Vampires in Church

I'm being really careful when I drink now. I try to keep alert. And I never stave off meal times.
That is so dangerous, you know, like if you miss one day, you get driven to do things that you never would ordinarily do.
Missing a meal when I was a human never did that to me. Who says that vampires have it easy?
Anyway, today I went back to that church I was talking about the last time, the one down on Ames street. I don't know why, I just had the urge to go there.
Gosh, being a vampire must have made me religious. When I was normal I never had the urge to go to church.
I just went there and sat down in one of the pews. It's actually kind of nice and peaceful to just sit there and think, with no one about you. I was getting sick of being in my apartment and the graveyard's a little cold.
Anyway, one of those priest people show up. Called himself Father Joseph. And he just came by and smiled at me in that fatherly manner that priests have and mentioned he hadn't seen me before. I said I didn't come often. "It's pretty peaceful here," I added.
He nodded. "When there are no services I like to just come here and pray."
"I never pray," I said, frowning.
To his credit, he didn't look shocked or disapproving. He just kept smiling and nodding. "But maybe you already do but you don't know that you are praying to God," he said.
I don't know what he was talking about but I just gave him a kind of half-smile half-grimace thing and hoped I looked like I understood.
"Whenever we are in trouble," he went on, "sometimes we pray to God for help, even though we don't realize that we're doing so." He added, "You look like you are in need of prayer. There is some problem bothering you?"
"Father, you don't know the half of it," I said, rolling my eyes.
"Perhaps talking about it would help?"
"No, I doubt it would," I said. "I'm probably beyond help now." Then I realized how that sounded and laughed. "Don't worry, Father, I don't mean that I'm suicidal. Far from it."
He studied me for a moment without smiling. "Sometimes," he said, "that can be the worst thing of all. To suffer from a problem that you cannot run from. But this is reality. All people have to deal with it. Running away will only make a problem worse. The best thing to do is to face up to your problem but that can be a very difficult thing to do."
Yeah, I thought, so does that mean I should face up to the fact that I'm a monster?
"But remember, child, no matter what, God's grace will always be with you."
Something in my face must have made him realized how skeptical I was of that, so he adds this next piece of wisdom.
"Sometimes we do things which we think are unforgivable. When that happens, we can often be our worst punisher, refusing to forgive ourselves even though others have already forgiven us. But when that happens, we mustn't allow ourselves to remain fixated on the sin we have committed. God has already forgive us before we have even committed these sins, why can we not forgive ourselves? We may not be able to remedy the sin, so let us leave that. We are not God, we are only human. What we can do, however, is to go on with our lives, to continuing doing our best. That is all we can do, really, and that is the best path we can."
I don't know why, but I left the church feeling a lot better.