by Cara Wall
And then the feminist group held a council on abortion. They had not announced the topic beforehand, but they had lined up a group of speakers, two of whom talked about candidates for Congress who supported legislation, and one who recounted her experience in a back room of a doctor’s office: rushed, silent, in the dark except for one light between her legs.
Nan was there. She made herself listen to the whole story, which ended with: They let me lie on the table for five minutes while they crushed the paper and the instruments and their gloves into a black garbage bag. Then they handed me my underwear, and I bled all the way home. Nan, nauseous and overwhelmed, lurched out of her seat before the last word had finished ringing. She pulled herself up the aisle, grasping the back of each chair she passed, burst out of the grey door and willed herself to James’s office, translucent. “What the hell is going on?” she whispered.
James jumped up and put a hand on each of her shoulders. “What happened?”
Nan shook her head. He ran out of the office, pulled open the door of the meeting, and thrust his head inside. When he turned around, Nan was behind him like a ghost, and he pulled her into his arms.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
She knew he was, that he was sorry now, because he had hurt her. But she knew he was not sorry that he had brought anger and uprising into the church.
The door opened and women came out, puffed up with energy and determination, their murmurs a seismic tremor. Lily was among them, a yellow scarf tied around her hair. James took Nan’s face between his hands and pressed his forehead to hers. She knew he was trying to protect her, but how could he, when he was determined to drag this church into the real world, a sack behind him on the road?
Lily stopped beside them. James stiffened; Nan closed her eyes. She wanted Lily to pass her by. She wanted to take a deep breath and compose herself, to be able to pretend that no one but James had seen her overwhelmed and trembling. But Lily had. That was another consequence of James’s meetings—Lily had come to his ancillary, makeshift church that had nothing to do with God.
“Progressive,” Lily said, her flat voice rounder with respect for James, with interest in him, piqued by his daring rebellion. She approved of his plan to force the church to look at the ills of the world—to really see them—and then march them all on, relentless, without counsel or compassion. If asked, Lily would say she respected James for rushing forward, never thinking about consequences beforehand, never fully accepting them after. If James had let go of Nan, even for a second, Nan would have slapped her.
The phones rang so incessantly the next morning that, at lunchtime, Jane marched into James’s office and said, “If you’re going to use those rooms for things like that, you’re going to get in trouble.”
“With whom?”
“Me.”
“Why?”
“First of all, because I’m the one who has to write down all the complaints. Most of all, because this church has a history and a reputation, and you don’t get to change it on your own.”
In her khaki skirt, red cardigan, and lace-up shoes, her grey hair held up in a bun with plain brown pins, Jane was the embodiment of common sense.
“I’m not big on history and reputation,” he said.
“And you’re not the only one who has opinions,” Jane told him.
Jane was right. The panel had undone Nan like a placket of snaps, torn her open so jaggedly that James could not refasten her. She had sat on the floor in front of their couch, tears dripping from her chin, and said, “I would have raised that baby.”
James had not known she was still grieving. He had left their miscarriage in London, along with the memory of Nan’s blanched face and the acidic fear that he might have lost her.
Jane and Nan were both right; he did not think things through as he should. He had no patience for the calculations. Life was a rigged game, and there was no time for hesitation. Nan thought he did not see the consequences, but the truth was that he did not care what the consequences were—he was willing to summon them and fight them and break every limb in his body, if it would wake his congregation up.
He held Nan, made her tea, tucked her into bed, and lay next to her until she fell asleep. But it was not easy. As he lay there, in nights full of her grief, he saw his faith clearly for the first time. It emerged out of the fog like Charybdis, a stygian cliff into which he could not help but crash. How would they bear it? How would she survive? How could he protect her as he tried to pull the lighthouse down?
On Saturday, he opened the door to his and Charles’s office, exhausted, shoulders bowed. The room seemed small and crowded to him. If he’d had the energy he would have escaped the building, roamed the city until dark. Instead, he sank into his chair and sighed.
Charles was at his desk across from him, sober and concerned. “Ever think about backing off?” he asked. His tone was as casual as possible, but he was sitting stiff and upright in his chair.
James shook his head. “I don’t want to run one of those churches,” he declared, “where everyone comes to feel right, where they sit in services and hear their own beliefs preached back to them.”
Charles looked away from James, rearranged some of the papers lying on his desk. “Sometimes people need to feel right,” he said.
James rubbed his palms over his eyes. “I know,” he said. “I hear them at coffee hour. It’s not for us to understand. God knows more than we do. They hope their only job is to live quietly, gratefully, that they can avert their attention for a couple of decades and when they emerge, the world will be a place they can once again enjoy.”
“That’s not true,” Charles said carefully. “They’re smart people. They’re paying attention. They know what’s going on, and they want to help. But they don’t want it to be such an issue.” He looked at James. “They don’t want it to be their sole identity.”
James turned to Charles sharply, shoulders forward, eyes tense. “Do you not see the city I see?” he asked Charles, loudly. “Do you not see the injury, the deprivation?” He stood up, walked to the window, knocked on the glass.
“When I look out into the congregation on Sunday, I have to grit my teeth. Everyone out there is so comfortable, so able to afford earrings, ties, the green dollars they slip into our silver bowls. I know some of them grew up hungry and panicked. I know it’s hard for them to give anything away, because they never want to feel that way again. But most of them have never even brushed up against injustice. Most of them assume the world is as content as they are.”
Charles shook his head, determined. “You’re wrong,” he told James. “They want to fix the same broken pieces you do. But they want to feel good about it. They want to feel like it’s helping. They want to feel like it’s enough.”
“It’s not enough,” James said.
Charles wondered what would ever be enough. James’s need for change was insistent, voracious. He wanted the world to be fixed—to be fair, to be reasonable, to be abundant and honorable—and he wanted it to be fixed immediately. He wanted Third Presbyterian’s members to do what he said without question, to willingly accept that he was right—no matter how afraid it made them, no matter how confused, how frantic.
And he was right. Charles understood that. Charles saw the same world James did—the poor, the injured, the addicted—but Charles also saw more. When James had given up office hours, he had also abandoned hospital and home visits, the chance to see the futile cases: the terminally ill and those who mourned them.
“You’re good at those,” he’d told Charles. “I’m good at something else.”
It was true, but it meant that James no longer witnessed the paralysis of grief, the exhaustion of illness, the fundamental barriers to action many in their congregation faced every day. James did not seem to understand the need for comfort, for forgiveness and absolution. Charles surveyed James’s side of the office, his well-ordered desk, his uncushioned chair, the notes for his next sermon. He wondered what Jam
es was working on, what exhortation he would make this week and what complaints it would bring, how many bewildered phone calls.
James never preached about God, or the joy his faith gave him, the solace and direction. James preached about service and suffering. Charles was beginning to think that James’s God was a taskmaster, shouting at him to do more, shouting so loudly that James had stopped listening to his own church, stopped noticing it, had lost almost all sensitivity to its needs. He began to think that James’s God was conscience, guilt, and desperation.
Charles wished he could introduce James to the God he knew, a God of quiet calm, who gave him strength to preach a message of hope, who helped him contemplate the meaning of eternity and equanimity. He wished he could help James see the worries of this world as small waves in the ocean, tiny snags on a vast piece of wool.
But then, that Sunday, a man walked out of the service. This was not unusual, many people came and went on Sundays, leaving to attend to children, find the bathroom, contain a cough. This was different. It was James’s turn to preach, and he had decided he would apologize. He recounted the events of the panel, assured the congregation he would supervise the groups more thoughtfully, that there would be less controversy in the future. Charles knew how hard this was for him, and he was impressed by James’s composure and sincerity. He knew James was doing it for Nan, that Nan spoke for many in the church.
And yet, in the middle of it, a man cleared his throat, rose, and strode down the aisle deliberately. People turned to watch him. James pretended not to notice. He finished the service: took the offering, sang the hymns, pronounced the benediction. But Charles could feel his anger; James almost shouted the last prayer.
Stalking into the dressing room, James said, “I don’t know what they want from me.” He shoved his robe onto a hanger, slammed the closet door. “Actually, I do.” He stared out the window as if trying to break the glass. “Mrs. Abbott wants me to preach about Ruth. ‘Whither thou goest,’ she says. ‘I like that one. It’s my favorite story.’ ” He put both hands on his head. “Her favorite story. As if we’re in kindergarten.”
Charles unbuttoned his robe slowly, slid it neatly onto the hanger. Throughout the second half of the service, he had not been able to stop thinking about the way that Tom Adams had urged him to be brilliant, about Tom’s worry that ministry would dull Charles’s mind. Now, Charles saw how that might come to pass if he, too, pressed James to stifle his intellect and fervor.
“I don’t like David Elliott,” he said, placing the hanger carefully on the wooden bar.
“What?” James asked, turning around to stare at him.
“I don’t like David Elliott,” Charles said more loudly, shutting the closet door with a snap.
James opened his mouth wide. “You like everyone,” he whispered.
“I don’t,” Charles said, shrugging into his blazer. “I don’t, and I’m tired of pretending like I do. David Elliott finds fault to find fault. He doesn’t listen; he has no interest in understanding. He simply wants to pick apart the arguments, wants me to say nothing that could possibly be interpreted more than one way. He calls me up every Monday morning to tell me where I went wrong, as if he has a right to, as if it’s his job.”
“It is his job, you know,” James said, reluctantly cracking a small smile. “At the Times. He’s a fact-checker.”
“Oh,” Charles said, putting his hands in his pockets. Then he stood up straight. “I don’t care,” he said, lifting his chin. “This isn’t the New York Times. This is church. I’m not reporting the news. I’m assimilating it. I’m interpreting it. I don’t know everything.”
James sighed. “Thank you,” he said.
“For what?” Charles asked, frowning.
“For not being a pious ass.”
Charles looked at him, eyes wide.
Jane Atlas knocked on the door. James rubbed his eyebrows. “Jane,” he said. “You’re smarter than Alan Oxman. What should we be doing?”
“Do you know what Sebastian’s first sermon was about?” she asked.
They shook their heads.
“The color of fall trees,” Jane continued. “The idea that the color of fall trees means God loves us, that he gives us something to look forward to, some way to enjoy the coming of winter, something to celebrate on our way to a harsh season.” She shook her head. “He didn’t mention current events, TV coverage, or anything in the newspaper. He spoke about nature. The perfect choice; guaranteed not to offend.” She narrowed her eyes at them. “That’s what you’ve inherited,” she said. “A rudderless congregation. The old members want to be told that tragedy can be understood. The new members want to be told that tragedy will pass. They can’t agree. They want you to hold the middle.”
“Hold the middle?” James exclaimed, looking at her unflinchingly. “Is that really what you think is going to change the world?”
“No,” Jane said, her voice booming in the small room. “I did. I thought it was what the church needed. But I have changed my mind. Neither of you should have to compromise yourself; I’m quite ashamed that I asked you to tone yourself down.” She stared at James as intensely as he was glaring at her and raised an eyebrow. “So, I’ve decided you two should take a lesson from the choir. Sing your own parts and sing them well. Tune yourselves to each other, speed up and slow down at the same time, balance each other out. When one of you sounds too loud, the other has to sing out just as powerfully. Otherwise you both sound off-key.”
The next Sunday, Charles climbed the stairs to the pulpit slowly, arranged his note cards in front of him. On them he had written every complaint brought before him in the last month, every plea for restraint, for encouragement, for tradition, for permission to look the other way. He looked out at his congregation where they sat expectantly in their pews.
“What you’ve been telling me lately,” he began, “is that change is difficult.” He paused. “I have no useful answer for that, except to say that it is not as difficult as you seem to think it is. There is right and there is wrong. Other churches are preaching that everyone, regardless of race or gender or income, deserves to live with dignity, is worthy of salvation. We think that’s right, and we can’t help but reflect that belief to you. You won’t all agree with us.
“Other churches are preaching that only some can know God intimately, only some deserve the right to vote and work and marry. We think that’s wrong, but we respect your right to join them. You don’t have to worship here; you have your choice of churches.”
He paused again, looked up, almost expecting someone to leave. He was struck speechless, for a moment, by the silence in the room. He looked at his notes.
“James and I don’t have that luxury,” he said, more quietly. “We were called. This is our call, and we have to fulfill it to the best of our beliefs. Our beliefs, not yours.”
There was more, a paragraph that softened the message quite a bit, but James did not hear it. When Charles descended from the pulpit, James sat beside him through the rest of the service, stunned.
“You don’t have to worship here?” he asked as soon as they were out the doors.
Jane was waiting for them in the lobby. “Our beliefs, not yours?” She raised her eyebrows.
“Too much?” Charles asked. They both shrugged.
“We’ll see,” Jane told him.
Alan Oxman paid them a visit first thing the next morning. “I’m here to inquire,” he said.
Charles stood up. “I overstepped,” he said.
“Don’t fall on your sword,” James interrupted. “He was defending me.”
“Pipe down,” Jane shouted from her desk. “Let Charles handle the diplomacy.”
Alan Oxman smiled at that and said, “Quite honestly, it’s somewhat comforting to hear you both preaching from the same page. But it was too personal, and I’ve had some complaints about the tone.”
“I’m sorry,” Charles said.
Alan Oxman looked at him curiously. “Do y
ou believe the things you said?”
“I do,” Charles said, in his steadiest voice. “But that doesn’t make them appropriate for the pulpit.”
The next week, James was in the unfamiliar position of being the minister who needed to return the church to stability. He knew everyone would be reassured if he told them he had a plan—that the meetings and speakers and calls to action were in preparation for something profound, that he had drafted his design on a poster board, set it up on an easel, and would now pull back the curtain to reveal his grand, measured strategy for a better world.
He did not have one. His faith seemed, now, to be one of destruction: his job to expose, provoke, alarm. But Charles was right: his intensity had no focus, his hurricane no eye. He compelled himself to sit quietly for a moment. If this was his last Sunday in the pulpit—as indeed he worried it might be—what did he want to tell his congregation?
The answer was awkwardly simple: He wanted to tell them about war. It was war that had brought him to the ministry. War had caused his hardship, created his most pressing fears. It was the one issue from which he would never be free, the one issue about which he could preach with his full conviction and expertise. And that was a problem, because Third Presbyterian was apolitical. Its founders had believed, unequivocally, in the separation of church and state. Third Presbyterian did not want to stand for movements, or parties, or campaigns; they wanted to keep their church free of the rampant corruption and political violence of their day. As the years progressed, the rules relaxed a bit. Politics could be mentioned, issues explained, but still, no one point of view could be favored. No pastor was allowed to express his particular political beliefs. War, James knew, was undeniably politics, and he had a particular belief about it.
James had been skirting Third Presbyterian’s convention for months. His sermons, though sharp, had stayed within the borders of Christian values: food for the hungry, a voice for the oppressed, aid for the poor. But the new war in Vietnam was chewing through boys and eviscerating families. It was in every newspaper and on every television screen. It woke James up at night, sent him dreams that he had been drafted, bidding him to wonder, once again, if he should just sign up to serve. Instead, he set out to stop it.