Texts for Translation 2011:
  Peter Wallis

I am not a good man. I won't lie to you about that. This is the story of how I discovered who I was. Because this is the story of how I discovered that the world, for all its trying, has no words bad enough for myself. 

    I have always thought of myself - and been thought of - as a productive part of my society and of my religion. This was firmly welded into me by the fiasco that was my conversion. That, however, is a story for another time. It is important to note that my awkwardness has always convinced me of, rather than detracted from, my sense of my own goodness. For now, I shall confine myself to the moment I realized that I am not a good man. I will have to tell this as a story, unused to stories as I am, I have found no way of communicating the experience in theological terms.

    I have been, for most of my life, of the clerical vocation. For the past twenty years, I have pastored a small, online, virtual church in a virtual suburb, hosted in a server rack between eHarmony, the long-lived religious dating service, and TheoloJist, the popular, conservative online bookstore and journal, whose attempts at academia may frankly be described as similar to the veneer of purity upon a schoolgirl avatar. Our representations of ourselves are more transparent than ourselves. My church is one of many placed in this specific server adjacency, because these two sites are the most popular sites for our demographic, and because our demographic notices load times. My church is called Bethlehem Online, one of many.

    I became a virtual pastor primarily through a profound inability. I could not speak in public. Were I to lead a church in the "real" world as was the incessant dream of my father, I would have been required to, at least on occasion, speak to an assembled congregation. In every case where I even began to speak in person, I perceived a real group of people as a collection of nervous ticks - this nose picking, that set of drumming fingers, his twitching eyebrow, her tapping foot. It is very difficult to speak to an assembly of nervous ticks. In the virtual world, these movements are imperceptible, mediated away by avatars, comfortable in glorious, real-time rendered wool suiting. I still avoid speaking to even an online group whenever possible. In the virtual world, where guest speakers are easy to transport, not speaking oneself is widely seen as humility rather than incompetence, so avoiding even the simulation of public speech this has not been difficult. The world gives no end of people with something to say. On the five occasions in which no guest speaker could be found, I have felt vaguely guilty, allowing my avatar to act out pre-recorded sermons. 

    This did not stop me from being proud of myself and my work. I did not become a pastor for the sermons. I do not say I have been a productive member of my society merely because I have scheduled decent guest speakers. My specialty and passion has always been for personal conversation. The instant messaging, texting, and innumerable online (I will still not call them virtual) friendships I practiced since my youth have made me used to, and even expert at communicating emotions through text, voice, and avatar. I may mention that I have also, in the past, been guilty of schadenfreude when certain aging pastors, who did call my friendships virtual, found it impossible to communicate in my virtual world.

    One blue day, a man came into my office. I have no receptionist or secretary. I am old enough to remember the agitators and trolls, young enough to know they have fallen to the law of numbers. There are simply too many pastors with open-chat offices, only the largest online churches keep administrative guardians on staff to ward off the rare troll. Mine is not one of these. As I recall this man, I realize that his avatar showed no signs of agitation. This was unnoticeable at the time. Generally, the set of distressed waves and emotees available to any avatar owner are furtively turned off halfway through some poker game, and never turned back on. The avatar's eyes, however, do follow the focus of the "real" eyes, and from this and the unsettled waving of his head, I knew he was not used to church offices.

    "I," he cleared his throat, "I need to make a confession."

    "I'm not a priest." 

    One of his arms dropped, a hand rested on my desk. "Do I need one?"

    "No, no. It was just a joke. A very old joke."

    "Oh. Okay. Um. Can I confess to you?"

    "If you think you need to. Please understand, though, that I'm not just here to hear what you did wrong. I want to help you change. I want to help you be who you want to be."

    I believed at the time, in establishing my ability - authority, really, to help those who came to me change. This allowed me to guide them in searching themselves. My worst experiences -so far- as a pastor had been those in which people have tried to search their own souls. I thought them singularly bad at it.

    "Okay. Good. I mean, that sounds good. How do I start?"

    "Well, why don't you take a seat, and we'll get to know each other first. Would you like something to eat? Drink?"

    "Yea, that sounds good."

    "What would you like?"

    "Oh, uh, a sandwich, and a beer. If I can have beer. Is that fine? I don't know. Whatever works." The words spilled out of him like static from a snow crash.

    "Pastrami?"

    "Yes. Please."

    I ordered two pastrami sandwiches and two beers. We finished them, tonguing the last of artificial tastes off our metaphorical teeth before we continued talking. For whatever reason, watching avatars eat is relaxing, and most netters eat while their avatars do. I paid for lunch for both of us, I imagine it was delivered to him, and I let my visitor play upon the line of my soul-searching. Forcing him to be the first to speak made less likely for him to begin to soul-search on his own.

    "So, um, how did you become a pastor?"

    "My father was a pastor, so I have known the life from a very young age. Besides that, it is a great way to be able to help people."

    He nodded. "The one thing I wish I could do in my job. Help people."

    "I wish we could all do more of that." I replied "One of the greatest joys of my work has been my ability to help people help people. I have connections with many non-profit organizations. More than a few people who have come to me for counseling have started volunteering with them, a few have gone onto careers in non-profit."

    "That probably won't work for me. I have a family."

    "It doesn't always have to be impractical, but sometimes it just doesn't work out, and that's fine. Taking care of one's family is very important."

    "Yea..."

    "It is, really. Spending time with family is a great thing, one of the most important things. Helping your kids grow up to be intelligent, good people is something you can do better than anyone else."

    "Screwing them up is something I can do better than anyone else too."

    I could feel the line begin to spin out of my control. I did not know the whale had taken my bait - or I had taken his. The giant things of the earth tempt us to think we are hunting them. 

    "That's true I suppose. Usually, though, I find the people that come to me who are worried that they've destroyed their children are the least likely to have done so. I remember, my father was always pushing me to be more of a public figure. There were several times I thought he destroyed me. He probably thought he destroyed me too. He was under a lot of pressure from the congregation, his son had to be the perfect one, or they'd have no one to compare their kids to, all those problems that go along with having kids in the ministry. Anyway, there was only one time he managed to get me to speak to the whole congregation. Before the sermon every week, he would ask one of the people to pray. My father gave the best sermons I have ever heard. Comprehensible, informative, entertaining.

    "Sometimes, my father would call on a specific person to pray, and I guess I always knew it was only a matter of time before it was my turn. One week, I had been in a particularly bad way, the normal childhood wrongs. I knew he was going to call on me that week."

    "Did he?"

    "Of course."

    "What happened?"

    "I ran a cold sweat almost immediately. I still can barely speak in public - and to pray in public, well. Prayer had always been an intensely private thing for me, my father knew that. I don't know if he was punishing me or if he was trying to expand my horizons. Probably both, in his way. Either way, I sat, silent for a few moments. I can remember the people around me shifting, and then, a kind of inexorable desire overtook me. In my weakness and fear, I gave into it. I yelled a profanity, and ran out of the sanctuary."

    "Really?"

    "Really."

    "And you still became a pastor?"

    "I did - and part of it had to do with what happened afterward. As I left the sanctuary, I could hear my father pray behind me. After he finished his sermon, he came back to look for me, and found me hiding in his office. His office looked a lot like this one. I was crying, and I remember having this heavy feeling of fear as my father came in. He took one look at me, looked at my face, and he started crying too. We hugged, and, I think, for the first time he understood that it wasn't just something I could control. It was a very strong fear, and my father finally understood that. I remember a line, actually, I remember a title-paraphrase. Philip Dick's old novel. 'But now we see as through a scanner darkly, and then we shall see face to face.' At last my Father and I saw face to face. He never asked me to speak in public again."

    "And you never overcame it?"

    "Overcame what?"

    "Your fear of public speaking."

    "I guess in some ways I have overcome it. Or found a way around it. A lot more of religion is about finding ways around things than people realize. Abraham found a way around sacrificing Issac. Moses found a way around God's wrath against Israel . David found a way around physical confrontation with Saul. Jesus found away around God's wrath against humanity. Besides, I found that my most important work was always one on one."

    "I guess that makes sense."

    "Now, you seemed to have something in particular in mind when you came in. Are you ready to talk about it?"

    "I guess so."

    We endured another brief silence. Then there came the moment my sensitivity to awkwardness could not plumb. I had no theological or philosophical preparation for what came next. If I had known, I would have dreaded it.

    "I have two daughters and a son, and I beat them. I don't hurt them - I mean, I don't beat them at all. I beat their avatars. My wife's too."

    We were both silent for several moments. The static brought my attention back. I hurried to respond. 

    "Are they online when you do this?"

    "Yes. I get angry sometimes, I guess. I just get angry, and sad, and the first few times it was more of a joke for me. I don't know if it would have any meaning if they were offline. I don't know. That moment, you know, when you realize you can do something online that you could never do in real life. They didn't seem to mind the first time, they just laughed and hit me back, and I smacked them around, and I felt like everything was fine. I mean, it still bothered me - I didn't want to do it, but I kept telling myself that it was better than beating them in real life, and if it stopped me from doing that, who cares, you know?"

    "That sounds sensible. There are plenty of fighting games, and many people use them to eliminate aggravations."

    "Then why do I feel so bad about it?"

    "Well, we often believe that things are wrong when they may actually not be."

    "How can it be right for me to beat my children?

    "But, if I understand you correctly, you aren't actually beating your children."

    He looked away from me. "You're dancing around it. I danced around it too. I still feel bad about it."

    I was silent for several seconds. This was a sort of self-analysis I had never known. "How long has this been going on?"

    He paused again. "About four years."

    "Four years? What brought you to me?"

    "A couple days ago, I hadn't done anything in about a month - and I was at home, on vacation. I was just starting to relax. You know when you're just starting to relax, but you can't, because you know something's going to go wrong? My daughter came back on from schoolchan. Or her avatar did. It's hard to tell, anyway, she'd gotten one of those avatar-changes, the ironic pregnancy one. For whatever dumb reason, that's really popular now. Anyway, her mom and I freaked out, and we grounded her. Do you have any idea how pointless that is these days? I get back to my vacation, relax for a few minutes, decide to check the house-history. My daughter left it a few minutes after we grounded her, wearing a "it's my dad's baby. I'm just carrying it for him." t-shirt. I was really angry, but my wife wasn't. She said she bought it. I couldn't believe her, but she showed me the paypal history. She told me I should lighten up. Then my son came along. He'd managed to sneak some... sounds... you know... past the vacation security people, and he started playing them. I had to apologize to everyone, and we were kicked out of the vacation ground. I mean, not that that's really an issue. My daughter's avatar came home. I was still arguing with my son, and with my wife. As soon as she walked in the door, I started beating them. All of them. It took me a few seconds to realize they were laughing. I'm such a terrible person. They were laughing because they thought it would be funny - funny - to get me to beat them up on vacation. They thought that it would help me relax. At least, that's what they told me. I've felt guilty ever since. I think I've done something wrong, but I don't even know if God can forgive virtual sins. Maybe it's a real sin to care about my virtual actions so much, I don't know. I actually asked my family for forgiveness. They wouldn't, they said they don't know what they should forgive me for. I think they're really just enjoying tormenting me. I think they might actually forgive me, but they don't think they have to, and they know it tortures me. I know. I think I need it, but how do I tell them that?"

    The virtual silence lay heavy on the virtual room. I think we both felt the virtual nature of our surroundings very strongly. I had no idea how to respond. He spoke again.

    "Do you see your dad much?"

    I had to answer honestly. "No."

    I sat across from him, and we were both silent. I was crying. If my avatar had been crying, I don't think it would have meant much to him. In any case, my avatar cannot cry.

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