Read Online Ten Tales Tall and True by Alasdair Gray - Free Book Online Page B

lot of societies – The Students’ Christian Union, The Iona Community and Christians Against the Bomb. I had lots of friends who knew the world should and could be improved, and worked at it. But I began to feel something essential was missing from our lives – God. When I prayed I never felt closer to anyone. When I asked my religious friends how it felt to have God beside them they got embarrassed and changed the subject. Why are you grinning?”
    â€œI know a bloke who feels God is with him all the time. The two of them go along Dumbarton Road together having frantic arguments, though we onlyhear what poor Jimmy says. ‘I refuse to do it!’ he shouts. ‘You have no right to order me to do it! You’ll get me the jail!’ It seems God keeps telling him to smash the windows of Catholic bookshops.”
    â€œYes, anybody who hears the voice of God nowadays is deluded. God said everything we need to know through the words of Jesus. But many sane people have felt God’s presence since Jesus died. I used to read their autobiographies, they made me envious – and angry too. Some were saintly junkies, hooked on the Holy Ghost like cocaine addicts to their dealer, passing miserable weeks waiting for the next visitation. I was not so greedy. One wee visit would have satisfied me – I could have lived on the memory ever after. But if I became a minister of God without once feeling God loved and wanted me I knew I would end up a fraud like my father. The nearest I could get to God was in books, which were not enough. I lost interest in Christianity, fell in love with a healthy agnostic and married instead. It was easy.”
    â€œDo you know what I’m going to tell you?”
    â€œYes – that it was the best thing which could have happened to me. If you shut your mouth and listen as you promised I’ll explain why it was not.
    â€œI’ve always found it easy to give the people nearest me what they want. As a student I worked perfectly with busy, excitable, eccentric Christian Socialists. After marriage I perfectly suitedsomeone who wanted a wife to give him polite well-dressed children and a home where he could entertain his friends and colleagues and their wives. So marriage completely changed my character and maybe destroyed part of it. Nowadays I want to hear people talk about the soul, and God, and how to build bridges between them. I can meet these people in books – nowhere else – but my friends and children and husband give me no peace to read. They can’t stop telling me news and discussing problems which strike me as increasingly trivial. I can’t help listening and smiling and answering with an automatic sympathy I no longer feel. They cannot believe my reading matters. If I locked myself for an hour in the bedroom with a book and a can of lager they would keep knocking on the door and asking what was wrong. Now you know why I come here to read.”
    Some have founded hospitals for the poor because they wanted popularity or fame or felt guilty about their wealth. That is why Paul says ‘Though I bestow all my goods to feed
…’
    â€œWait a minute. Have you tried going to church?”
    â€œOften. It was what I usually did on Sundays but the prayers now sound meaningless to me, the hymns like bad community singing, the sermons as dull as my father’s. Two weeks ago, without telling my family, I came here instead. Nobody I know will ever come to this pub, and it doesn’tplay loud music. And I like the company, you were right about that.”
    â€œEh?”
    â€œYes. I feel less lonely among people who are quietly talking and drinking – as long as they don’t talk to me or lay their hand on my thigh.”
    â€œIt won’t happen again.”
    â€œEnjoying a pint and a read here is my Sunday service. Can I go on with it?”
    â€œAye. Sure. Of course. I meant no offence.”
    That is why Paul