by Jan Karon
Dear Father,
After all these years, I’ve discovered my niche. My job as Chaplain to the inmates of this somewhat remote prison is definitely what God has long prepared me for. Indeed, I believe my prison term was spiritual boot camp for what I’m doing today ... proving once again what Paul told us in his second letter to the Thessalonians—in everything ...
Have heard the good news from Hope and Scott. I plan to attend the wedding, and look forward to seeing you and Cynthia and Harley. It will be the first wedding, other than my own mistaken affair, that I’ve been part of since college. Best Man! Until I entered into relationship with Christ during the long sabbatical in your church attic, I was most assuredly Worst Man. His grace continues to astound and humble me.
Had a line from Pete Jamison, we keep in touch. I’ll never forget your two-for-one deal. He is growing in faith, though beset, like most of us, with advancing one step and falling back two.
Hope says you’ve been given a mountain church that was closed for decades, and asked to get it going ASAP. You, Father, are the very one for such a call. He has girded you with strength, he has made your feet like hinds’ feet, and set you upon high places.
Write when you can, mail is manna.
In His mercy,
George
It was the farm dogs’ grooming day at the kennel, thus only he and Barnabas answered the knock at the door.
“It’s me!” Lily announced. “I’m b-a-ack!”
“Thanks be to God!” he said. “I didn’t know who to expect, but I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”
“Oh, nossir, I don’t let people down if I can he’p it.”
“Are you recovered?”
“Good as new, didn’t last hardly twenty-four hours.Went th‘ough me like seed corn th’ough a goose.
Lily refrigerated her bottle of sweet tea, stuffed her purse into the old pie safe, and put on what appeared to be a nurse’s mask. “Did Del do you’uns a good job?”
He opted for strict diplomacy. “Better than good!”
“She wore you‘uns out, is what I’m guessin’. Del wears us all out, bless ‘er heart, but this floor won’t need scrubbin’ for a month of Sundays!”
Violet trotted from under the kitchen table and wound herself around Lily’s ankles.
“See there? Never fails. Ever’ cat in creation rubs theirself ag’in’ me. Shoo! Git! An’ stay git!”
“Cynthia suggests you see what’s on hand and cook whatever you think best. With the thought that there’s a diabetic in the house.” He hated saying it.
Lily tied on an apron. “No problem. My husband’s got diabetes.”
He felt oddly glad to hear of another poor sap who suffered this odious tribulation.
“They had t’ cut off four of ’is toes.”
“Good heavens!”
“But don’t worry,” she assured him, “it wadn’t my cookin’ that done it.”
He and Willie sat on pallets of fresh straw, each giving a hungry lamb its bottle.
“Ever had a wife, Willie?”
“Had one.”
“Ah.”
“Gone t’ glory. Th’ best of th’ lot. No replacement.”
“I’m sorry. Want to eat with us tonight? We’ve got a fancy cook working today.”
“Don’t believe so, thank y’.”
Father Tim stood, creaking in the knees, the hip joints, and the greater portion of the lower back. He wondered if he’d ever grow used to such dilapidation....
“We’ll send something over. Whether you need it or not.”
There was Willie’s grin again. “I’d be beholden.”
“How’d it go?” he asked.
“Terrific! She’s wonderful! Lovely meals in the freezer, the cake is beautiful, and I sent Sammy over to Willie’s with a meat loaf.”
“Not my old recipe, I devoutly hope.”
“Absolutely not!” She laughed. “She even wanted to bake your ham for Sunday, but I said you insist on baking your own.”
She peered at him. “Did you just sigh?”
“I’ve been thinking—I haven’t been much of a granpaw lately.”
“You’ve been busy being much of a vicar. Puny understands; we talked today. The girls are working hard in school, the boys are eating like dockhands, Joe Joe’s working the night shift, and she’s worn to a frazzle—precisely the way it always is with a houseful of tots. Though heaven knows, I can’t speak from experience.”
“You always wanted children....”
“Yes.” She was silent for a time. “And now I have Dooley!” she said, brighter. “And Sammy—for as long as God gives him to us.”
“How is it with you and Sammy?”
“It may be a long wait. Remember how long it took with Dooley?”
“I do.”
“But I have time to wait.”
“You’re the best of the lot, Kavanagh.”
“Thank you.”
“No replacement,” he said.
He pondered their talk as he walked Barnabas through the old horse pasture. As for how long Sammy would be with them—that was definitely God’s department. In any case, a summer on the farm with his brother would be a very good thing.
They would simply take it as it comes, and go from there.
On Friday evening at Holy Trinity, sheets of rain lashed the windows, rattling the panes in their fragile mullions. On the lower branches of the rhododendron behind the stone wall, a male cardinal bent his crested head beneath his wing and waited out the storm with his mate.
Down the road and around the bend, 129 squirrel tails nailed to the logs of Jubal Adderholt’s cabin whipped wildly in the blowing rain; smoke pouring from the chimney was snatched by the wind and driven hard toward the east where Donny Luster’s double-wide was stationed.
Inside the trailer, images of a revolving sapphire necklace broke into colored blocks on the television screen; moments later, the screen went black. In the darkened front room, an unfiltered Camel burned down in the ashtray as Donny Luster sat looking out the window, seeing nothing. In their bedroom, Dovey and Sissie Gleason slept as close as spoons in a drawer, oblivious to the shuddering of the trailer on its pad of concrete blocks.
Two miles to the northwest, in the well-stocked yard of the McKinney sisters, the old watering trough filled up, overflowed, and ran into a ditch worn by years of overspill. On the porch, the orange and white cat hunkered under an ancient washing machine covered with a flapping tarp.
A half mile to the west, Robert Prichard’s TV antenna was torn off the roof and flung into a stand of rotting rabbit hutches. It was briefly trapped among the hutches, then hurled down the slope behind the two-room house. It landed near a pile of stones dug from the black soil more than a century ago by someone wanting a corn patch, and came to rest on a maverick narcissus in full bloom.
Scornful of calendar dates or seasonal punctuality, spring was announcing its approach on the blue mountain ridges above the green river valley.
He hurried down the stairs, mindful of the honking of Canada geese flying over the house to the farm pond.
“Alleluia!” he said, struck by the scene in the kitchen window. The sill was lined with blue Mason jars of tulips: crimson, purple, buttery yellow, pink with splashes of lime green.
“They began opening this morning, I’m painting them like mad.” His wife, who sat on her stool at the easel by the window, had a fetching daub of red on her chin. “Be off with you, Father, your deacon is busy at her own calling.”
“Sammy’s getting his seed in pots down at the shed. Thought I’d blow in to see him, then I’m off to Holy Trinity. Agnes and I need to get our act together for teaching the prayer book. Also need to figure out what to do about our covered dish if the rain keeps up.”
“The Weather Channel says rain through Saturday. But in case it’s wrong, there’s a folding table in the furnace room. I think it would fit behind the back pews.”
“Brilliant! I’ll schlep it up
there today, in case.
“The Lord be with you, dearest!” She squinted at the stroke of color she was brushing onto the paper.
“And also with you!”
Nothing like a good, sound, liturgical send-off, he thought, noting a new spring in his step.
His mackintosh hung, dripping, on a nail as he stood and watched Sammy deftly tuck seeds into the black potting medium.
“‘Is here’s t’maters.”
“How many plants will we put in?”
“I figure eight.”
“There’ll be you, Dooley, Willie, Blake, Cynthia, and myself, and we all like tomatoes. Will eight plants be enough?”
“Way enough. This here’s p-peppers. An’ ’at’s eggplant. I s-sure ain’t eatin’ it, but Cynthia said you’uns do.”
“What about cucumbers and squash?”
“Th’ seed goes right in th’ ground.”
“Thank God for Lon Burtie. And for you, Sammy.”
“You know I got t’ bring all ’is stuff to th’ house an’ keep a grow light on it.Th’ f-furnace room would work. Got t’ have light ‘n’ heat.”
“You’re a wonder,” he said, meaning it.
Sammy shrugged.
“What do you remember about Kenny?”
Sammy recited the liturgy of the Barlowe family. “Mama give ‘im away f’r a g-gallon of whisky.”
“Anything else?”
“Dooley said th’ man that took ’im was n-named Ed Sikes.”
“Dooley thinks Kenny would be eighteen.”
“Kenny’s t-two years older’n me. So, y-y-yeah.”
“Anything special about his looks? Does he look like you and Dooley and Poo?”
“He 1-1-looks more like ... you know.”
“Your dad.”
“But he has hair like us.”
“What else?”
“He’s sh-shorter’n me.”
The vicar chuckled. “Who isn’t?”
“He’s got a big ol’ m-mole on ’is face ...” Sammy thought. “On ‘is left cheek. An’ ‘e’s got a big ol’ m-mole on ‘is back, too. He’d m-make me scratch ’is back an’ said he’d whip me good if I scratched ’is m-mole—but he didn’t mean it, he was jis’ jivin’.”
“You know what I believe?”
“What?”
“I believe Kenny will find us, or we’ll find him. I’m actually expecting that. But in the end, I have to let it all go to God; it’s really His job.”
“He ain’t doin’ too g-good, if y’ ask m-me.”
“Consider this. The Bible tells us that two sparrows once sold for a penny. Yet, one of them shall not fall to the ground without His knowing—and caring. If He cares about a sparrow, I’m inclined to believe He cares about me—and you—even more. How many hairs are on your head?”
Sammy made a face; he shrugged.
“God knows how many. Jesus says so, Himself—‘The very hairs of your head are all numbered.’”
“I ain’t believin’ ’at.”
“Here’s the deal. He made you. He cares about you. He loves you. He wants the best for you.” Father Tim was quiet for moment; this was a lot to take in, even, sometimes, for himself.
“And because of all that, He even has a plan for you, for your life. That’s why we can trust Him to do what’s best when we pray the prayer that never fails.”
“Wh-what prayer is ’at?”
“Thy will be done.”
Squawking, the guineas chased each other around the barn in their annual zeal to make keets.
“You mean jis’ let ‘im do whatever ’e w-wants t’ do?” Sammy was plenty irritated by the idea.
“That’s it.Whatever He wants to do. Because what He wants to do is what’s best for you. He can’t do things any other way—that’s how He’s wired, you might say.”
“Wh-what if I’d ask ‘im t’ f-find Kenny?”
“He knows exactly where Kenny is, of course.
“If ’e’s s’ good an’ all, s-seems like ‘e’d s-send ’im on.
“While we’re at it, let’s not forget what He’s already done—we’ve got Dooley; we found Jessie; we found Poo. We found you.”
He remembered his first sight of Sammy Barlowe, walking along a creek bed, his red hair a coronet of fire in the afternoon light.
“Four out of five, Sammy. Four out of five! Seems to me God has been very hard at work on the Barlowe case.”
Sammy tore open a package of seeds. “I ain’t prayin’ nothin’. I tried it one time; I didn’ g-git what I’d call a answer.”
“It may not be the answer you’re hoping for, but you can count on it to be the right answer.
Sammy looked at him, his eyes hard. “I ain’t goin’ t’ do it.”
“That’s OK,” said Father Tim. “I’ll do it. And Cynthia. And Dooley.” And Emma, he thought, and Buck and Pauline and Marian and Sam and Agnes and Clarence ...
They had set up the table and covered it with a rose-colored cloth, which gave an uplifting new look to the small nave.
“We’ll leave it there, rain or shine!” said the vicar. “Put our pew bulletins on it, and maybe a few books—start a lending library!”
“And won’t a vase of tulips look lovely on that old cloth? Jessie and I used it at the schoolhouse; it’s lain in a drawer these many years.” She looked around the simple room with pleasure. “It’s no venerable edifice with a Norman tower and stained glasswork, but it’s wonderful, isn’t it, Father?”
“It is, Agnes!” Indeed, he was ardently proud of Holy Trinity, though to some in his calling, it would be a mere crumb, an offense ...
“Ready for a cup of tea?”
“More than ready.”
The rain drummed steadily on the tin roof as Agnes withdrew the thermos from the basket, set two mugs on the seat of the front pew, and filled them with the steaming tea.
“I’ve been praying about it, Father, and I’m ready to tell you the rest of my story. If you’re ready to hear it.”
“Agnes, Agnes! Surely you jest.” Rain on a tin roof. The smell of evergreens and leaf mold, beeswax and lemon polish. All that and a story, too. “Your Town Car had given out,” he said, leaning back with the warm mug, “and you bought a truck.”
She sat beside him, inhaling the scent of the tea.
“I’m afraid we’d tried to make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse! Our old Town Car was a pathetic sight when we finally sold it! It went for forty dollars to a family who removed the interior fittings and used it for a storage unit. In their front yard, I might add! Years later, they began stringing it with Christmas lights—it became quite a tradition in these hills.”
He chuckled. He could picture it as clearly as if he’d seen it with his own eyes.
“Quint Severs had never worked on trucks, so he sent me to a man who did. Rumor had it that he was something of a genius with all things mechanical; gifted, in a way. Unfortunately, our truck gave us many problems—we sometimes found ourselves as impoverished as our parishioners.
“I refused to ask my father for money; it was imperative to both Jessie and me that we depend upon the Lord for His providence. We were the poorest diocese in the state, and there was no reliable stream of funds coming from Asheville.
“Our new mechanic worked wonders. It was as if he’d joined our team, and was as eager as we to keep the truck going so we could ferry people to the doctor and the hospital—even to school.”
Agnes looked up to the window above the altar. “Ah, Father ...”
She turned to him and he saw, perhaps for the first time, the full span of years in her countenance. “I feel I should make a very long story short.
“I fell in love for the first time. With a man who was not a believer, and indeed, had ways about him which were ...”
He watched her select her words with some care.
“... coarse and cruel.
“We became ... intimate. What can I say to you to defend my behavior? Nothing. I lost my head; I lost my h
eart. I was forty-five years old.”
Agnes sat with her cup in her hands, as if turned to marble. Rain darkened the windows.
“I was devastated, of course, when I learned that I was ...”
Agnes Merton was of another world and time, in which such truths were scarcely uttered.
“I understand,” he said.
“John Newton wrote, ‘Guilt has untuned my voice; the serpent’s sin-envenomed sting has poisoned all my joys.’
“I could barely function. I felt that everything I stood for, everything I had done in His service, had come to less than nothing. I kept it from Jessie for as long as I possibly could, but my great distress could not be hidden. She demanded that I tell her everything. The news was in many ways as crushing to her as to me.
“She could not forgive me, Father.
“In the midst of all this, I was deeply concerned about my age. In those days, a woman in her forties was likely to be at risk in ... bearing a child. And then we learned that the church and schoolhouse would soon be closed. No funds were available to keep them open.
“The world quite literally crashed around us; I felt myself wholly responsible before God. I had failed Jessie and Little Bertie. I had failed this parish. And certainly I had failed the Savior. As church doors closed throughout these mountains, I even believed I had caused God to punish the church for my sins. That was nonsense, of course, but then I was beset by every guilt imaginable. I became the dry bones of Ezekiel’s field, with no one to prophesy His mercy and grace.”
She sipped her tea. “The fifty-first psalm. Do you know it well, Father?”
“Well, indeed. During a dark hour in my own life, I learned to recite it from memory.”
“Could we say it now?”
Together, they spoke the words of the psalmist.
“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving kindness;
In your great compassion, blot out my offenses.
Wash me through and through from my wickedness
And cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.