There’s a ghost in my belfry—not a demon, but a soul from purgatory.
He probably doesn’t realize where he is spiritually or what state he’s in, but feels comfortable staying in the shelter of the church.
He’s seeking something, however, and it makes me uneasy thinking what that could be.
I decide to be direct with him.
“What do you want with me?”
The ghost cringes a little, but then recovers his courage and states his business.
“I want you to confess and absolve me, Father. Do that, and I’ll be gone.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“You’re dead. The scripture says it’s appointed unto man to die once, and then the judgment.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Well then, how do you explain the fact I’m still here?”
“I have no explanation for that,” I moan.
“Exactly! So, go ahead and confess me and I’ll be out of your hair.”
“I told you, I can’t.”
“Yes, but you also told me you have no explanation for why I’m still here. Obviously, God has allowed me to persist on this plane, so I have unfinished business.”
“And what business is that?”
He pauses a moment, probably wondering whether or not I can be trusted.
Since he knows about my blurring across certain moral lines in obsessing about Victoria Woods, I don’t blame him.
And to tell the truth, I don’t know if I can be trusted with much.
Finally, however, the specter comes to a decision and begins to confide in me.
“I amassed a sizeable fortune but died before I could bequeath it to charity. I had no living relatives and meant to do something good with my wealth.”
“So now, why don’t you just walk into a bank and sign it all over to charity? You have no problem making your will known to me.”
“Ah, but that’s the problem, Father. I can only manifest on holy ground. Besides, when alive, I didn’t trust banks—not since they failed during The Great Depression. I hid my money in caches all over town and have been using an angel to deliver gifts and cash donations for me.”
“An angel?” I ask incredulously.
“Yes, a messenger. Well actually, Angelo—your custodian. I appeared to him and made him an offer he couldn’t resist. I’m afraid I scared him half to death though. Hence, my need to confess my sin.”
“So, you think giving your money away will atone for your sins?”
“No—not at all. I just want to do something useful with it—but now, I’ve committed a sin by blackmailing poor Angelo into helping me.”
“Why don’t you just donate your money to the church—save St. Tristan’s from being torn down, or worse—turned into a restaurant?”
“A restaurant? That would be a horrid outcome. Yes, of course, I will help the church—but if I do, will you help me?”
I weigh the cost of giving a dead man absolution, but in the end, decide to do so as a charity to the living—and no, I’m still not sure of the theology.
I use to think I was a man of principles—now I think I’m just a man.
It’s funny how life changes you—circumstances bend you, or maybe you realize all the time it was you who was bending trying to fit a template that wouldn’t bend for you.
The vows you swear at twenty, don’t serve you well at thirty, and in the end you grudgingly conclude, you shouldn’t swear vows at all.
I don’t know where this leaves me—maybe bewildered, definitely enchanted, and perhaps a little in awe.
As for the details of what transpired, I suppose looking back it wasn’t really unexpected at all. In a way it was Fate, or God’s sovereign design—at the very least, His permissive will.
Oliver Morton went to his deserved rest a happy man. St. Tristan’s was saved from the wrecking ball or worse, being at the mercy of Barbarians.
I resigned as pastor, although Bishop Wierton considered my departure a temporary retirement.
He shook my hand and reminded me. “You’re a priest forever, Tom, according to Hebrews 7.”
But in the same breath, he also offered to marry me to Victoria Woods.
“I see it more as an annunciation, than a renunciation,” he told me.
I could see that—the prospect of a baby on the way—a miracle in keeping with the spirit of the season.
And the vows I’d make to Victoria I'd surely never break.
And in the end it turned out well—that Christmas was the whitest, brightest feast the town had ever known, and it was all because of a repentant ghost and two lost souls finding love.