The Kneeling God

Out of all the religions I’ve found in my travels the one I’ve liked the most is the religion of the Kneeling God.

The effect is quite powerful in their temples, in order to enter you have to go up through a narrow staircase only wide enough for one person at a time, dark and silent, but when you get near the top of the of the stairs the the first thing you see is this man looking at you in the eyes. He looks like a father to whom you failed to make breakfast, only accomplishing to cover yourself on raw bacon and egg whites, but who is really proud of you nonetheless. Then you see his hands, full of callouses, big, dusty, and then you understand that he’s offering his hand to you, then you reach the top and you are finally in the temple proper. You hear the music and you see the faithful speaking among themselves and laughing, and now that you can see the full painting you see that you are not done going up, he is still inviting you to raise up and get to him, but in his eyes he’s telling you that there is no hurry, that he knows you’ll get there when you get there, and he’ll be waiting.

With only entering their temples they explain you the core of their religion. But I was still fascinated by the story at the center of their mythology.

They tell how, in the past, thousands of years ago, the cities of this world had not yet created the great sky highways, each city was isolated from the others by the great deserts between them, and yet the faith of the Kneeling God already existed, but it wasn’t known in many places, although the story doesn’t say which ones. And of course all the cities of this world say that they had always worshiped the Kneeling God and that they evangelized the other cities.

In those ancient times there was a man sentences to death for his horrible crimes, and the crimes that he committed changes in the versions of the story from city to city. In some he killed his best friend, in others he caused the death of his lover through bad choices that got out of control, in others he simply was a person drawn to crime since childhood because of a lack of education and having no family to support him. Personally I prefer the versions where he kills his best friend, but the reason for him to be sentenced to death never factors much into the story, so we can continue.

This man was waiting his execution, and his body was shaking and he cried, he wanted not to fear death, and the other prisoners where listening. 

“You were going to die anyway, common!” said an angry woman in another cell “how much difference can it make?, it isn’t as if you had family or friends that will miss you, it is all the same if you die today or in a hundred years, you weren’t going to do anything with your life anyway”.

“I thought I had time to do so much with my life, and now it all ends so quickly… I want to get out and go to the places I enjoyed, do the things I liked… the last time I did those things, I didn’t know it was the last time”.

"After dying you won’t feel anything kid” said to him a resigned man in another cell “you will stop suffering,  you just wait a while and don’t make the waiting so bad”.

“It's juts that I prefer suffering… prefer suffering to the nothing…”.

“Ha!” screamed the angry woman “then maybe your wish will come true, if what they say about hell is true!, you tell me later”.

“If I can help you” said the calmed man in the cell just in front of his “I think that no matter what will happen or not, the best thing you can do is to be calmed, think of the good times you lived, give thanks that you lived, and go away satisfied. Maybe you didn’t live the best possible life, but you lived the best life that you could, and I respect that, and you should respect it too”.

“You speak so but you are here with us” said the angry woman

“I have lived the best life I could” said the man calmly to her “if it has brought me to bad places I don’t regret it, although I would have preferred for it to be different”.

Then a man of god came to the dungeon and they opened the cell of the man sentenced to die that day and they dragged him out. The man couldn’t even stand up so he knelt before the man of god, who looked at him like one who looks at a broken sock, he said nothing and the guards took out the other prisoners from their cells despite their protests.

“My executions is not today you bastards!” was saying furious the woman.

“And yet you are all sentenced” said the man of god while they made them knelt before him, forcefully or kindly “and the way of your execution has been decided, you will take this parchment” he said producing it from his wide sleeves “and you will take it to the reflected cities beyond the desert on the other side of the ocean, so that the people from those remote places can know the benevolence of the Kneeling God”

“What kind of sentence is this?” said to the man of god the furious woman

“If you survive the crossing of the desert the god has forgiven you, if you die in the crossing the sentence will have been carried out, and you are free to win as many days of your lives as you can. If you return to the city you will be executed before entering by the guards in the walls wether you return today or in a hundred years”

And thus the sentenced ones were given water and food for two days for one person and were told to share. The guards escorted them out of the city walls along with the man of god, they advanced through the dirt road between the rocks and the plants that grew in the cracks while the air danced in the distance.

"This far we go" the man of god told them. The sentenced ones stopped an instant, they looked at each other and then they kept on walking with their backs to the city and the ocean, while man and  of god and his soldiers became dots in the distance.

“If there is a road it must lead somewhere” said the man sentenced to die that day.

“To the sea on the other side” said the calmed man.

“We'll die before arriving” said the resigned man.

“Then I will have more food for me to arrive” said the angry woman.

“My name’s Serv” said the sentenced man “if we are gonna die I want you to know that”.

“My name’s Arn” said the calmed man.

“Mine’s Bersh” said the resigned man.

“And I am Gerna” said the angry woman.

Many adventures happened to the four sentenced ones in their quest to the other side of the desert and the versions differ here as well, even though the dialogs of the characters are remarkably similar in some sections, and they are even used in rites and popular sayings.

The versions vary but this are the constants: at the end of the trip only Serv, remains, and all the others have died in more or less heroic or tragic ways based on their own ideas about death. The angry woman, Gerna, fights some bandits and is gravely wounded, the others try to heal her and help her while she insist in rejecting their help and that it doesn’t matter if she dies in that moment or later, they go to sleep believing she will make it through the night, but Serv wakes up to find her crying saying to him that what she thinks about death is true, but that she wishes it wasn’t, that she wishes to have loved someone  in such a way they she wanted to keep on living, that it isn’t dying that hurts, but that she never wanted to live.

Then dies the resigned man, Bersh. His death is impressively inconsistent, but the version that I found most effective tells how the sentenced ones were tricked and mislead through a road infested with snakes who come out of their holes when they feel the vibrations of their steps.

Seeing as they were surrounded the resigned man sighs, takes the other two and carries them in his shoulders so the snakes won’t bite them and he starts running avoiding the snakes. 

He manages to take them away from the snakes and his friends begin to thank him, but Bersh soon falls and coils in pain. Turns out that a snake did manage to bite his leg and now he feels the pain. Arn and Serv try to make a tourniquet in his legs and explain that he can survive, some venoms hurt like dying but don’t kill. Slowly his leg begins to turn red, purple, and all the colors of rotting blood. Purple spots begin appearing through all his body, they lay him down and attend to him while he wails and cries. Then, in a moment of clarity, Bersh asks them to kill him, that he cannot take the pain any longer, so Arn looks for the biggest rock he can find and smashes it against his head until his brain spills.

Finally Arn dies, the calmed man. He dies of simple thirst and tiredness, he falls next to a rock and announces to Serv that this will be the place where he will die.

Serv sits beside him and chooses to wait for him before continuing on walking. Eventually Serv asks Arn why is he so wise, but Arn answers that he is not wise, that he tried to be the best person he could but that he was still miserable, his best effort wasn’t enough to be a good person and live a good life, that his only comfort was to know that he had really tried, but that it wasn’t much comfort, then he dies besides the rock.

Finally Serv walks alone through the desert, cursing the deaths of his friends and his own which is imminent, at last he falls to the ground holding the parchment and cries for the injustices of life.

Then the Kneeling God appeared in front of him, dirty with the dust of the road and burned by the midday sun.

“What’s wrong Serv?”.

“All my friends are dead, they died for nothing, they died unhappy”.

“Life is full of suffering and injustice” said the God to him, kneeling like him.

“Why don’t you do something about it?” asked Serv with so many tears that he couldn’t see, thinking on how thirsty he would be latter.

“Gerna died protecting you, because she thought that if she didn’t find meaning in life, one of you could, Bersh died saving you because he was not resigned to let you die, and Arn knew there wasn’t enough water for you both, so he pretended to drink water each time you gave him the bottle, hopping that you could get farther and do something that could matter in the world”.

“But I don’t even have anyone to sacrifice myself for… and I don’t want to do that!, I want to live… I had time… there were so many things I could have lived…”.

Serv finally could rise his sight and see God through his tears.

“It’s okay to cry, it’s okay to be sad, it’s okay to be weak, it’s okay you regret that your life may end so soon… truth is, in life, either your accomplish something, or you die trying” then god wiped Serv’s tears so that he could see “if you die trying then it was your time and the best you could have done was to try one more time, and if it’s not your time you’ll live to try another day, and if you have become strong enough it may come the day in which you will be able to take my hand and use the help I’m sending you” he said, rising, inviting him to stand up “and that day, and all the others I will be proud of you, but first, first Serv, first you have to stand up”.

And God was no longer with him, but Serv eventually could stand up and he continued walking through the desert. He learned to drink the dew that condensed in the rocks, he learned to hunt the sand-colored lizards, he learned to follow the birds to the shadows of the rocks and the lonely trees, until one day he found a caravan, they were going to a nearby town beside the sea and they took Serv in.

Serv learned their language and became one of them. Eventually Serv could tell them about the God that Kneeled in front of him in the dessert, and of how he offered him his hand so that he could stand up and rise.

In the end Serv taught what he knew to other brave men and women and sent them to cross the dessert, find other cities and bring them the word of the Kneeling God.

Many other stories are told in this religion, like the story of how God decided to come down his throne and get dusty with the Dirt of the Road, and of the many prophets that stablished the many rites and traditions, but this one is my favorite story of one of the few religions I’ve found in my journeys I would almost like to believe in.