Caleb - Final Stance

The messages did not stop.

Phone calls too. They arrived in waves. All dressed in different language but carried the same hunger.

Carefully written warm emails from dioceses I had never heard of. Video calls routed through intermediaries who smiled too much. Invitations framed as discernment opportunities, as if my life were a chess piece they could simply slide to another square.

‘We’ve been watching your situation closely.’

‘You’ve handled this with remarkable composure.’

‘You have a gift. We’d hate to see it wasted.’

Some were subtle. Others less so. The Protestants were more direct about wanting me.

‘You don’t have to choose loneliness to choose God.’

‘Our congregation believes marriage strengthens ministry.’

‘We value pastors who’ve been tested by fire.’

I did not respond to any of them. My own church was still trying to hold me back and I still wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt in return. I did save some polite emails for future prospects.

I was invited to dinners. Asked to pray together. Everyone spoke to me gently, as one speaks to a horse they are afraid might bolt.

‘You’re at a crossroads,’ one senior cleric said. 

‘These moments define men.’ One added.

What they meant was “choose us”

Back at my own denomination, I kept being reminded that I was close. Everything I had worked toward for was still within reach if I would only relax and take a step back. Go back to the time before I met Aika and remember my calling. I was remind of my future. And of my father’s.

A call came late in the evening, just as I was leaving the common hall. A breathless junior aide waved me down.

‘They need you on the call. Now.’

Before I could ask who, I was redirected to the head priest office and was asked to sit down.

A video call? The screen filled before I could decline.

A familiar face appeared. Older than I remembered. Behind him, shelves of books and a framed seal that told me exactly who had arranged this.

An ambush, then.

‘Caleb, I hear you’re struggling.’ He said smoothly, as if we were picking up a conversation paused decades ago.

I stared at my own reflection in the corner of the screen. I looked very tired. But I was still standing.

‘Struggling,’ I repeated. ‘Is that what you call it.’

He ignored the question.

‘You’re gifted,’ he continued. ‘Your father was too. But he lacked… endurance.’

There it was. I had prayed my whole life that they didn’t treat my father the way it was told. But it was turning out to be true.

‘Don’t repeat his mistake,’ the man said. ‘He confused personal desire with divine will.’

I took a deep breath and a quick mental prayer before I managed to formule a response that wasn’t unbecoming of God’s beloved son.

‘My father,’ I said carefully, ‘left because he loved God enough to stop lying to Him.’

The man’s mouth tightened. Probably thought the same thing I did seconds ago.

‘He abandoned his vows.’

‘He reinterpreted them,’ I replied. ‘And the lives he’s touched since then speak louder than your paperwork ever could.’

He scoffed. ‘He could have done that work within the Church.’

‘No,’ I said, and this time I let the edge show. ‘He could not have run orphanages while being forbidden to love openly. He could not have built shelters while pretending his heart was a liability. He could not have taught boys like me that faith is meant to enlarge you, not amputate you.’

I saw movement behind him. Some more people were there, listening and appraising my value perhaps. I didn’t care.

‘And my mother,’ I continued, ‘could not have held dying patients’ hands at three in the morning if she’d stayed cloistered. She could not have saved lives with her own hands while being told her body was only holy when hidden.’

He tried to interrupt. I didn’t let him.

‘You removed them. You shamed them. And yet, between them, they have fed more people, healed more people, and housed more children than you have ever prayed over.’ I spat.

The silence on the line stretched. He hadn’t expected this. He had expected deference. He hoped I would show gratitude or fear.

‘You exist, because people like my parents refused to believe that obedience requires erasure.’ I hissed.

‘You’re being emotional.’

I unintentionally scoffed. ‘I am being accurate.’

I ended the call before he could speak again. The screen went dark. My reflection stared back at me. I was breathing hard. I was clearly trying to keep myself composed the whole time. My eyes finally cleared in a way they hadn’t been for weeks.

After that, everything accelerated. I was inundated with “meetings”, but they were mostly warnings. All one way talks. Lots of soft ultimatums wrapped in concern.

‘You’re burning bridges.’

‘You’ll regret this.’

‘You’re too young to throw everything away.’

They spoke as if my life were a ladder and not a calling that had already changed shape. I was grateful for everything I had learned and gained from being with them. But at this point, there was no longer similarity in the path the Lord told me I should walk in, and the path the church wanted me to take.

I sat across from them one last time.

‘I don’t regret becoming a priest,’ I said evenly. I had always been grateful for every opportunity to be of help. I do not regret that one bit.

‘I needed this. I wouldn’t have reached and touched many lives as I did if I wasn't one. I wanted to follow God’s plan for me. I needed discipline. I needed to understand faith in its plenty colors.’

They waited patiently. Maybe hopeful that I would say something favorable to them.

‘But I am not going to spend the rest of my life defending an institution that treats compassion like a public relations risk.’

They looked offended and started to talk amongst themselves. This time, some of them didn't hide their dislike of me anymore. I couldn’t blame them. They all tried to persuade me in their own ways.

‘‘Caleb stay”, “Caleb God’s plan for you was set in motion long before any woman”, “Caleb are you going to fail us like your father did.” Such words filled my head in the past weeks.

‘I am not leaving God. I am leaving the version of Him you use to keep people small.’ I explained.

Someone said, ‘Think of what you’re giving up.’

I nodded. ‘I have.’

I thought of Aika’s trembling hands. Of my parents’ steady ones. Of the people my father fed, the patients my mother held, the women who had written to Aika because she dared to speak.

‘I am not afraid of starting over. I am afraid of  not growing in the Lord. I am afraid of staying where truth has to ask permission.’

No one stopped me when I stood. No one blessed me either. That was fine.

I packed lightly. I left behind books and familiar walls. Small things that could be replaced. What I could not carry with me was the title, the weight of its obedience, and the version of myself groomed to endure quietly, believing that suffering without protest was virtue.

As I stepped outside, my phone buzzed again with another invitation. I was hoping for Aika...

For the first time in weeks, the air felt breathable. I did not know where I would land yet, but I knew with absolute clarity that my parents’ love had not ruined their faith. It had completed it. 

I walked away without looking back.

 If my path now led somewhere messier, less revered, less certain, then so be it.