She came in like usual, focused and intending to get to her seat in the pew. She was cold, but not because she wanted to be, but because she had to be. She had to ward off any attention placed on her because she knew that any attention directed toward her would be less directed toward him, and he didn’t like that. So, she stomped coldly to her designated seat and sat forward like she had been doing for 12 years.
Her husband walked behind her, fragile, but he covered it well with a button-up suit and a booming voice. Everyone thought he loved the Lord. They considered him, out of everyone in the church, closest to the Lord, but it was not closeness they experienced; it was the desire to be someone in their eyes.
He liked that they thought he was closer to God than them. He liked that they looked up at him with hope and anticipation. He enjoyed how they scrambled to get his attention and how they would defer to him.
So, he punished her when she didn’t give him that. His expertise was in removing all joy. If she liked flowers, he made sure they were dead. If she liked music, he made sure it was silent. If she expressed any light, he beat it out of her. He did not like that she did not think of him as God, so he punished her by acting like the Devil.
When Sunday rolled around, the congregants arrived early to get a piece of him. They believed they could get close to God if they got close to him, so they used their early arrival to linger around the pews with questions of “How are you?” “How’s your family?” “How can we help?” And he delighted in this.
So, when the congregation directed a question to her, he was startled, and immediately, his anger rose. He didn’t understand why they cared. He didn’t like the attention off him. So, without thought, he scolded her in front of them.
With no sign of life, she did not move or change her gaze. She sat still and kept looking forward while the congregants switched gazes between her and him. They looked at her with sorrow. They looked at him with shock. Then, they looked at themselves and considered questioning it but said nothing.
He was the closest to God, which meant he was justified. God punished Eve with pain. Why not the closest man to God?
So, they acted as if nothing happened, watched him walk up the steps to the pulpit, and listened to him with doting eyes preach about love and humility.
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