All of that I had known and thought about and felt deeply and prayed to God about at the age of twenty-one. Then, only at twenty-five, I seemed to forget every word of it!
The moment that tall, handsome man with the brown hair and deep blue eyes had walked up to me in San Francisco, all my good intentions had flown out of my head like a bird leaving its perch. I felt like a foolish, silly young girl! Everything Cal had said to me, and even all the happy times we had shared, totally blinded me to the one simple and most important fact of all—we didn’t share that same desire in our hearts to follow God completely in everything.
At the beginning, I think he was being as sincere as he knew how to be—maybe as sincere as he was capable of being. He was kind and gracious, and treated me with courtesy and respect. I think he meant the nice things he said to me, and genuinely did like me for the person I was.
But a man like Cal just isn’t capable of being completely sincere. He wasn’t capable of it because he didn’t have the desire to follow God down deep in his heart. Down at the very bottom, Cal was following what he wanted to do and be in life, nothing else. And people who are not following God with their whole hearts will end up just like Cal—following their own way.
I knew all these things. I had known them for a long time. I knew them before I met Cal. Yet when I did meet him and spent time around him, my eyes clouded over and I couldn’t see things clearly. I lost sight of how important it is what someone wants deep down in his heart. If what he wants is for himself, it’s going to affect everything about him.
I didn’t see that in Cal. I really believed he cared about me. But when his plans and ambitions got upset, the deeper part of him that was only looking out for himself gradually started to show. I only wish I had seen it sooner. I could have saved myself a lot of the hurt.
I suppose God was using even the hurt to carve and chisel and pick the cavern inside me and make it bigger. But it still didn’t feel too good!
I found myself thinking all over again about the kind of man I hoped to meet someday. I didn’t really wish to get married. I wasn’t sure that was a right and proper thing to hope for. If I had placed my life in God’s hands—which I figure I had done a dozen or more times, a little deeper and more completely the older I got—then what business did I have hoping for something that I had committed to God?
Hoping to get married seemed to me like taking it right back out of God’s hands. And hoping to get married is just about one of the surest ways to make a big mistake and either marry the wrong person or else get married too soon.
Ever since I was a little girl, I had always assumed I probably wouldn’t marry. And even after I was older and did think about it occasionally, I only wondered what if. . . ? I didn’t want to start hoping for something that God might not want for me. I wanted to be willing to let God make my life turn out the way he wanted it to. I would have been perfectly happy to marry or not, just so long as God had his way.
But thinking about it all did get my mind imagining what kind of man I would want to marry if marrying was what God had in mind for me.
Cal had viewed everything in the light of opportunity. I knew there were lots of men who looked at success in life in terms of getting rich. There were lots of people like that in California, that was for sure!
I knew, too, that some men figured they had to be tough and strong and loud, or good-looking, or able to do things other men couldn’t do in order to prove how much a man they were. Those were the kinds of things most women were attracted to in a man, and I could never make much sense of that. Why would a woman want a man for what his outside shell looked like instead of looking down to the yolk and the white—the life, the real heart of who he was inside? An eggshell is a pretty durable thing. But a human being is altogether different. Our bodies get old and slow and wrinkly and fat and sick, while our souls—some people’s, I should say, but not everybody’s—get bigger and wiser and more full of life and love the older they get. It seemed logical that women should be looking for a wise and growing soul to fall in love with rather than just an attractive body and strong personality.
For Cal—and I suppose for lots of men—life and opportunity had to do with what benefits there were to him. Maybe it wasn’t easy to see such a tendency in men at first. I suppose that’s why women often fall in love with men who are self-centered and only out for their own gain. But the man I would look twice at in the future would be one who was constantly seeking out opportunities to do things that would benefit others.
I hoped my time with Cal had taught me this lesson once and for all—to look past the surface in men to what their souls were like. As nice as he had been to me, Cal put himself first in everything. But the Bible says that the wisest people are those who put others first. Getting and achieving was Cal’s motive. He wanted to climb high in life. If I ever did have a husband, I wanted his motive to be serving others rather than striving to achieve something for himself.
Most of all, I had come to see in Cal an approach to people and relationships that originated in the question of what they could do for him. As much as I would have liked to believe that he was trying to be sincere toward me, I can’t help but wonder if he didn’t think that I—and maybe Pa, too—were the kind of people he wanted to associate with because he thought we might be important someday. I wondered if he would have acted as interested in us if Pa hadn’t been a mayor and hadn’t been asked to run for the Assembly, and if I hadn’t been one of the only women newspaper writers in the state.
I think Cal was looking for opportunities for himself—in the people he met, in the conversations he was part of, in everything.
But the kind of man I’d like to meet would think about helping other people, about what he could do for them. It would never occur to him to think how he himself could use others to get ahead.
Well, that would be quite some man, whether I ever married him or not! Always thinking about truth, putting others first, doing things to benefit those around him instead of himself, looking for opportunities to help, serving however he could, trying to do good, always growing more kind and loving on the inside whatever the outside might look like . . . that’s the kind of person I wanted to be, too!
God, I prayed, I am so sorry for forgetting all the things you’ve shown me and taught me. Help me to learn and grow from what happened. Make my cavern bigger inside. Give me eyes to see people as you do, and to see into the heart of things. I pray that you would open Cal’s mind and heart to you and to the truth. Forgive me for not being more aware of you last year. And whatever you have for me, whether it’s being married or not, give me a thankful heart. Keep me growing, Lord, as a person whose inner life shows more and more of your life. Give me eyes to see whatever you’re trying to show me and ears to hear whatever you’re saying.
Chapter 8
North vs. South
The train passed through St. Louis in the early afternoon. We were there for two hours before starting off eastward again. Suddenly the sight of soldiers in the city brought me back to the reality that I was heading straight into a war! I had been so absorbed in my own thoughts, I had forgotten about it for long stretches at a time.
Missouri itself had long been a slaveholding state, even though it remained in the Union when war broke out. But the border of the Confederacy was pretty close. I was traveling just about a hundred and fifty miles north of it right now—a lot closer than California! In St. Louis we crossed the Mississippi River, and that brought the war close to mind too, because already there had been a lot of fighting along its shores. Both sides wanted to control the vital inland waterway.
The two best-known generals, Lee of the South and Grant of the North, were leading their troops in two completely different areas—what were called the “theaters” of the war. Lee, being a Virginian himself, was still concentrating his efforts in the north of the Confederacy toward the east. His goal was to conquer the capital at Washington, D.C., and win the war for the South that way
. All the activities and battles for the last two years had taken place between the two capitals, Washington and Richmond.
The North’s capital was at the very southernmost part of the Union and the South’s capital was in its northernmost state of Virginia. The two cities were separated by only a little more than a hundred miles. How different the war might have been if the capital of the Union had been in Maine or Massachusetts, and if the capital of the Confederacy had been located in Florida! But as it was, a lot of the fighting took place in northern Virginia and Maryland.
But another whole arena of fighting was going on at the same time, along the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers. In the same way that the South wanted to get control of Washington, the North wanted to capture New Orleans. That city controlled the mouth of the huge Mississippi River, and whoever controlled the Mississippi also controlled the Missouri, the Tennessee, the Arkansas, and the Ohio rivers too—and controlled the shipping to and from about fifteen states. When compared with New York’s million or Philadelphia’s half million, I don’t suppose New Orleans with its 170,000 people seemed that big. But it was still by far the largest city in all the South. In fact, it was more than four times larger than any other Confederate city. Right from the beginning, Mr. Lincoln had seen its importance, and had sent troops westward to try to swing around and encircle the South from behind and get possession of the whole Mississippi.
So in one way, the war was fought over the two cities of Washington and New Orleans. And leading those two efforts were the two great generals: Lee in Virginia and Grant along the Tennessee River and later the Mississippi.
And right then, as I bounced and rode and clattered along toward the east, first by stagecoach and then by train, events were building to a climax in both places. After a whole springtime of maneuvering and minor skirmishes here and there, that summer of 1863 was predicted to be the turning point of the whole war.
And although I was absorbed in my own thoughts and writing in my journal and thinking about Cal and marriage and my family, I might be riding right into the thick of it!
Another thing that made 1863 a turning point was that the Negro people and slaves were all free now. I heard people talking about it on the train and in the stagecoach and in the cities I went through and at the boardinghouses I stayed in. How it would affect the country and what would come of Negroes and slaves being equal with white folks and being free and having the same rights, no one knew. But everyone was talking about it. There were people for and against it, even in the North and West. Some people called Mr. Lincoln a brave and courageous Christian man. Others called him a fool and said it would never work.
President Lincoln had signed and issued what was called the “Emancipation Proclamation” back in September of the previous year, but it wasn’t made official until January 1 of 1863. So now all of the South’s slaves were officially “free” men and women, and it was against the law to hold slaves at all. Jefferson Davis and the Confederate States of America didn’t recognize Mr. Lincoln’s new law. But if the North won the war and got us back being one country again, all the slaves would be free.
The South was already in such disarray that a lot of slaves were just leaving the plantations and heading North. As uneducated as most of the Negroes were, they had heard the news and wanted to get north of the Mason-Dixon line, where they might really have a chance to be free for the first time in their lives.
None of them had any money. But they were rugged and strong and determined, and freedom was a powerful incentive. Of course, the whites of the South wanted to prevent the Negroes from going north. They were fighting for slavery in the first place. Many of the poor black folks were killed trying to get out of the South.
President Lincoln’s announcement said: “All persons held as slaves within any state—the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States—shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”
Chapter 9
A Conversation about Unity
About two hours after the railroad man had gotten on, the train stopped again and he got off. He walked by, sat down, and visited with me for a minute or two as the train was coming into the station, and his friendliness helped me feel relaxed and at ease for the rest of that day. It seems that God often sends somebody along like that, even if just briefly, to give you a little dose of encouragement right when you need it. And they probably never know how much their kind words mean! The coach was nearly empty, and I rode most of the next day without talking to anybody.
As we were preparing to leave Cincinnati, a lot of people had come aboard and were walking through the coaches to find seats. A Catholic nun took the seat beside me. She gave me a nice smile. I was happy for the company, and so glad not to find myself next to some of the rough-looking men who wandered through occasionally. We began talking immediately.
She introduced herself as Sister Janette, and one of the first things I noticed was the ring—it looked like a wedding ring—on her fourth finger. She was traveling back to her convent from visiting her family after the death of her father. She called her home a “cloister,” and said it was in southern Pennsylvania. She was taking the train to Pittsburgh, then about halfway across Pennsylvania, to where some of her sister nuns would meet her with a wagon. I told her I was on my way to Washington, D.C., and she said she was happy to hear we’d be traveling a long way together.
I had never met a nun, but I liked her right away.
We visited a while, mostly about the ride and the scenery. Then we talked about the war. Sister Janette had grown up in Ohio and she told me about that, and of course asked about me, and so eventually I told her my story. I had always been curious about what it was like to be a nun, and I didn’t know much about being a Catholic in general, so I was full of questions.
“But what do you nuns actually do?” I asked after she had been telling me about the small community where she lived. “I mean, besides praying and going to Mass every day. What do you do the rest of the time?”
A curious smile came over Sister Janette’s face. At first I thought I might have offended her with my question, but as soon as I heard her soft voice again, I was reassured that I hadn’t.
“Do you know what an order is, Corrie?” she asked. I shook my head.
“The Catholic church is made up of many different orders of priests and nuns which focus their teaching and work and worship differently. Some monasteries and convents are devoted to little more than worship and prayer. Other orders actively work to help the poor, others to establish schools. Some are devoted to nursing and medicine, some to evangelism or religious writing.”
“What is the order of your convent?” I asked. Again she smiled.
“In one way, I suppose you could say we have no order,” she answered. “Our cloister is something of an experiment. We are represented by several different orders living and working together. That’s why we are called the Sisters of Unity, although that is not the name of an official order of the church.”
“Why do you say it is an experiment?”
“Because it’s an unusual idea—crossing the lines of your own vision and ideas and purposes and becoming involved with someone else’s. At least it’s unusual in the church. And it’s especially unusual in the wider aspects of what I have been seeking for us to do throughout our community and area.”
“Did you start the convent?” I asked in surprise. Sister Janette looked much too young for that.
“Oh no,” she laughed.
“But you are in charge, then?”
“Not officially. I am not the mother superior, and as you can see I am still a young woman. But you could say that the Order of Unity is my brainchild. The convent itself is old, dating back to the early eighteenth century. But some years ago it fell upon hard times, and was eventually closed. I grew up not far away, in Lancaster, and after I decided to give my life to the church and become a nun, the thought began to grow in me to reopen the convent. After I took my vows, I s
poke to the mother superior and the head abbot of the diocese in Philadelphia of my plan.”
“They must have liked it,” I said.
Sister Janette laughed. “No, I can hardly say they liked it. As I said, unity is not a particularly strong element in Catholic doctrine—especially unity with Protestants! But the older I grew, ever since I was a teenager, I found my heart open in so many ways to all of God’s people. And it didn’t seem right for us each to remain behind the walls of our own private little enclaves, never mixing, never communicating, never having anything to do with one another, pretending that no other Christians even existed.”
She paused. “Well . . . there’s no need to bore you with details. I’ll just say that I was very persistent, and eventually they reluctantly agreed to reopen the convent for a temporary period to allow me to do what I could with my small new ‘unofficial’ order. That was six years ago, and we are twice as many in number as we were then, and so they allow us to continue. I think they are even beginning to realize that the work is valuable, although it will probably be after my lifetime that anyone will admit it!”
“Why is that?”
“Oh, the church bureaucracy is the last of man’s institutions ever to admit they were wrong about something. You can’t imagine how organizationally tied in knots the church is. We’re supposed to be ministering to people’s souls, and yet sometimes I think all we do is feed and perpetuate our own organization. But, be that as it may, I do love the church and at least I am able to carry on what I think is an important function among people in my little corner of it.”
“How many of you are there?”
“Seventeen, mostly younger than I. I am thirty-two, the second oldest. I suppose if you had to categorize us, you might even call us a collection of misfits—sisters who love our Lord and who have given ourselves to his work and his church, but don’t seem to fit very well in any of the church’s more rigidly structured compartments. Slowly and gradually some of the young sisters have heard of our Unity order and have come out of other orders to join with us.”
Into the Long Dark Night Page 3