By Felix F. Bethel.
“…the dark end…”
Today is a hard one for me; this because I feel constrained to say something about that matter that today brings Father David Cooper and an affair that was his and one woman’s to the public’s attention.
In this regard, I have taken note of the fact that, “…A Catholic priest admitted yesterday he was intimately involved with a woman who died in a fire at her apartment four years ago - the same day he had to be pulled from a separate blaze at his own home…”I am so sad for this man.
I am sadder still for the family and in particular, I am terribly sorry for the son of the woman who lived on Faith Avenue-no less who had decided that, she could/ should and did truly love a man who was a religious.
I also now know that, “During the continuation of the coroner's inquest into the death of 35-year-old hotel worker Nicola Gibson, Father David Cooper took the stand, claiming he visited the deceased on the night before she died, but does not remember how he got home…”
But no matter how this man got home, today I heard Percy Sledge as he cried out in song: At the dark end of the street; that is where we always meet, hiding in shadows where we don't belong; living in darkness, to hide alone…”
And in refrain, the word echoes - You and me, at the dark end of the street; you and me…
The ‘you and me that they were’ came with its fair share of tensions; some so severe that, Father Cooper was constrained to tell the Coroner’s Court that, “…at the time of her death there was tension in their relationship as he was trying to pull away, but she wanted their involvement to continue…”
Percy Sledge affirms: When the daylight all goes around; and by chance we're both down the town; please meet, just walk, walk on by; Oh, darling, please don't you cry…”
In truth, the crying did end; it ended in the stone-cold silence that is Death’s stony-hard handprint – with the information in the wind attesting to facts and even more facts: 1.Ms. Gibson was found dead following a fire at her Faith Avenue apartment on the morning of July 21, 2006; 2. Just hours earlier, at around 3.30am, Fr. Cooper was found unconscious at the rectory of Holy Family Church on Robinson and Claridge roads by fire officers, who had been called to tackle a fire at the building; 3. Fr. Cooper, who was the rector at Holy Family at the time of the incident, told the court he met Ms Gibson during 1995 and 1997 when she came to see the rector of St Francis Xavier's Cathedral in relation to her upcoming marriage at the time; and 4. The priest told the court their friendship began after her fiancé died in a motorcycle accident; and 5. Things have a way of happening in this stone-cold place.
Like what I’m trying to say is that, you go about your business and you try your best to keep your balance – and then, like wham-gadjammit; something happens.
That nasty something makes you giddy as hell; and then, once you are giddy with the dizziness; something else happens that makes you want to holler. That sad something that makes me want to holler so very much has to do with the really sad story concerning the man who loved a woman; and as to how the same woman died in a fire; and as to how the man who loved the woman might have also died in a fire in his home.
And then, I hear say that the man who was found in the burning room has told a Coroner’s Court that he thought that he was somehow abnormal for having succumbed to the mystery he thought inherent not in loving a woman; but for him – a religious- to have been that man who loved a woman.
Lord God Almighty, protect me now as I say to this people that is yours: The night that came before the morning after was short enough and in the fitful time I slept and in which I dreamed; I dreamed a number of dreams; and in the time I dreamed the dreams I dreamed, I saw in one of them a good man – Conrad Knowles; himself a very good man.
I really can’t say why I dreamt as I did and as to why it was my fate on this recent night that came before the morning after; but what I can tell you is that on waking, I discovered that, I was still clothed in my right mind.
And so, clothed thus, I made it my business to listen in to songs piped my way thanks to stuff on the internet; with two of these songs clinging in memory: Morning has broken and Dark End of the Street by Percy Sledge.
At this point, I thought about the matter that matters so very much to me on this blessed Thursday; that matter being the one in the news concerning Father David Cooper.
And then I listened in to Percy Sledge as he continued with his woe-filled lament about what did in truth and in fact go down as it did on the dark end of the street: I know a time has gonna take it's toll. We have to pay for the love we stole; it’s a sin and we know it’s wrong; oh our love keeps going on strong…
And I listened in –as it were from a long time ago in my life - when I too searched for love and comfort and care and for caresses galore; I searched knowing full well that: Steal away to the dark end of the street/ You and me was an act of transgression fit for the likes of David who thought that he could have it all because he just so happened to be a man after God’s own heart.
At that juncture –as the Word informs – Uriah’s fate was sealed and so was what that of Bathsheba, Uriah’s beautiful and well-bathed wife.
In the same twinkling moment, I remembered some of what Father Cooper allegedly told the police. And then, it also dawned on me that Percy Sledge had said, “They gonna find us, they gonna find us; They gonna find us love someday; You and me, at the dark end of the street - You and me.
Interestingly, [so I put it, interestingly]: Fr. Cooper described his relationship with the deceased as "abnormal" considering his vow of chastity…
Even I now I wonder about the need for celibacy itself as a co-requisite for service to the Master and to God Almighty Himself.
Even now, I wonder; and even now, I bless God for the gift he gave me when he caused my path and that of the late Conrad Knowles to cross where it did and how it did.
And I bless God for the dream I dreamed when I dreamt about this good man; and so, too I suggest is Father Cooper; and so too any number of men who have stumbled and fallen.
I am also quite aware that, the God we all serve is a God of truth and He is also a God of mercy to all his children: the good, the bad and the truly ugly.
Clearly, then, we have all sinned and we have all sinned and we have [each and every one of us] fallen short of the glory of God; this even as some of us continue to rendezvous with lust at the dark end of the street.
November 4th, 2010
jonesbahamas
