By Sempad Shahnazarian

Chapter One

he monk came out of his cell dressed in a long black robe, and stood motionless on top of the cliff, looking admiringly at the golden sunrise on the craggy horizon.

  In the profoundly peaceful silence, the three cupolas of Sourp Garabed Monastery shone, down below, like three burning candles under the rising sun.

  Suddenly, the bells in the marble belfry began to ring for the morning service. The ground shook from the cavernous depths and the intensity of the rolling waves and the cliff  vibrated like a violin string.

  He could hear the melodious gurgling of the spring at the base of the cliff:  The celestial concert of the birds on the trees and rocks, and the sounds of the flock of sheep on the mountainside, under the vigilant guide of shepherds and dogs.

  He strolled every day and meditated in the dreamland of the Karke-Highland, enjoying the panoramic beauty of his homeland. He collected mushrooms, khavardzil (rhubarb),  wild pears and apples, and looked for partridge eggs.

  At night, he would sit at the entrance of his cave, looking at the starlit sky, listening to the bubbling of the spring and floating into the ocean of blinking stars to meet Hasmig, his girl friend, who had died years ago.

  Every now and then a star would blink at him, making him shiver:  “Could it possibly be her?”  he would murmur. “Who knows? The Universe is an inconceivable enigma.”

  “Hey! You! Sun-worshipper Petros, where are you?”  came the playful voice of Garabed Vartabed, the priest. He was clambering up the cliff, with Sempad, a teenage student at the monastery, in their daily visit to him.

  Petros smiled with a warm flush of intimacy, and said: “Look here, Garabed, and you my little friend Sempad! Look how beautiful the sunrise is!”

  They arrived at the top of the cliff with a jug full of milk in Sempad’s hand, and the Bible in Garabed’s, while the morning breeze played gaily with his short brown beard.  He stood there charmed by the beautiful sight of Moush and the Sassoun mountains, straining his eyes to see Mount Ararat more clearly, in the hazy distance.

  “The valleys and thickets are still covered with the morning mist,” said Petros. “The panorama is so beautiful!”

  “The sustenance of the Monastery through seventeen centuries is more beautiful!” exclaimed Garabed Vartabed. “Seventeen centuries is a long time! Yes, it was seventeen hundred years ago when our ancestors built this Monastery  upon the ruins of pagan temples. Since that time, thousands of  students had received their religious education there, protected from the Persian, Mongolian and  Turkish invasions within its impermeable walls.”

  It’s amazing! It comprises thousands of acres of highlands and forest with flocks of sheep and the shepherds to take care of  them.”

  In the Monastery, at this time, live thirty-five pupils, nine vartabeds (priests) and some kitchen workers.

  “Why don’t you leave the Monastery and come to live here?”  exclaimed Petros to Garabed Vartabed.  “to live in one of these caves and enjoy every moment of your life?”

  “Because I am satisfied with the kind of life I live.”

  “What kind of satisfaction can you get out of your tearful prayers and the unfruitful biblical readings in your musty cell, while the sun shines outside; mountains stand firm against the blue sky; the flowers incense the air with their intoxicating fragrance, and the birds, in the forest, burst out in a symphonic concert. What kind of satisfaction can you call that?”

  “Spiritual satisfaction.”  answered Garabed Vartabed.

  “What do you mean by spiritual satisfaction?” asked Sempad.

  “I mean the soothing sensations one can get out of praying to God.”

  “Praying is nothing but genuflecting and begging.” said Sempad.

  “What’s wrong with that?” asked Garabed Vartabed.

  “It’s against our dignity, against our  will and against our individuality.”

  “As to the soothing sensations you were speaking of, can’t you get more inspiring and more invigorating sensations by simply contemplating this cliff...wrinkled and cracked in the eternal struggle with the elements of Nature.  It seems as if a miraculous hand had planted it there as a monument to the epic history of our people.”

  “It’s just a poetic line you’re reciting,” said Garabed Vartabed, calmly.

  “What else can you think of, when you are looking at its majestic posture and its lightning scarred body. Can you help thinking that the melodious sounds of the spring down below, day and night, is an immortal poem itself which flows out of the depths of our soil to give color and beauty to our culture?”

  “Again poetry, and beautiful  too,” said Garabed smiling.

  “Everything is poetry, Garabed!!  Creation itself is poetry. God is always in the process of creating and revising His work to suit His ever-changing taste and ideal and mood.”

  “He writes lyric upon the flowering fields of roses and lilacs, with beautiful nudes dancing all around to the tunes of Heavenly music.  They dance supple and dreamlike,  and  dissolve  into  the  blue  space. He, then, writes  epic  poetry  in the sky with black clouds gathering menacingly with diabolically laughing flashes of lightning and with thunder shaking the foundations of Heaven.  He relaxes for a moment. He, then, begins to write philosophical meditations on the pages of the starlit night.  He takes certain planets, grinds them into His crucible in order to create new elements and new forms of life.”

  “Poetry and philosophy blend together,” said Garabed Vartabed. “Can’t you ever see things the way they really are and the way they really look?  A cliff is just a cliff, standing solidly on the ground, not a monument. The gurgling of the spring is just the sound of the water caused by the pressure when it comes out of the crevice in the rock. As to the Creation, we can read it all in Genesis, and that’s all there is to it, for ever and ever...”

  “For ever and ever? How wrong you are, Garabed!  Creation has been going on ever since the beginning of Time. A vortex of forces has been constantly raging like an infuriated ocean and new things have been spit out of that creative cataclysm.

  God, the greatest architect and poet, constantly creates and constantly changes His creation.”

  Garabed listened intently to this effusion and said tenderly: “You must come down from the clouds, Petros, and feel the good old earth beneath your feet.”

  “But the question is, who is really the one who is swimming in the clouds, with eyes blurred by biblical readings?” said Petros.

  “I agree with Petros’ ideas.” said Sempad. “They have a different spirit, different blood and are very invigorating.”

  “I am glad you like my way of thinking.” said Petros, with a smile.

  The bells from the marble belfry were ringing.  Their reverberations shook the ground.  Garabed Vartabed was plunged into deep thought. The more he thought the more confused he became...Was Petros’ mind bewildered?... He had a genuine feeling of compassion for him. Petros believed in God all right, but his God was different from the one in which he believed.  Then, murmuring inaudibly: “Who knows who is right?”

  “It’s time for the morning service. I know you’re not coming, but I must go.  May God bless you.”

  “May I stay with Petros for a while?” asked Sempad.

  “Yes, you may. After all you’re the son of his best friend Fedayi Der Kerope.”

  Petros followed him out watching him descend the escarpment. On his way down, Garabed Vartabed was meditating:

  ...Ever since she died he became like this...he has been blaming God for the death of his  girl friend...he has  conceived the  ridiculous idea  that God actually kills His creatures in order to create better ones...and He does all that to satisfy His caprice...this trend of thought slowly drew him away from his former belief until he finally resigned his clerical rank and came to live here in this cave.

  As Garabed Vartabed went down, Petros returned to his cell and stretched out  on his cot thinking out loud:

  “...Praying undermines the individuality of man...Creation requires highest intelligence, effort and constancy...it requires vision, artistic genius and self-criticism...God is neither compassionate nor cruel...He is apathetic to what’s going on in the world or anywhere else...”

  “I very much enjoy listening to your views.” said Sempad. “They’re entirely different from what we read in our books.”

  For a moment Petros quit philosophizing and delved into his memories: “In our younger days, Garabed and I had worked for the Monastery as shepherds, taking care of thousands of sheep with a pack of dogs guarding against wolves and thieves. The surrounding mountains and highlands were our cherished homeland. During summer nights we would sit on the rocky mountainside. I would play my flute while the sheep and the dogs flocked around to listen to my enchanting melodies and fall asleep.”

  I would keep playing my flute under the starlit sky, thinking about Hasmig and of our future. In these moments I would feel as if the earth trembled under my feet and  the trees and rocks danced around us. The stars blinked at us amorously, and my soul would float on the undulating waves of my melodies and dissolve into the jewel-studded night. I would roam over the mountains and highlands, breathe their cool and fresh air, absorb their heavenly beauty and exclaim: This is my church! All these mountains that support the sky from falling to pieces are its pillars with the blue overhead, its ceiling. The moon was just a disc of flames hung from the vault of space and the stars were candles blinking in darkness.

  Is God a man or a woman?” a shepherd once asked me.

  “He is a Woman, of course,” I answered.

  “What makes you think He is a Woman...?”

  “He gave birth to the Universe.”

  “If He is the Mother then who is the Father?”

  “I don’t know!!” I said, laughing, and they all burst out laughing with me.

  “Who can tell what God is?” asked another shepherd.

  “He is a never satisfied poet,” answered Petros. “He writes and revises.  He creates and destroys and creates again. My girl friend Hasmig was one of His poems.  Fine and beautiful, but He wasn’t satisfied with His work so He killed her while she was imploring him not to.  She wanted to stay alive and enjoy her life with me. He didn’t like that creation of His, so He destroyed her.”

  “Don’t talk like that, Petros!” Sempad admonished him, in a friendly way. “Don’t you think that our Heavenly Father has only love and compassion for His children, and whatever He creates is perfect?”

  “Then why is it He always keeps destroying His masterpieces...?”
 

  “That’s what all religious writers say, but our consciousness is illuminating it little by little, and the trend of that illuminating process makes us believe we are correct in thinking that God can’t be compassionate nor cruel.  He is simply apathetic to what’s happening in the world.”