God is my best friend. I talk to God every day. And no one can

Host: The moon was a silver coin lost in a clouded sky, its light drifting across the cemetery gates and the narrow street beyond. Candles flickered along the stone path, their flames trembling in the wind like prayers caught between heaven and earth.

A church bell tolled in the distance, deep, measured, ancient — a sound that felt both comforting and accusing.

Inside the old chapel, Jack sat alone in a wooden pew, his head bowed, his hands clasped, though not in faith — in confusion. The air was thick with the smell of wax, dust, and forgotten devotion.

The door creaked open, and Jeeny entered, her steps soft, her eyes luminous in the dim light. She carried no rosary, no book, no symbols — only a quiet presence, as though she had come not to worship, but to understand.

Jeeny: (her voice gentle, but with fire underneath)
“Eve once said, ‘God is my best friend. I talk to God every day. And no one can tell me how to talk to God — not no imam, not no priest, not no rabbi, no pastor.’”
(She moved closer, her gaze steady on him.)
“I think that’s the purest kind of faith, Jack. The kind that doesn’t need a translation.”

Jack: (lifting his head slowly, his voice a gravelly murmur)
“Faith without a language is just silence, Jeeny. You can’t build a world on private conversations with God. You need structure, ritual, law — otherwise everyone’s just hearing what they want to hear.”

Host: The candlelight flickered across his face, casting deep lines of weariness and skepticism. The stained glass windows, half lit by moonlight, glowed faintly — saints frozen mid-prayer, their hands raised, their eyes blind.

Jeeny: “You call it silence, but I call it intimacy. Why should anyone tell me how to speak to the divine that lives within me? Isn’t that what all the prophets did — listen to the voice no one else could hear?”

Jack: (leaning back, his eyes narrowing)
“And look where that got them — divided worlds, holy wars, truths that contradict each other. Everyone says God told me so, and suddenly there’s blood on the ground. That’s the danger of private gods, Jeeny — they don’t always agree.”

Jeeny: (a flash of anger, but also compassion)
“That’s not God’s fault, Jack. That’s ours. Religion is what happens when people stop listening and start organizing. It’s like trying to trap lightning in a jar — you get a bit of the light, but you lose the wildness that made it divine.”

Host: The wind rattled the old glass panes, shaking loose a faint dust of centuries-old prayers. Somewhere, a candle faltered, its flame bending, then rising again — defiant, alive.

Jack: (his voice rising with quiet intensity)
“Without the jar, there is no light to share. You can’t build faith on feelings. The world needs order, Jeeny. People need guidance, structure — that’s why we have priests, imams, rabbis. They’re not guards, they’re translators. You wouldn’t read ancient scripture without context, would you?”

Jeeny: (sharply, with conviction)
“No, Jack — they’re not translators. They’re intermediaries, and half the time they end up standing between people and God instead of leading them to Him. You think God needs a middleman? If the universe made my soul, why shouldn’t I be allowed to speak to it directly?”

Jack: (coldly, though not unkindly)
“Because people hear what they want, Jeeny. They’ll say God told me to hate, God told me to kill, God told me I’m chosen. Without discipline, faith becomes a mirror, not a window. You stop seeing God — you just see yourself.”

Host: A silence fell, thick and alive, as though the walls themselves were listening. The flames on the candles leaned toward one another, their light trembling like two souls in argument.

Jeeny: (softly now, but with unshakable certainty)
“Maybe that’s the point, Jack. Maybe God wants us to see ourselves — to find the divine not above, but within. When I say I talk to God, I don’t mean some voice from the clouds. I mean the stillness that tells me when I’ve been cruel, the warmth that forgives me when I’ve been lost. That’s not madness, that’s intimacy.”

Jack: (leaning forward, his tone quiet but edged with sorrow)
“But how do you know it’s God and not your own conscience? How do you tell the divine whisper from the echo of your desire? Faith without doubt is just delusion.”

Jeeny: (meeting his gaze, unflinching)
“Maybe faith is delusion — the kind that saves us. The kind that keeps the dark from becoming truth. You want proof, but God was never a theorem. He’s a relationship. And no one has the right to dictate how we speak to our beloved.”

Host: The candles flared, casting long shadows along the aisle. The light seemed to bend around them, embracing, testing, revealing.

The chapel was no longer just stone and wood — it was alive with tension, with faith, with the unspoken question between them: Where does God live — in heaven, or in the human heart?

Jack: (his voice lowering, now tinged with something like awe)
“You sound like the mystics I used to read — the ones the Church called heretics. The ones who said God wasn’t in the temple, but in the soul.”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly)
“And who’s to say they were wrong? The heretics are usually just the ones who loved God too personally for the system to handle.”

Jack: (quietly, after a pause)
“Maybe. But systems are what keep the flame alive. Without them, every generation starts over, rediscovering God like a lost language.”

Jeeny: “And maybe that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be. Maybe every generation is meant to rediscover Him — not through instruction, but through encounter. Maybe faith isn’t a map — it’s a conversation. One so intimate that no one else should dare to translate it.”

Host: Outside, the wind howled, pressing against the stained glass, rattling the frames. The moonlight shifted, pouring through the crimson pane depicting the Christ, bathing the chapel in the color of blood and love intertwined.

Jack: (after a long silence)
“I envy you, you know. You speak about God like He’s still… listening.”

Jeeny: (reaching out, her hand trembling as she touches his)
“He is. Just not always in the ways we expect. Maybe He’s listening right now — through our doubt, through our anger, through this conversation.”

Jack: (looking down at their joined hands, his voice breaking into something softer)
“And maybe that’s what faith really is — not knowing if He hears, but speaking anyway.”

Jeeny: (smiling, a tear glistening on her cheek)
“Exactly. That’s why I talk to Him every day. Not because I’m certain — but because I hope. Because the act of speaking keeps my soul alive.”

Host: The bell tolled again, its sound rolling through the chapel, reverberating through the stone, echoing in the spaces between their words.

In that moment, the sacred and the human became one — not in doctrine, but in dialogue.

Host: The flames on the candles steadied, as if the universe itself had paused to listen.

And as Jack and Jeeny sat there, hands entwined, light flickering across their faces, it was clear that Eve had been right:

Faith is not obedience.
It is friendship —
wild, unfiltered, unteachable —
a conversation no priest or pastor can translate,
but one every soul must one day learn to speak.

Host: Outside, the wind softened, the moonlight warmed, and for one breathless instant,
the world felt like a prayer that had finally been answered —
not from above,
but from within.