Dee cupped his fingers over the bridge of his muzzle and pulled down gently while pushing his snout up. The isometric stretch served to highlight every bit of tension within his neck, and as he held the pressure, he closed his eyes, counting the knotted muscles. Pressed, pushed, and held until he could feel the lactic acid burn deep in the tissue, and then released. With his targets thus marked, he ducked his muzzle down and slid his paws back, fingers kneading along sore muscles.
Not for the first time, the coyote wished that he could simply disappear within the written word. Wished that he could relinquish the very idea of physical sensation and surround himself in successive layers of scripture, commentaries, notes. Wished, most of all, that he could wrap himself in the warmth of his faith.
If, at the end of time, faith and hope are to fade, there would be a final sense of completion, but until now, his faith was a comfort.
Dee shook his head to try to clear the clinging rumination, closing the book of Pauline commentaries and the notebook that he'd been attacking with a highlighter and pen. "Too much Corinthians," he mumbled, then laughed to himself.
Standing from his rickety chair, he stretched toward the ceiling, claws brushing up against the off-white-towards-gray paint momentarily before he leaned to the side to stretch.
If there were any one place that Dee belonged, it was here. Here in one of the study rooms in the library. There were books here. There was the quiet contemplation of knowledge, the surety of faith, and the heady scent of aging paper.
He had five minutes until the library closed, which, he figured, was enough time for him to return the book and start the walk back to his apartment without needing to endure any encounters with the pages sweeping the stacks for lingering students. Sure enough, the only other person he encountered on his way out was the page who numbly accepted his book at the returns desk. A wordless exchange --- no small talk, not even a thank you.
The Minnesota air hung heavy around him. The air seemed as loath to relinquish the heat of day as the year was to give in to autumn, but now it was nearly eleven, and the long hours of evening had managed to pull some of the warmth. Mosquitoes drifted lazily beneath the trees, leading Dee to keep his ears canted back, lest they take interest.
Saint John's Seminary was lopsided circle nestled at the north edge of a narrow isthmus between two lakes, a marble set over a gap it couldn't hope to pass through. It would be easy enough for Dee to essentially walk straight north to his apartments along the road that bisected the campus, but he preferred to put off walking along a road as long as possible.
Instead, he headed east from the library, walking bowered sidewalks for as long as he could. Past the utilities building, past the bookstore, until he hit the quad. Only then did he turn north, walking through close-cut grass instead of long the sidewalks.
Here, at last, he could look up and see the stars.
His steps were slow, contemplative. It wasn't a meander; his walk still had purpose. Instead, it was a putting-off of the inevitable. The inevitable time when he would rejoin walking along the road. The inevitable moment of stepping into his dimly-lit apartment. A delaying of engaging with the real, physical world as long as possible.
Here, at last, he could look up and see the stars, could drink in God's majesty, could forget that he was himself, that he was a coyote plowing through both his scholarships and degree on nothing but momentum. He could forget that he was Dee, and get lost in his total and complete insignificance.
It was here. Here in the open, and back in the library. That was where Dee was most comfortable. Most himself.
Dee, the awkward coyote. Dee, who forgot to smile sometimes, who always seemed to say the wrong thing. Dee, with his nose forever in a book, forever in *the* book, reading and re-reading to tease ever-deeper meaning from scriptures he'd read a dozen times before.
Was that not why he was here, wasn't it? Here at a seminary? To study and learn? To glean more from the word of God? To live in an ever more Christlike fashion? To help the downtrodden and the poor?
Could he not best learn how to do so here? Was that not why he was here?
He couldn't do it. He couldn't go back to his room just yet. All it held was his bed, his books, his aging laptop. Too-yellow lights, fourth-hand furniture, chipped paint.
Instead, he let his bag slip from his shoulder to the grass, and then he settled down to join it, tail flopped limply behind him. He drew his knees up to his chest and crossed his arms over them, resting his chin atop his forearms.
His head was too full. Too full of words and feelings that language failed to express. Lines from the epistles he'd been studying somehow wound up tangled with an awkwardly-shaped despair, a despair founded in the fact that, although he continued to excel in his studies, remained at the top of his classes, he still felt as though he was failing.
*If I still feel you within my heart,* he asked. *Where are these feelings coming from? What is this disillusionment pointing to?*
God spoke to him, then. As ever, His voice was not in words, but woven into the world around him. A breeze came up from Stump lake, bearing with it the sent of water, of rotting vegetation, and overlaid atop it, a sweetness he could not place. It was floral, yes, but also fruity, so sweet as to make his mouth water.
He bristled his whiskers, and breathed in deeply, his eyes scanning trees lit by the occasional yellow sulfur lamp, stark battlements against the night sky. God spoke to him in the way his eyes perceived the night to fade from a blue-tinged gray at the tree-line up to the star-stained black above him. He spoke in the feeling of the short blades of grass poking up through the bristly fur of his tail, and He spoke in the citrus tang of a confession forming in his mouth.
"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been one week since my last confessional, and I accuse myself...I accuse..."
Other than the soft sounds of breathing and the barest hint of vulpine beneath the scent-block, nothing made its way from the other side of the screen.
"No, nor do I doubt in God the Father or the Holy Spirit, nor the Mother of God. I find myself doubting, uh...I find myself doubting the church and my role in it."
"What about the church do you doubt, if your faith is solid?"
"I can't put my finger on it."
There was a quiet sigh from the other side of the screen.
"I suppose my sin is that I am doubting my ability to serve God and continue on in my role here."
"I see."
It was Dee's turn to wait in silence. Eventually, he bowed his head and said, "That is all, Father. For these and all of my sins, I ask forgiveness from God, and penance and absolution from you."
There was a pause, and then, "Alright, I will ask you to say three Our Fathers for doubting in the path that God has laid out for you. We all have roles to play in our lives, and through us, God works within the world. It could be that you are still discovering this path, but doubt will only hinder you from carrying out His works. However, my son--" The priest rushed to forestall Dee, and the coyote could hear a smile creeping into his voice. "Outside of your penance, I would also like you to talk to your advisor. As your confessor, I can only offer you spiritual guidance."
Dee splayed his ears, chagrined, and bowed his head. "Thank you, Father. O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins..."
With the final *go in peace* still ringing in his ears, with the tips of his fingers still humming from crossing himself, with the hot flush of embarrassment still pulling at his cheeks, Dee stepped from the confessional and blinked rapidly. He took two quick, grounding breaths, and then walked from the abbey.
Outside Dee walked slowly to one of the concrete blocks that served as benches and sat, resting his face in his paws. If he could not see the stars, if he had only concrete and paving stones before him, then if he wanted to pray, he had to block out his sight. It was all too much. He would find himself tracing the paving stones, or the catenary arc of the contemporary entrance to St. John's.
<!-- Psalm 130 -->
*Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice! Let yours ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications...*
<!-- Continue, expand with him praying as he thinks -->
He was not ready yet. Not ready for his penitential *patres nostri*. Not ready to go see his advisor. He didn't feel ready for anything.
He didn't even feel ready for this prayer, for this call out to God? What iniquities faced him? He was privileged to be able to attend such a school as this. He was loved by God and the church. He was lucky to have been born with a mind so expansive, a body so healthy.
*...I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I hope; my soul waits for the lord more than those who watch the morning, more than those who watch the morning.*
Dee wished it were night. He wished he could once more sit in the quad and look up at the stars, or down at the grass and try to differentiate the shades of green, there in the dark where color eluded him, to find in that liminal state some sensation of the Lord.
At least he could get get up from where he was and away from this edifice of concrete and glass. It was, he was promised, beautiful in its own way. But around behind the Abbey, toward the lake, a small path wound through the woods, and there, between the trees and beside the water, stood the statue of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, the only other coyote saint he'd ever come across, and the saint most venerated by his father.
Dee was not the farmer his father was, had few enough ties to her patronage of ecology and environmentalism, but in her he saw at least a face like his own. In her, he saw something of a people he could belong to, though she was from far to the east of his home in Idaho --- for Saint John's would never truly be his home.
*...It is He who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.*
*Redeem Israel.*
Israel, who struggled with God.
He envied, as always, the Jewish tradition, that eternal argument about who God was, what he meant, in which God was an active participant. Perhaps here, he could wrestle with Him. Tumble with his faith. Get all scuffed up.
But Catholicism only offered him so much leeway, and this school even less.
"Sorry, Father." Dee frowned down at his paws. Paws grown soft, this far away from home. Some part of his mind, the part always focused on making comparisons, realized how slender and small they were compared to his advisor's big canine mitts. "I think I was expecting a different reaction."
The Saint Bernard shrugged. It was an oddly informal, almost bashful gesture. "I'm just not surprised. This doesn't feel like it's coming out of nowhere."
"It's not apostasy, I have no plans of leaving the church."
"Of course, Dee. I have no doubts as to your faith."
"But...?"
Borenson sighed, set the pencil down. "Your studies are fine. Better than fine, I'm told. Your teachers speak highly of your writing. That's only half of the program, though. You came here for an MDiv, and the end goal of that program is ministry. Your skills in scripture and apologetics, in books, are admirable, but would make for an incomplete degree. We've talked before about you heading for a masters of theology instead, but you balked at that."
The coyote canted his ears back, grit his teeth, and masked his frustration as best he could. "With all due respect, Father, my concerns about a Th.M stand. Yes, I could be helping with my research and writing, but I need something more immediate."
There was a pause as Borenson seemed to manage some equal frustration before he spoke. "Mr. Kimana, an education such as this requires both flexibility and devotion. Both a Th.M and MDiv would require that. Now--" He held up his paws as if to forestall a rebuttal. "I am not accusing you of lacking in either department to a level where I feel you are not a good degree candidate, but if the doubts in your head are strong enough that you feel you need to leave, I would only be doing your future vocation a disservice by trying to make you stay."
Dee dropped his gaze once more. He spread his fingers, tracing with his eyes the subtle grain on the pads of his paws, the long-healed callouses.
This was a constant in Dee's life, this sort of discussion. He would research and research and research, come to a conclusion, and when he'd state what he'd learned, the conversation would go sideways. Both he and his interlocutor would wind up frustrated and stressed with no visible reason why.
But this wasn't a researched thing, was it? It was, what, three? And he'd started this train of thought last night at, what, eleven? Sixteen hours was hardly the amount of time required to come to a conclusion about leaving behind a year of study and however many thousands of dollars of scholarships that had involved.
No, this idea had leaped, fully formed, into his head.
He focused on ensuring that his mien expressed the sincerity he felt within. He was frustrated, yes, but also confused and more than a little disappointed in himself. "I'm sorry, Dr. Borenson. I understand. You're right, too, that I don't quite have the amount of conviction I'd need for this."
The Saint Bernard looked cautious, waited for Dee to continue.
"I know I said so before, but I just want to make sure; you know that this is about my vocation, not my faith, right?"
Borenson barked a laugh, before his expression softened. "I'm sorry. Dee, I believe you. You are one of the most devout students I have. Your decision about your degree may not have been a total surprise to me, but if you had said you were leaving the church, I think I would have called for a doctor."
