Out Of The Darkness

"Are you there God? It's me down here on the blue planet in the middle of the nowhere universe you built," Seth said looking up at the night time sky. A sky filled with far away stars twinkling on a cold clear night in Northern Washington. He listened for an answer but all he heard was the soft whistling of the wind through the trees.

It was the question he asked a hundred times. Never got an answer.

Seth saw the splendor of creation all around him, only some entity so creative, so brilliant and so powerful could create an oak tree, like the white oak that sat outside his window, he thought, or for that matter, a dog like his Border Collie, Topsy, who was looking up at the tree for any wayward squirrels.

Seth sat down on a low stone wall.  As a child, he was taught that God made him to know Him and love Him. Every night before he climbed into bed, he asked God to take care of his mom and dad, tell his sister to stop teasing him and watch over his hamster. In his teenage years, he began asking if God was all good and all powerful; why did so many bad things happening to so many people, like his friend Jerry Glynn who died of leukemia? By the time he got to college, many of his friends believed that God was a fairy tale. For him, that did not answer the question who made the universe, or for that matter, the oak tree in his garden. For a while he became an agnostic, until he read one day in a book aptly called “Does God Exist” that there was no such thing as an agnostic. Belief or disbelief in God changed how you saw reality, to be an agnostic was to be an atheist in denial. The world was real so God must be real, but why didn’t God use his powers to stop bad things happening.

Then as he gazed into the darkness, a thought occurred to him. What if bad things happen so that better things would be the outcome? He always found appealing the notion of Augustine, that evil was a like a hole in a garden, it lacked earth. Evil was the lack of good.  Maybe, it takes the ultimate good to start filling that hole again. His mind drifted to thoughts of a girl he knew in high school.

Ashley was a bright, pretty girl, quiet and a little awkward who wanted more than anything else to be liked by the boys whose attention was focused on a cool, attractive clique of girls. No matter how hard she tried to emulate them, buying the same brands of clothing, wearing her hair the same way, listening to the same music, laughing, a bit too hard, at their jokes, sharing tidbit of gossip, she never was accepted into their inner circle. One evening tagging along with a mixed group of high schoolers at a rave concert, one of the boys passed out Ecstasy: a pill that creates a sense of euphoria.  Ashley tried it, it changed her, it made her feel that she belonged. Boys seemed to talk to her as they talked to the girls she so wanted to be like . Next weekend and the weekend after that she sought out venues to get Ecstasy. The weekend Ecstasy euphoria soon became part of her daily evening routine. Her school work started to suffer. Her parents were confused, their daughter seemed to be happy and yet they were getting reports of missing assignments and poor grades. Ashley felt life was great. Boys were taking an interest in her, asking her out on dates, making out with her. On one date, to impress a hot date, she accepted his offer of a new drug to try, crystal meth. She felt a sudden rush of energy, a feeling of supreme confidence. This was the high she was looking for. From that day on, her life became a quest to find crystal meth dealers. Her night time binges on the drug resulted in missing days of school and heated arguments with her parents. She dropped out of school, hooked up with a dealer who talked her into leaving home and heading for California.

In Los Angeles, to pay for their drug habit, she took a job as a stripper. As her usage increased. She lost weight, her teeth fell out. The owner of the club let her go, customers were not interested in toothless, scrawny, pimpled exotic dancer. Out of work, her boyfriend dealer dumped her. To pay for her drug habit, she landed a few minor parts in low budget porn movies. When those calls stopped, she became a street prostitute on Hollywood Boulevard. Eventually, the landlord found out she was turning tricks, he gave her an ultimatum: either leave or he would call the police. She was penniless, addicted and homeless, sleeping in the street on Skid Row.

One hot afternoon, without money or drugs she sought refuge in a church. She hoped that she could steal some candle sticks and sell them to buy drugs. As she approached the altar, a feeling washed over her. She sat down in a pew and cried. For the first time in years, she said a pray, a desperate plea for help. A sacristan appeared, heard her crying and walked over to see what was the matter. She told him; she had hit rock bottom.  She needed help, she needed to change her life. He asked her for a phone number to call. The only number she could think of was her parents. He called the number and spoke to her mother. After hanging up, he said he could get her into a shelter for the night and her father would come for her.

Over the years, Seth heard rumors of Ashley’s demise, one of his former high school classmates claimed he had seen her in a porn movie. He dismissed it, as locker room talk, and thought no more about it.

Years later after he had graduated from college, worked and did well in his first jobs, Seth decided it was a time to start his climb of the corporate ladder. He applied for a job as a Production Manager at a large engineering company. He made it through the first interview and was escorted to the Vice President of Production’s office to be introduced to the executive in charge.

It was a large beautifully furnished corner office with a breath-taking view of Seattle. Sitting behind the desk was Ashley.

“Ashley, is that you, I haven’t seen you in years,” he exclaimed.

“Come on in and sit down,” she remarked softly.

Their interview became more of a reunion, reminiscing about old high school friends and teachers. Seth forgot about getting hired, he wanted to know what she had done since dropping out of high school. How she had managed to rise to be a vice president of a multi-national global corporation?

She told him, she had received a blessing, a divine gift when she needed it most. She told him of her demise and her redemption. How it took hitting rock bottom for her to turn her life around.

She told him that out of the darkness, she had found a light that filled an emptiness.