I bring the tacos because they can’t go through the drive-thru to get them. We do this ritual every week in the summer. At sunset, when they shed their stony shells and can breathe and move again, I get to the roof of the cathedral (I know the priest) and there they are, waiting! They take the bags from me, kindly, and dive in to unwrap the treasures. From this height you can see so much of the city below, and it is beautiful. Scarfing down tacos and laughing with your friends on a roof– I wish everyone could do that.
You know, one thing most people don’t know about gargoyles is that they are philosophers—and very spiritual–they spend all this time gazing over the city, thinking about the life beneath them. They say, “Doesn’t everyone watch the life below them?” They come up with radical ideas. “Gargoyles are above the Pope!” “Above all the priests and cardinals!” “If God were in the sky, we would be closer to God, mathematically,” and they laugh. “They would see us first!” (Crunch! go the tacos).
Sometimes they wonder, in a philosophical way, why there is so little joy in the world. And it makes them sad to see the daytime world, a place they can’t experience, not make people happier. They discuss how we hurt each other, how joy is kept away from us, made restricted, or expensive, or impossible to experience. They sigh and stop eating, becoming still like stone. I hold up a taco. “We do not value the taco enough in this world and the joy it brings!” They holler and hoot and roll over, “You do not!” and stuff more tacos into their mouths, and taco shells, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, cover their bodies. I believe gargoyles are angels (smeared in taco sauce) watching over us without the capacity to help, and this steals their joy. They are hoping for us, I know, rooting for us, in their silence. On these nights, I stay with them all night in a warm gargoyle cuddle, loving, laughing, telling them stories of people who *do* find joy, while we watch the stars float by and catch the Moon looking down on us from the top of a space cathedral somewhere, smiling at us in all our joy.
Bear Witness 