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SHE COMES TO PRAY EVERY DAY NOW.  Though when the weather gets cold, like it will inevitably, I fear her visits will become less frequent.  When the ground becomes impenetrable to the farmer’s spade, his knuckles aching with wintry solidity, blood eases its way down fingers stiffened by the wind’s frigid touch, and is frozen to wrists no longer able to bend, forming a stream of crimson trickling down a forearm well-built from years of labor, as if trying to mimic the structured flow of the veins within.  It is this time that people are few to worship in the house of the Lord, willfully held captive in the warmth of their own homes, a fire blazing in the stove laden several inches deep with soot and ashes from such continuous use.  There they stay—warm and comfortable—and pray for forgiveness.

I dare not ask her name, dare not noticeably discern her from the others who come to pray in the daytime.  My uncle, Adrian Corbin, my overseer, although in the latter portion of his days, still holds fast to the ordinance of the Church as he has always in the times that I can recall, thus the crossing of the boundaries of my position is looked down upon with an accusatory and unmerciful eye.  Nevertheless, surely eyeing her from a distance, from the balcony, cannot be in any way punishable, unless observing her from afar is some sort of a buried and forbidden precept, a fabled Eleventh Commandment.  And I indulge myself in her beauty from across the cavernous halls and atop the balcony.

Some day I may find the courage to behold her beauty up close, perhaps by concealing myself behind one of the many solid stone columns or pillars that seem to reach forever into the sky, but in fact are only high enough to support the beautifully painted ceiling.

This very ceiling, seemingly high enough to be called the upper limit of the heavens, is painted so intricately, depicting the graciousness of God and all that He has touched with His gracious hand which forms beauty with every gentle movement and every caressing touch.  Above the congregation, the eyes of the saints and the Lord Himself look down upon all from a portrayed beautiful view of the heavens, and glowing with an ethereal and misty light they illuminate the reverberant church with many hues of blue, white, and gold—serenity being accompanied and confirmed by the looming presence of open arms, open minds, open hearts.

From above they watch over all whom come to pray and worship, seeking for and insisting only the acknowledgement and divulgence of the sins that possess the souls of the people.

And now every day what they seek and insist from on high is given to them by the lady fair who possesses my own soul with the intoxication of a forbidden love.

Occasionally she started coming to worship every Sabbath, then increased her comings to that of four days a week, then five, and now every day I am privileged to behold her beauty, although from afar.  And I am curious as to why she has increased her comings.  Is there something that she is seeking? . . .  Or is it a matter of something that she has found?

A newfound hope has been brought to the surface, or perhaps a new love and appreciation for the Truth has lit yet another flame in her spirit, passed on by the assuaging flame of another candle.  If this is so, then the flame which has spread this aesthetic knowledge has come from that of a long-burning and ample wick.

And, like the stout flame long since its days of struggling and flickering, it is no longer at the wind’s mercy, its luminous melody no longer able to be hushed by the swift and sudden breeze, yet the gentle passing of flame from candle to candle, heart to heart, can spill blistering wax that will burn the flesh at first touch.  This irreverent dripping of searing wax from the brim of a decrepit and withering candle long since burning, whose wick nevertheless still beholds the most luminous of flames, wills the fallen wax to blister the skin of the one whose hand holds the candle that has never before been set aflame.  And this will leave on the flesh a mark, the aftermath to and heedful reminder, perhaps even a foretaste, of what awaits the one who tried and encouraged the passing on of the flame, consequently risking the life and vitality of the stolid incandescence atop the diminishing candle, that which shrouds the wick.  And the one whose hand bears the mark of the fallen wax will release the candle in a flash of pain, leaving it to fall to the floor.  The small flame from the brief passing of the warming glow will then be choked by the surrounding elements, and the flame will smolder until it dies, leaving no proof of its existence but the very mark that will bare notice forevermore on the holder’s hand.

Such a mark on the hand of this woman could only be the result of some grievance, or the consequence of slipping away, no matter how subtly, from the Truth.  Perhaps what she is seeking is repentance for her sins, or even for those of others.  Observing her, there is in no way that I can tell what it is that she prays for, except that she does so with such an air of solemnity and patience, as if, with her hands folded, her head bowed, she is surrendering, to the Lord, a yolk that bears a heavy burden on her shoulders, that which has been causing her great pain and frustration, and is, after many burdensome days and nights, being removed by the cleansing and merciful hands of God.

For some moments her silence is broken as she urgently whispers her prayer, as if because she does not think that the Lord listens to the thoughts of her mind and the dreams of her heart and of her soul.  After a few words have passed through her lips, the yolk being loosened and ever so slowly being lifted, she again falls silent, lost in the silence of her prayer.  I can vaguely hear what it is that she desires or what it is that she fears and asks strength for, perhaps even what she confesses that she has done, with regret.  However I cannot discern and articulate the smooth and light tones that which are pushed out with her breath as she exhales in either relief or as result from the loathing of her deeds done, into intelligible words, or meaningful phrases.  Nevertheless, whatever it is she asks for forgiveness from, I feel she will be granted her will of forgiveness by the Lord.

The beauty that which she possesses is one that holds with it so much aesthetic brilliance that I would think that any god, no matter how much wrath is held at yield in His holy fingertips, would find her beauty worthy of His most graceful of grace.

Her long and dark hair shines like the far off stars in the blackest nights that give the shaded sky a look of pure incandescence and a luster not unlike that of a stone of obsidian under the geologist’s lamp and watchful, patient eye.  In her eyes, like the coalescence of greens and blues of a warm spring in which bathes a goddess, a fog and steam seeps through the surface, lurking and shifting over the placid waters.

Not a day goes by when I do not wish for her.  Not a day goes by when I do not live for her.  And not a day goes by when I would not die for her.

I know such strong feelings seem foolish and unjustified.  I have not even come close to speaking a word to her, not come close to reaching out to touch her; I just . . . observe.  I observe because her beauty is one so captivating it leaves me intoxicated, drowning in that overwhelmingly poignant aura of that enthralling and proverbial idea of a forbidden love.  It is like a virus that sweeps through my veins with every pump of my beating and patiently waiting, but, with every day that passes, increasingly covetous heart.  But this virus I will not seek a cure for as it surges through and digs ever deeper in me, destroying any once reasonable thoughts that I may have had, perverting the truths that, at one time, I may have known as a part of me, and obscuring from my vision the convoluted and elaborately interwoven fabric of my logic, hazing it over with a thick and impenetrable fog.

I know for certain as I know the tides will rise and again recede in the sea nearby, that I will always be at the mercy of her beautiful existence.