4
The Sermon
Unaccountably, Michael had handed her a brown envelope at the end of their latest reading-group session. “I thought somehow you might like to read this,” he said. And added, “We need never discuss this.”
After she read what he had given her, she was sure that the pages contained what had been his last sermon. She imagined the scene. She imagined herself sitting there and hearing the text of what she had just read:
The pulpit rose in front of a gigantic stained-glass window which revealed Jesus standing in a boat, with one out-sized hand still raised. He apparently had calmed a material sea so that it was a flat yet electric blue. Dark clouds were fleeing, scudding off to the left. The apostles’ hair looked fearsome, still wind-blown; their eyes were dilated with fear and joy.
Sitting there, Sophie felt the calm. And sitting with people in quiet, though she didn’t know them, dissipated her sense of aloneness.
Michael ascended the pulpit and stood still. He could have been in a prow of his own boat. He looked at once crisp, alert, and woefully tired.
“Good morning,” he said and then he smiled at his flock.
“Good morning,” the congregation answered, but it was a weak and wavering chorus. Sophie almost expected them to start bleating. Were they age-weary there, on the outskirts of Phoenix?
They may well have been. Most were well over sixty-five. She guessed they were from Denver, Missoula, Ann Arbor, and Chicago. A few easterners—having eschewed Florida for retirement—were from Montpelier and Plymouth, from Worcester and Ipswich. Some were from the Pacific Northwest coasts—from Seattle and Grays Harbor and Ocean City, from Portland and Coos Bay and Cannon Beach and Yachats. These last, Sophie had found, were fleeing from fog, mist, chill, rain, and the color gray; from arthritis and depression. Then there were the refugees from California earthquakes, crowding, wind, fire, and economic woes.
She closed her eyes and imagined their various ailments. One had lung cancer, another had suffered a series of small strokes, another tic doloreux. There were a few catheters and colostomy bags, several ports for ongoing chemotherapy, and multiple stents. Some, like Sophie, needed or had hearing aids. Almost everybody had an old or a fresh scar. Gall bladders, breasts, prostates, lengths of colon, ovaries, kidneys had gone missing over the years. Some had canes and one had a walker and one was in a wheelchair.
Michael continued to look out over the people. He looked from left to right, from front to back. He was making the congregation nervous. Here and there a husband and wife glanced at each other.
But still he pondered. And Sophie pondered. Was Michael thinking what she was thinking?
The mental and emotional ailments some of these people must have had. If only we could see them, she thought, we would be even kinder to each other. If all the depressives had glue on the bottoms of their shoes, if the grieving were hung with black crepe paper that weighed on them like the chains on Marley’s ghost, if—
Chances were good that some in this congregation had been seriously addicted, mostly to alcohol; the ones who had survived, had long ago found stability in AA and in Al-Anon. Others who were just plain alcohol-dependent waited and waited, restlessly, every day until the mountains turned pink and it was time for a drink. Or three or four drinks. A few others had grown out of or trained themselves out of alcohol-dependence and were able to enjoy a glass of wine or two more than they had ever enjoyed it in their past lives.
Some must have children who had died. Some were the mothers and fathers of bipolar adult children; some of self-absorbed children. Most of the widowers but only a few of the widows had remarried.
Sophie’s heart went out to them. Someone coughed.
Michael began. He smiled. He pointed behind him. “Any comparison of me in this pulpit to Jesus in that boat would be ludicrous—”
One or two persons chuckled.
“What I am about to say this morning may be a bit unsettling to some of you. My heart is rather embarrassingly full and I wanted to suggest some things you may never have heard before.” He looked over the heads of the congregation as if he were trying to make eye contact with someone out in the vestibule or, beyond that, in the parking lot. Was he looking for the white whale?
Sophie crossed her legs and shortly afterwards uncrossed them. Then she crossed them again.
“I read a fascinating article the other day when I was googling something. A fossil was found inside a limestone brick of a church in Texas.”
There was a low murmur. A woman wearing a green paisley-print blouse smiled at Michael.
“The fossil appeared to be an ammonite of the cephalopod class. Since those bricks had been quarried from the Edwards Group in south-central Texas, the speculation is that it could be around a hundred-million years old. Tell that to the conventional creationists.”
“Now our challenge is to keep our churches—which is to say ourselves—from becoming gigantic fossils inside not only this American life but inside the spinning universe. We can only avoid becoming fossils if we are willing to study, to hear, and to speak about new findings in the areas of scripture and tradition as well as in science.”
Someone yawned, not covering his mouth. Sophie thought he must not be from Minnesota, where almost everyone had been taught to cover their mouths when they yawned.
“We can only avoid becoming fossils if we realize that the Holy Spirit, that Wisdom—that feminine personage in the Hebrew Bible—continues to reveal in this world.
“Did you know that the “Eye of a Needle” in Jesus’ saying was an actual gate in Jerusalem? It was narrow and if donkeys or camels or other beasts of burden were loaded too heavily—if their saddlebags stuck out at the sides, then they had a great deal of difficulty getting through that gate. Knowing that might make the wealthy among us a little easier in their minds. There’s a difference between prudent handling of one’s wealth and the kind of consumption that overloads us so we can hardly move.
“Did you know that Jesus himself was something of a cynic about certain aspects of religion? About certain religious attitudes that enslaved people?”
The woman in green tilted her head. Then she nudged the man sitting next to her.
Michael was gaining momentum. “Did you know that many intelligent clergy privately hold that there is no hell? Why are some of them withholding their thinking from you? Are they afraid you would go run around sinning every which way if you knew you wouldn’t be punished for all eternity?
“Worse yet, are some of the clergy afraid you’ll get upset when they tell it as they really see it and that you’ll stop coming to church or reduce your pledge or pester the elected elders about firing you? I myself have been guilty of that fear for far too long.
“There has to be a hell, doesn’t there? For all the people who didn’t do the things you do—otherwise it wouldn’t be fair. Fair!
“This Jesus never promised fair. And he may have had a metaphorical notion in mind when in some of the scriptures, he mentioned fire.
“Was Jesus limited? He was fully a man, for Christ’s sake.”
A man turned in his pew and squared his shoulders. Michael, Sophie thought, this is too much for them.
“A very special man, but fully human. A man for whom death was more acceptable than keeping his mouth shut about injustice no matter who imposes it—whether it’s a Roman or a king or a husband or a priest or the Pope.”
The congregation was preternaturally silent. An usher in the back moved a few steps down the aisle. His mouth was open, but then his mouth was usually open. People in their older ages, Sophie thought, needed to remember to keep their mouths closed; they needed to wait until they died to allow their jaws to go slack. At the same time, Michael needed to stop talking.
Michael took a breath. “Did you know that metaphor may be the closest thing we have to truth? Has anybody ever respected
you enough to talk to you about metaphor? That the creation account is metaphorical and at the same time true—true only in the sense that everything emanated from, as some Native Americans put it, the Great Spirit? According to our fellow Arizonans—the Tohono O’odham—the First Born person who was created by I’itoi actually helped finish Earth.
“And First Born person sang a song about the round earth. ‘Come near and see it and do something to it.’”
Someone in a pew ahead of Sophie’s looked at his watch. Sophie was hoping that Michael saw him.
“Back to the clergy. Some of them treat you like idiots. You’re not idiots. But some of them are hoping you are. They’re secretly afraid that if parishioners became as smart or smarter than the clergy, that the jig would be up. That all hell could break loose.
“Don’t just sit there. Make the clergy sit up and listen. You are the church. Maybe we need to stop saying the word ‘church’ altogether. Maybe we should take a sledgehammer to some of the old structures—at least to the ones that aren’t architectural beauties.” He ran both hands through his hair and then wiped his mouth as if he had just taken a shot of whiskey.
Michael, Sophie prayed. Michael, wind this up. She thought of making the “time out” sign.
“Think about the earth and all its glories. Come near and study and enter into the earth’s community.
“‘He upheld,’ Jeremiah said, ‘the cause of the lowly and the poor; then all was well. Did this not show he knew me? says the Lord.’ That’s the only way to know someone or something greater than yourself.
“Do something to help. Go talk to Gabby Giffords about the poor right around here and ask her what you can do. Talk to her about solar power. Talk to her about the undocumented. She knows. Talk to her. I don’t care if you’re a Republican.
“And if you don’t think you can sing, pretend you can. Sing this: ‘Come near and see it and do something to it.’
“Amen.”
Sophie looked at the floor. God almighty. Michael, what the hell have you done right in front of this bunch. You are losing it.
This was what Sophie imagined had happened.
His Eyes Were on the Laurel
When she got home from the grocery store, Jack was standing in front of his house examining a Texas Mountain Laurel. She rolled down her window and said, “Hi, Jack.”
“It’s cooler this day,” he said. Then he actually said, “How are you going to spend the rest of it?”
To her surprise, she said, “I have a reading project.”
“Yes.” His eyes were on the Texas Mountain Laurel.
“Yes?”
“I thought you had a project.” He had his car keys in his hand. “Well, I’m off to Tucson. First a stop at St. Philip’s and then—”
“St. Philip’s Plaza?” The Farmers’ Market in that Plaza was extensive.
But he was walking toward his car. Sophie felt rattled. He was Like Kit Carson: now you saw him, now you didn’t. One minute he was talking to you; the next he was halfway across New Mexico on his horse.
Later that afternoon, Polly said, “Whereas you are banging the cupboard doors.” She looked backwards as she trotted out of the room.
She was banging the cupboard doors? “Polly.”
Polly reappeared.
“In this impossibly dry climate the glue dries up and all the little foam buffers on the cupboard doors fall off. Then if I don’t replace them, the doors bang.”
“A little death.”
“What does that mean, Polly?”
“Whereas, glue dies, dries up. The smell wanes. All dries up and dies. Including flies.”
“But I never thought of the glue as dead.”
“I might add: those nasty, inedible foam-squishes on the floor are not the whole reason for your bang bang bang.” Polly walked off again.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Sophie called after her.
Silence. Polly did not reappear.
Sophie had been banging the doors. Jack had not even asked about her project.
He often wore this carrot-colored, provocative T-shirt that said “Just Ask” but he seldom himself asked much of anything. Why didn’t the man talk more, for God’s sake? She had screwed up her courage and used the word “project.” So much for screwing up her courage.
Out of Her Mind
The next afternoon Jack stood in the doorway with a piece of her mail. “This was in my box.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I said I had a project but you didn’t even ask what it was.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said I had a project but you didn’t even ask what it was.”
“That’s true.”
“You’re not interested.”
He held up his palm as if to ward her off. “I didn’t say that,” he said.
“Don’t you want to know?”
“I do. If you want to tell me. Which you have not done. Someone said that if you broach a sensitive subject, there has already been a breech. And you have not yourself spoken of the subject matter of your project. You are mostly silent.”
“That would be you, Jack.”
When he had entered her house, Jack had taken off the baseball cap that said “Madera Canyon” on it. Now he scratched the top of his head. Polly lifted a foreleg.
He pressed his lips together. Was he contrite? “I guess it takes one to know one.”
“It’s Darwin,’ she said.
“What’s Darwin.”
“My project.”
“Darwin.” He raised his eyebrows. His eyebrows slanted upwards as they approached the bridge of his nose and this gave him an open and winsome look.
“I am reading Darwin’s life closely. I had never studied his thought before. Read his writing.”
He said, “That’s interesting.”
Then she told him: she told him that she had so far followed Charles Darwin through his childhood to Edinburgh to Cambridge and on through the voyage of the Beagle—all those sea miles and then all those land miles in South America.
To her own surprise, she continued: she had grown to love Charles Darwin. She had read about his return to England and his marriage and later, his looking for a house outside of London. He wanted a place where he could think, experiment, and write.
She was gaining momentum. She started telling Jack about what he bought: “A sort of old vicarage in a village named ‘Down,’” she said, “in Kent, about fifteen miles or so from London. Today it’s called Downe, with an ‘e.’ I want to go there.”
Jack looked at her and then nodded.
“He and Emma would end up having ten children: William, Anne, Sophie, Henrietta, George, Elizabeth, Francis, Leonard, Horace, Charles; only seven of them reached adulthood. But eventually, when he got established at Down, he rented an additional strip of land and constructed a ‘thinking path’ for himself. He called it the ‘Sandwalk’; it was about a quarter-mile long and he walked it often—almost daily, I think—with his dog, Polly—”
Polly looked up at her and said, “Wait a frigging minute.”
Wait a frigging minute, Sophie said to herself. Was she out of her mind? There they were standing in her entryway, Jack with his hat still in his hand.
She took a breath and concluded. Well, the point was that she wanted to walk the Sandwalk with Charles and see for herself if faith would falter before the great and kind man and his theory.
He said, “You thought evolution and faith might be incompatible.”
“No,” she said. “Not officially. Most people with some sort of faith who think they’re educated would never admit that. But I had decided I was in the mental shallows where evolution was concerned.
“I wanted to know the person of Charles and what he did and what he thought. As opposed to ‘Darwinist thinkers’—the tribes
of interpreters. Even if I find something that sends me spinning I want to know something of what the man thought.”
She told Jack, then, that now she loved every shred of the science—method and materials and instruments—in her reading. She didn’t understand it all, but it was like learning a new language. If she had it to do over again she might start a formal study of history of science.
She had read, she would judge, four or five thousand pages here and there—in books and online. She had started to read the things Charles was reading; she had even read a little bit of Malthus, which he had read before he moved to Down. Malthus had given him ideas.
Sophie stopped. She was definitely out of her mind.
“And you’ve read the Origin.”
“I read it in spurts. It’s propped up in my cookbook holder in the kitchen and I read it when I’m waiting for a sauce to bubble or a fish to bake.” She bit her lip.
He said, “Science.” Then he said, “Why that is interesting.” As he spoke this last sentence, there was no comma after the “why.”
“I’ll show you my study.”
Polly was aghast. When Jack—looking neither to the left nor to the right—followed Sophie right through her bedroom to the little study, the terrier growled.
“Polly.”
“What did you say?” Jack turned and looked at her.
Sophie blushed. “Muttering to myself.” She put her hand to her mouth.
“That’s what people do when they’re alone a lot.”
“You should know.”
Jack said, “Quite the view you have in here. And quite the light.”
Sophie pointed to her desk. “That’s Charles. It’s an etching—I mean an engraving done around 1874, taken from a photograph. My daughter gave it to me.”
Jack studied it. “Four or five thousand pages. You have been sitting with this a long time.”
“I have.”
“You mentioned faith.”
“Yes.”
He waited but Sophie said no more. He paused and then he said, “You’ve been carrying all this around with you.”
The Crossings Page 14