The Reincarnation

Father Dante had figured out the riddle, or at least thought he had. The words of William Blake ran through his head:

God appears, and God is light,

To those poor souls who dwell in Night;

To those who dwell in realms of Day.

Now that he thought about it again, Father Dante didn’t know the answer – but he thought he knew how to find out.

He had woken up this morning with what anyone else would have thought was a hangover. But not the Father. His head was indeed muddled, but it frequently was. Just a particularly bad spell was all, he told himself.

But then the feeling came. It started in his chest, right below his sternum. It was a feeling he had felt once before, a year ago. Only twenty-three at the time, he had felt that feeling and decided it was God asking him for a life of service. Dick Dante had been pleased, honored really. One of the many benefits would be that people would no longer use his first name. He hated being called Dick.

Today, though, as he contemplated William Blake’s words, he felt that God was commemorating his first message with another task that Father Dante was pleased to fulfill – even if God was a few days off from the actual anniversary date.

God wanted Father Dante to go somewhere, someplace special. He wouldn’t reveal where it was just yet, but filled Father Dante with a feeling of direction. All he needed to do was follow that direction, and God would reveal more as he went.

The only car he had available to him was his parish’s. It was an ancient car, used every month or so to get the priests where they needed to go. But they rarely went anywhere. Still, it might last the trip, he thought. Depending how far the journey was. For Peter’s sake, he chastised himself, of course it would make the trip. He would be driving with the Lord. With this in mind, he got in.

Cars were expensive, he thought as he started the old machine, and it was hard attracting followers to his small parish when everyone was joining the big ones like MCA.

The car coughed and stalled three times before he got it going and drove out of the parking lot.