East of Eden: Birmingham

Sometimes,

not all the time,

he doubts.

The phone lights up—

war in Iran,

slaughter in Gaza,

climate breakdown racing

like a car with no brakes.

He hums the tune—

Who can stop the Lord Almighty?

A mantra on repeat.

But then he asks,

Where is the mighty God now?

Remembering late nights

reading the Brewdog—

his slimline books on the Psalms,

ancient songs of hope

and raw lament.

This is disorientation, he thinks.

Sometimes Hillsong and that

big church in London

feel like Disney—

bright smiles,

choreographed joy,

a world that seems too clean,

too shiny.

Sometimes he wonders if he’s fake,

preaching the

joy of the Lord

when inside,

he feels more like

misery’s tenant.

He is—let’s be clear—

a confident young priest.

Good shoes.

Solid liturgy.

A jazzy stole or two.

Can talk scripture and justice

without missing a beat.

He struts through Handsworth and Sparkhill,

cursing potholes,

dodging dog muck,

muttering Morning Prayer

with AirPods in,

a Marks and Spencer meal deal

stuffed in his pockets.

But sometimes—

not all the time—

he doubts.

He thinks about a man with a lantern,

calling out “God is dead,” or maybe just missing—

yet he is holding a torch

and saying “God is alive.”

Do other priests ever think this?

Muttering,

“The batteries are going,

I think it needs a recharge.”

Lost somewhere between

boarded-up shops

and food bank queues

longer than Sunday’s intercessions.

He feels the fracture—

world split wide,

left brain’s sharp edges

cutting off the right’s quiet whole.

They never used to doubt, he thinks.

He likes his books—

he meets God there—

or so he thinks—

his brain lights up,

not in boarded-up windows,

not in the homeless man’s

outstretched hand,

not in the cracked smiles

outside the Bullring.

A woman weeps.

A man offers stolen Lynx Africa

,the spray and the shower gel combo,

for a fiver and a blessing.

He blesses the guy to get him off his back—

sometimes vicars pray

to signal the end of a meeting,

it works,

and he didn’t even have to part with cash.

A teenager calls him

“Rev Roadman”

and asks if Jesus ever smoked.

He prays—

sometimes with fire,

sometimes by habit,

sometimes because the rota says so.

Sometimes he skips prayers—

he wonders if other vicars always pray the office.

East of Eden.

Aston, Small Heath.

The Kingdom feels

a little overdue.

Sometimes,

not all the time,

he doubts.

He sings Magnificat in the mirror—

muffled by sirens and street preachers

with louder megaphones

and worse theology.

Faith feels like a jumper

that shrank in the wash—

familiar but uncomfortable,

trying to stretch again.

Still—

he sits with Dave,

four cans deep,

who talks about grace

like he invented it.

He hears Sandra’s prayer

for her lad in Winson Green nick—

spoken through fag smoke

and half-held hope.

He sees joy in cracked places,

like sunlight through smashed stained glass—

reminding him maybe the Light

is not some perfect whole,

but something fractured,

alive in the broken.

And so he keeps walking,

lantern swinging,

between doubt and belief,

between noise and silence,

between the left’s demand for certainty

and the right’s quiet invitation

to wonder.

Sometimes,

not all the time,

he doubts.

And then—

somewhere between

the incense and the urban grime,

he glimpses Him—

not lofty,

but lowly.

The world’s true Light.

-Rev'd Jon Swales