Moving (Pt.6)

At seven in the evening, I followed the crowd into the main nave of the Sagrada Família for Mass, and on the way, I once again studied the outer-wall sculptures depicting the story of Christ, tracing each scene with my eyes.

I still couldn’t understand a word of the homily.
Scanning the QR code on the screen with my phone brought up a PDF—the Mass hymnal. I ran it through a translation app and saw the lyrics, each line of Christ’s words beginning, *“I am…”*—and again, I couldn’t hold back my tears.

The bishop was preaching from the pulpit; the pews below were packed with people of every kind, sitting shoulder to shoulder.

I closed my eyes tight, prayed in silence, then sent a message to the girl, confirming I would rent the room.

When I made that decision, it wasn’t with peace—only with a sense of relief.

After the Mass, people lingered inside, slowly drifting toward the exits, still captivated by the grandeur of the interior.
I made my way to the altar of the Glory façade and looked up at the crucified Jesus suspended beneath the canopy, unable to tear myself away.

It was the most unusual crucifix I had ever seen.

His hair was short and curled; His face truly that of a man in His early thirties. His arms hung from the nails, His legs bent completely under Him—perhaps the most physically excruciating and humiliating posture a crucifix could show.

The next day, nothing happened.

I shut myself in my room and began writing *The Fellowship*—almost an indictment of my past human encounters.

On the morning of Thursday, June 12, Tina sent me another message, as if to deliver fresh material and inspiration for my writing.

She said that last night’s small group sharing was on Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane (John 17:20–23). Someone had mentioned how different each of their national cultures was, and then declared that they were striving for unity in Christ, and so on.

I replied with a rolling-eyes emoji.

She went on to say she had brought up our conversation during the meeting, admitting she wasn’t perfect, that as a long-time Christian she was in a lukewarm state, still undergoing change—and then she launched into her own experiences again.

“In short, Christ wants us to be united. That was His prayer. 🙏 What separates us is sin—it’s the devil’s scheme.”

I wanted to scoff out loud. I hadn’t expected that even after I’d escaped the siege of that church, this person would still chase me down for a second round of damage.

I told her I would not accept a compromise dressed up as “unity” that was achieved through social balance at the expense of truth, nor a “unity” that required me to suppress my spiritual hunger.

She changed the subject, adopting the tone of a seasoned mentor, recounting her own experiences—filled with airy spiritual correctness and the clichés of “positive thinking.”

I cut in, exposing the hypocrisy beneath her self-congratulating narratives.

In the exchanges that followed, I kept pulling the conversation back to truth and reality, unmasking her evasions, while she giggled and diverted the topic to her own “life wisdom,” refusing to address issues directly. At times her replies were so disconnected they had no logical link at all, making it impossible to have an equal, substantive discussion.

In her eyes, though, this was “thinking outside my box”—a mark of her cleverness. She openly acknowledged her “slowness,” even using it as a badge of honor, treating her lack of empathy as if it were a form of broad-mindedness and tolerance.

Yet she knew exactly when to be “slow,” and when not to be.

Finally, when the conversation touched on prophets, she ignored my point about the truth and suffering they bore, and merely said that Jeremiah had his own historical background—and that she didn’t feel personally moved to place herself in such a context.

Then she turned to a direct attack on my self-understanding and motives:

“Do you think you’re a prophet?”
“You give me the feeling you put yourself in the role of a prophet.”

The irony was absurd—I had never, unlike her, tossed around “the Holy Spirit moved me” to justify my words or actions. And her question only proved she didn’t understand what a prophet was.

Next came the labeling. She reduced my persistence for truth, and the frustration born of failed communication, to my “family background”:

“Have you ever thought that your rationality and deep analytical thinking about truth might be like your dad, and some of your emotional side might be like your mom?”

I was stunned by her arrogance and coldness. Human nature is complex, yet she was willing to flatten a living person she hardly knew into crude labels, conducting an unsolicited psychological analysis that was entirely wrong.

I immediately called out her arrogance, and pointed out her role in the very “emotionality” she claimed to see in me.

But she quickly dismissed my serious words as hormonally driven “moodiness,” once again washing her hands of all responsibility and malice in the conversation:

“You seem kind of irritable now—are you about to get your period? Then I’ll slip away 🤣 I’m just speaking in possibilities and questions; you have to think and confirm for yourself. I can only tell you my feelings—the energy I get from you.”

“Ha. When ‘spiritual language’ and ‘family background’ won’t shut me up, you switch to ‘biology.’ In the end it’s all defense mechanisms. This isn’t a genuine ‘exchange’ at all—you’ve never entered into an equal conversation with me.” I replied.

Then she began sending me photos of her cat, along with heart emojis, trying to change the mood.

What? Did she actually expect me, at that moment, to admire how cute her cat was?

The absurdity of it enraged me. I saw clearly then—her constant evasion of my points, her refusal to understand me, her insistence on defining me with malicious means—it was because she never saw me as a person at all.

Finally, I stopped holding back with brief remarks and instead composed a long, direct reply, each sentence aimed squarely at the empathy she had locked away behind her self-defensive walls:

“I will not accept ‘love’ from someone who stands above me and refuses to know me as an equal; I will not accept anyone claiming to ‘love’ Jesus who does not empathize with Him; I will not accept someone claiming to ‘love’ God who refuses to understand the prophets entrusted with His truth!”

I was pounding my fists against the coffin lid that had been pressed over me, wanting every so-called “Christian” who mouthed hollow platitudes to hear in my blows the pain of Jesus, the weight borne by the prophets, the struggles of my brothers and sisters—our dignity.

When I sent it, Tina read it and simply reacted with a ❤️.

I had smashed open the coffin, only to find myself staring at the light with a strange uncertainty—

Lord, can someone who has never been able to enter into empathy, who is immune to the sound of a true cry, still call what she professes “faith”?