Title: Heretics and Angels
Author: Tiamat's Child
Rating: G
Fandom: Good Omens
Pairing: None
Disclaimer: The angel's Pratchett's and Gaiman's, the monk's his own person, even if he has taken up residence in my head.
Summary: In which Aziraphale and a monk discuss God. And finish a bottle of wine, which is probably not their first.
Notes: Meister Eckhart was very much a real person (he was a medieval German monk who preached in German instead of Latin at a time when this was frowned on, and routinely got the establishment annoyed at him with his comments on the nature of God), and I have done my best to paraphrase his complex, mostly graspable via intuition theology into terms that can be said and understood while very, very drunk. I admit freely to being an Eckhart fangirl, which affects my perception of him, but I think I've managed not to idealize him.
Heretics and Angels
"Goes like this. See, God is absu- abso- total good, right?"
"Yes."
"Yes. So he must not be good too."
"I don' think…"
"No, no! Let me, let me finish. 'Cause God's everything. Everything comes from God. So God can't be…can't…can't not be everything."
Aziraphale gave his drinking partner a very odd look. Eckhart sighed, and picked up the spoons that had been abandoned on the table. "Look. One spoon. And another spoon." The superfluous spoon was glared at and set down. "One spoon. Spoon's metal, so it comes from metal, which means the metal must be…No…Wait… Right. Got it now. The spoon's metal, right?"
Aziraphale nodded. So did Eckhart.
"So the metal must have the potet- potin- stuff to be the spoon. It can be more than the spoon, but it can't be less. Same thing wi' God." Eckhart's forehead wrinkled in concentration. "Or the Godhead, anyway. Same thing. Mostly."
"But I've met God…"
"So've I. No need to get all shirty about it."
There was a pause, in which Aziraphale pondered this.
"Smiles a lot?" he asked eventually.
"Who?" Eckhart blinked, coming up from his deep conversation with the wine.
"God."
"Oh. Yeah. Nothing but. Plays tricks too."
This sounded about right. Aziraphale nodded sadly, his sudden melancholy compounded by the fact that Eckhart had got the last of the wine.
"So what's that mean, then?"
"What?"
"God."
"The smiling?"
"No. The…the…"Aziraphale couldn't make himself say it. "The other thing."
"Means we're a whole lot less alone then we think."
"Oh."
They stared at the empty wine bottle for a while.
"More?" Eckhart asked finally.
"Wine?"
"Yes."
"I'd like that, please, if you can spare it."
Eckhart shrugged. "I've plenty."