Today, I Mourn My Own Passing

Pastor Pasquale was interactive.

He felt that preaching to congregants from on high was cold and impersonal. And one way. After all, he was there to help his people. Is this not better accomplished through two way communication?

So he encouraged people to speak during services. To walk up to the front of the church at a specific time during the service, to open up their soul in front of people they trusted. And the man they looked to for answers. Advice. Inspiration.

Many of the confessions were repetitive, but this is the way of human nature.

Infidelities, broken dreams, financial woes, fear, disease. Pain. Enormous pain.

On a Sunday in February, Steve Constantino stepped to the front of the church and broke the mold. He opened with this line: "Today, I mourn my own passing."

His posture was that of a broken man; slightly stooped, in a defensive crouch. There were tears in his eyes. But his words had a finality of tone to them. Like the last sentence of a somber book.

People sat up. They stopped whispering, the coughing stopped, children almost sat still. The air became thick and it was a little harder to breathe.

This is what Steve said:

"Today, I mourn my own passing. I had a life, it was given to me with no agenda - the ultimate gift. Abundance was handed to me on a platter - every opportunity, every encouragement. 

Childhood was effortless; my parents had money and they spent it on me. Adolescence came along and my mind tightened up a bit. There was some confusion, some rebellion, some self-doubt and doubt about the world, but I foolishly ignored it all and kept on moving. Even though that did not feel comfortable. It did not feel right.

It was around this time that mirrors took on an absurdist quality to me.

Adulthood. A quantum leap in responsibility with no corresponding leap in understanding or awareness, especially of consequences. And no conviction whatsoever to guide my way.

I kept moving forward. In time, not in accomplishment.

Time quickened, decades passed. Pain became as much a part of me as blood, but it was muted through familiarity, relegated to a crippling dullness. Wreaking havoc and destruction in a quietly relentless way.

It began to close doors, eventually closing almost every single door to my soul. Leaving in its wake a compromised human being, a complete stranger, unrecognizable to the person born to this world so many decades before.

I have run out of time. There is no path to redemption. No chance to reclaim lost opportunities or squandered potential.  

I was given a life. I gave it away.

I am dead.

Today, I mourn my own passing."

With that, Steve Constantino turned slowly and walked towards a side door. And then out. He moved like a person who has had their essence sucked out in a vacuum. A bag of bones rattling towards nothing. No future. No hope. No destination.

The congregation was deathly quiet. Pastor Pasquale was frozen in place. He heard thousands of confessions over the years, but none like this. This one defied hope and left him questioning his faith.

To his parishioners he said "Go in peace."

When the last person had left, he shut down the lights and sat alone in a pew, shadowed in candlelight.

He cried.