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"I think I want to suffer.", Jonah says, propping his feet awkwardly against the wall of the confessional. He is too tall for these things, damnit. His shuffling is almost making the whole situation seem silly.
"Why do you want to suffer?", the abbot asks, calm and stern, his deep voice made all the more intense by the tightness of the confessional.
"I don't know.", Jonah answers.
Abbot Jeremiah breathes out on the other side, and Jonah imagines what it would be like feeling that breath on his skin, being so close that he shivers from it- he shakes his head. He needs to stop.
"There are people who seek pain.", Jeremiah says slowly, "It is not always a bad thing. When you think about suffering, what emotions do you feel most often?"
"That's... difficult.", Jonah says, shifting again, "I suppose it depends on the type of suffering?"
That's a non-answer, and he knows it.
"I can ask you about specific emotions, if you would like. Maybe it is easier to discern what you feel.", Jeremiah says.
"Yes, please." Jonah likes analysing himself, sometimes maybe to his detriment, but he particularly enjoys it when others help him do it. He is not one to say no to the abbot.
Jeremiah hums.
"Well, picture yourself in a mindset of suffering for me, in the same way you usually do."
Obeying immediatly, Jonah closes his eyes, folds his hands. He imagines searing, unbelievable pain in his body, imagines everything burning, imagines the presence of something horrifying, something that is torturing him.
"Jonah, dear, are you doing what I said?", Jeremiah asks. His voice takes on a slightly harsher tone, testing, ready to tell him off for disobeying if he had. Jonah is glad he's busy imagining torture, otherwise there would have been a bit of a flirtatious undertone as he says, "Yes, I am."
"Good.", Jeremiah says and Jonah almost loses the feeling entirely from the blush creeping into his cheeks. God, he needs to stop. Jeremiah is just a friend, and a celibate one at that.
"Do you feel ashamed?", Jeremiah asks and Jonah's heart jumps to the top of the booth.
"Y-yes.", he stutters.
"Does the shame come from something you are imagining, or from wanting to experience suffering in general?"
Oh. Oh, right, that's what they're doing.
"...From wanting to suffer.", he replies.
"Let us focus on the suffering itself,", Jeremiah says, "it is more important to know what emotions you crave than which ones come as a byproduct."
"Yes.", Jonah feels his ears grow hot with how throughoutly chastised he feels right now.
"Do you feel powerless, in these fantasies?"
Jonah can't help a shiver going up his spine at the question.
"Yes.", he says quietly, "I'm- completely powerless. Completely at His mercy."
"Good.", Jeremiah says again and Jonah shudders.
He imagines himself burning, aching, screaming without making a sound. He sees the indescribable face of God and on the edge of a cliff he sees Jeremiah, just standing there in his robes, untouched, focused on him like a laser.
This version of Jeremiah watches him with a cold, clinical look in his eyes. Like Jonah is a frog whose insides the man is analysing. He enjoys having his eyes on him in such a penetrating, intimate way. It makes him feel all the smaller.
"Do you feel inferior?", Jeremiah asks.
"To you, yes.", Jonah doesn't even realise that he said it out loud until he hears the words come out of his mouth.
"To me?", Jeremiah asks, curious, "Why is that?"
Jonah laughs, disbelieving. There's a million reasons why, obviously. Jeremiah has it together. He's confident, handsome, kind and loving towards his monks. He lives a fulfilled life, he has the kind of spark in his eyes that speak of a hunger for experience and emotion. He's in the light. He knows where he belongs.
"You don't suffer from this... absence, correct?", he settles for, "That would be one reason."
Jeremiah ponders this, for a moment. Jonah hears his fingers drum softly against the wood and imagines them on his skin instead. He imagines shivering under the abbot's gaze.
"The way you have described it, no.", Jeremiah says, "But there have been times I felt similar."
"But you don't, currently."
"No,", Jeremiah admits, "for a long time now I have been very aware of God."
Jonah doesn't answer. A moment of silence takes form between them. Jonah wishes he could be closer. Beyond the physical, he wishes Jeremiah could show him the way. He wishes Jeremiah would push him in front of God, deliver him. Brother Elijah said once that he believed Jeremiah was divinely chosen to be abbot. Maybe there is truth to that.
"My apologies.", Jeremiah says eventually, "I can see that it is not a helpful answer."
"That's okay.", Jonah mumbles.
"This will for suffering.", Jeremiah continues, "Does it come from a place of awe, too?"
"How do you mean?", Jonah asks.
"Perhaps this is your way of recognising the Lord's power.", Jeremiah says, "After all, we can barely comprehend even a fraction of it. Maybe your mind links power over you with your pain at their hands."
"Huh. Maybe?", Jonah hasn't really thought about it that way. He thinks the pain may be a side effect of awe, though, that he's simply not able to gaze at his God without it burning his very soul.
"Do you trust Him?", the question is quiet, low, said with a dark edge that carries importance.
"Yes.", Jonah whispers without hesitation.
He does trust God. That hurts him too, he supposes. He deals with the absence with the deepest trust, knowing himself to be the problem.
"Even though He hurts you?", Jeremiah says.
"Yes.", again no hesitation in Jonah's voice. The way his mouth forms the syllable is wanting even, yearning.
"I see.", Jonah can hear Jeremiah run his fingers through his beard, "Do you think wanting to suffer comes from your willingness to test and prove that trust, too?"
"I don't think so.", in truth, Jonah doesn't know. But he does know that when he imagines this suffering, it is always under God's watchful eyes and there is always a terrifying, reverent clarity in that.
"I think if the Lord wants to test my trust, this absence He's put on me would be the way to do it."
Jeremiah hums.
"Do you think God is humiliating you, Jonah?", he asks after another moment of silence.
Jonah looks away, focuses on the wall. That isn't something he wants to think. Not after he said he trusts in whatever it is God is doing.
"...Humbling. Not humiliating.", he ends up saying.
Jeremiah seems to ignore the correction completely, as he continues.
"Do you believe that literal pain is less humiliating? That directly hurting you is something you can better handle than the indirect pain of negligence?"
"I- I don't know.", Jonah stammers, "Maybe?"
Whenever he imagines suffering after all, he isn't in literal pain. He doesn't know how he would handle that, how long it would take for him to wish himself back to being neglected.
"Hm.", Jeremiah makes, probably disappointed by the vague answer. Jonah supposes that is understandable- he's not even really sure what goal the abbot is trying to reach with these questions, but he can guess that definite answers would make it much easier.
"Are you thankful, pastor?", he asks, voice now that deeper, grave tone he adopts when he holds mass. Jonah loves getting to see it every once in a while. The strict, ancient routine of the catholics doesn't seem silly at all when he does it. To Jonah it always feels almost natural, as if Jeremiah was the one who invented the concept of praying together.
"Thankful for what, exactly?", he forces himself to get his thoughts back on track.
"When you suffer.", Jeremiah says, "Do you imagine yourself thankful for that suffering?"
"No, I don't.", he thinks for a moment, "Though maybe I should. It'd be the fulfilment of something I want very desperately after all, right?"
"Possibly.", Jeremiah hums, "But, dear, what you want is still for God to hurt you. It is a difficult thing to be thankful for."
Jonah supposes that is true. But still, in all the time spent on this fantasy, he never turned to God in praise or thanksgiving like he should. He professed his love, his faith, he accepted everything he could imagine would hurt him, but he has never shown gratitude.
"It's just never occured to me to give thanks for it.", he admits, embarrassed, "I don't know why."
Jeremiah thinks for a moment, then says "If you don't think this is because you are not grateful, perhaps instead you feel as though your thanksgiving is not worth anything."
That gets Jonah to huff and shrug, and notice again how cramped the box is.
"I know I'm not worth anything,", he says, "so how could my praise be?"
There is a soft sigh from the other side, and with a spike of shame Jonah realises how defensive he is getting for his lack of praising God. How selfish of him, how sanctimonious.
"You are meant to praise and glorify Him in everything you do, Jonah.", Jeremiah says, and Jonah closes his eyes to indulge in the shame and excitement he feels at the gentle yet stern reprimanding.
"I know.", he replies softly, "But you don't do these things for God, you do them for yourself."
"And so you deem your praise worthless because you don't think it can help you?"
Jonah shifts.
"Maybe.", he says, "And maybe I don't want to be helped. Or think I shouldn't be."
"Mh-hm.", Jeremiah makes.
Once again, a moment of contemplative silence fills the booth.
"You know as well as I do,", Jeremiah eventually starts, "that we are promised a loving God. One who takes care of us."
Jonah nods along, although the abbot can't see him.
"Do you feel betrayed, Jonah? That those promises are not fulfilled in your suffering?"
"I-", is it a betrayal? He has long stopped allowing himself to feel like it is, like he deserves anything else.
"I think we are not entitled to these things. If God is kind to us, it is not because we deserve it, but because He is kind beyond what we can understand. So when He is not kind, we can't demand it of Him."
"Mh.", Jeremiah makes, skeptical. He must know that Jonah is technically right though, so he doesn't dispute the statement.
"...When I imagine myself suffering, I'm more glad that God is proving to me that He is there, than feel betrayed that He is hurting me.", Jonah adds, trying to provide a personal reason as well as a theological one.
"And proof that He is with you is something you want, no matter the cost.", Jeremiah's voice is low, contemplative, slotting a piece of the puzzle into the right place.
"Yes.", Jonah says, "I think directly causing that suffering is the closest I can imagine God to be to me nowadays."
It is a sad fact, but saying it out loud makes sense. Physical closeness, after all, tends to come with physical sensations. And what sensation is more intense and all-consuming, and therefore most appropriate to feel when close to God, than pain?
Jeremiah hums again and reminds Jonah of his vocal chords, the way his chest probably vibrates, and that's another closeness he craves, an echo of his desire to be close to God.
"Do you feel exposed, Jonah?", Jeremiah asks and the tone alone is making Jonah feel very exposed right now, "Do you relish in being opened and examined by God in this way?"
"Yes.", Jonah says, immediatly ashamed again. He thinks the abbot must have sensed it, somehow. How perceptive he can be sometimes makes Jonah's hairs stand up.
"Is this why you keep asking me for this, as well?", Jeremiah asks, "A less violent form of examination, something to come close to what you crave?"
The words hit Jonah like arrows and now he really, really wishes the confessional wasn't so cramped, because then he can shrink away to the back wall and put the semblance of distance between him and the abbot.
"I'm sorry.", he says instead, "I didn't mean to use you as a replacement, that-", he sighs, "You're right."
"In many ways, I am supposed to be a replacement, or rather a metaphor for God, am I not?", Jeremiah says, calm and confident. He holds his fingers against the screen, as if to be comforting, to say he is there. It's a sweet gesture.
"You are, but I don't want to put all this baggage on you also."
Jeremiah huffs. "This is a confession, Jonah. You have confessed. Anything you carry within yourself, you carry before God."
"...Yes. I know.", Jonah closes his eyes again, chastised.
"So.", Jeremiah says, "We come to your penance."