diplomatic means—
—I concede nothing! War is a horrible, atrocious, awful, awful thing, but war was not the monster, Pistolet was. You’re applying an absolute principle to an in-absolute world.
—But we’re talking about dogmatic philosophy, not practicum.
—And you’re hiding behind your hot air, you coward!
Diana held up the main textbook for the course.
—The world doesn’t exist in this. The world exists out there.
Jarvis didn’t have time to duck before the book connected with his nose and broke it. Later, remarkably not expelled and courteously walking home the newly bandaged and cotton-packed Jarvis, she had clarified her points.
—I’m sorry about your nose, but you were completely in the wrong.
—That’s all wight—
—I just get so mad at scholars who cave themselves in book-learning and then in perfect riskless safety advocate an adherence to the Sacraments regardless of the real-world human suffering it causes. It’s immoral. I get sick of the skewing of God’s messages to further some intellectual ideal. That’s why I threw my book at you.
—It’s okay—
—Don’t you think the central message of the Sacraments is to care for your neighbor as if he were your brother? And if that message has to be applied imperfectly in an imperfect world, then so be it. It’s our moral responsibility to God to do the best we can in the situations He provides to us.
—I’m wif you all de way—
—I don’t want to waste my time bothering with all this esoteric nonsense that keeps you completely out of God’s big, messy, wonderful world. That’s the whole reason I’m entering the priesthood.
—Me, too.
Snap judgment guided by passion that it was, the priesthood turned out to be a surprisingly good fit. Jarvis excelled in his studies, turned out to be a better orator than he expected, and was able to take most of his classes with Diana. He was aware of the perversity of only being able to please the woman he adored by entering lifelong celibacy for her, but dumber things have been done in the name of love. When graduation day arrived, he and Diana hugged platonically. Before he set off on his first assignment less than twenty miles away in urban Hennington, he went with her to the docks in the Harbor, from where she was to set sail for her assignment, across the ocean on the entire flip side of the world map. They waved as the ship set to sea, her long hair tangling wildly in the wind, his beard catching flecks of sea foam. As she disappeared over the horizon, Jarvis realized how easy it would be to keep his vow of chastity. The only woman he ever loved was receding thousands of miles away, and Jarvis’ desire receded with her. He had heard that sex was overrated anyway – sweaty, sticky, brief, and ultimately depressing. He tucked away his tired, sad, and sore heart, telling himself he could probably get more joy out of gardening.
In this, he was entirely correct, though the measure of his joy was not reflected in the bounty of his garden. He had long since accepted that his fingers were many shades away from green, but that didn’t stop him from celebrating small victories: a tomato large and red enough to be edible; a double-digit strawberry harvest; blueberries that didn’t make the church children vomit. He had once managed an avocado and parsnip pie for an after-church potluck that the Widow Jesslyn Mitcham had even called ‘tart in the best sense of the word'. This morning, he was on his knees, trying to coax a clutch of basil leaves into taking root. The man at the greenery had told him that basil was the best seasoning to use for the summer squash he anticipated (hoped hoped hoped for) in a month or two. Coincidentally, basil had been on sale that day, so Jarvis had purchased a few cuttings to try to grow in his garden.
—You can do it. Here’s some water to make the ground lovely and moist, and these little blue pellets will make you grow green and tasty. You’re going to love it out here. It’s a beautiful place, if you’d only make that little bit of effort.
—Father Kingham?
Jarvis sat upright and stared down at his basil in surprise.
—Am I interrupting?
Jarvis swung around and looked up.
—Mrs Bellingham! Of course you’re not interrupting. For a minute there, I thought my basil was talking to me.
—Oh! I say!
—Or would that be ‘my basil were talking to me'? No matter. What can I do for you this fine, warm, beautiful day?
—Do you have a few moments, Father?
—Always.
He motioned her inside the church to his office and sat her in a chair opposite him across his desk.
—What’s on your mind?
She gave a slightly embarrassed little frown.
—It’s kind of silly, Father.
—Coming from you, Mrs Bellingham, I highly doubt that.
—That’s very kind, Father, but, well …
—You can feel free to tell me absolutely anything, sister. Not only do you have my strictest confidence and good faith, you’ve also got a legal system that says that I never, ever have to tell anyone.
Mrs Bellingham smiled.
—All right, then. How can I begin? I’m not a superstitious woman, Father.
—I’ve always admired your levelheadedness.
—But lately, I’ve been having these dreams. She paused.
—Dreams, Sister?
—Well,
