On Zion's Hill

  Checking to make certain that everything in the kitchen is back in place in order to preclude cool looks from his parents and silent “I told you so’s” from Thia, Ken grabs an apple from the fridge and slips out of the trailer just as he hears the bedroom door open. “Good morning, Ken.”

  “Morning, Mom. Bye, Dad” Greetings and farewells.

  STEPPING DOWN INTO THE YARD, Ken inhales the cool damp air. “Thank you, God for open space,” begins his heartfelt prayer. It’s time for morning devotions. Today without a Bible.

  Instead, he walks the perimeter of the property, gazing at the trees his folks had planted in hopes they’ll become shade for their soon to be finished house. Dew diamonds bejewel the grass, peachy pink clouds nuance the sky, and warbling birds welcome him. They too have started the day early.

  “Thank you, God, for life.” He pauses at the back property line that abuts the Catholic section of the town cemetery. One of the reasons his folks could afford such a large parcel of land on which to build their dream home is because their lot lies next to this graveyard. That assures them privacy for a long time. The cemetery probably is the reason there have been no protests about his parents living so many years in a vacation-size mobile home. Most of the folks who’d bought land when Ken’s parents purchased theirs now are in their permanent homes. Talk about permanent homes. The tombs over there in the cemetery. Hmmm. Well, they’re permanent alright.

  In a leisurely stroll, meandering through the uncut grass on the far side of the lot, around the recently capped basement, under the new trees grown enough to shade him, Ken ambles back to the trailer steps. Perambulating their acre lot is enough to get his mind off himself and onto the challenges for the day.

  During his years in the service, Ken had gotten into the habit of reading the Psalms. This morning he reflects on this past week and life in general, wondering about the upcoming day; he’s going to need the strength of the Lord to be the kind of Christian witness he feels he’s called to be. What with Thia, his parents, and who knows what with Angie, he tries to decide which Psalm to meditate on today.

  Psalm number one that he’d learned in junior high school, still speaks to him today. That’s why he’d taught it to his young campers. Ken would begin their camp day quoting the first two verses and asking the guys to repeat it. In fact, the passage became their verses for the week.

  Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.

  But his delight is in the law of the LORD,

  and on his law he meditates day and night.

  As expected, during the first few days, the guys snickered and repeated the lines simply as words they heard him spouting to them. But as they did the daily cabin spruce up, Ken would pause, call them to attention, and ask them what they thought the words were saying to them, as young males. Who did they look to for counsel? How often did they find themselves the mocked, and how often did they find themselves the mockers?

  It took nearly the entire first week before the boys felt comfortable enough with Ken and with each other to answer the questions honestly. Every morning as they made up their cots and straightened the cabin, Ken would call out the verses and ask them to repeat after him. It became a game to them. But by the end of the week, they all knew the words by heart, and during the second week, Ken would ask different ones to lead it. At first they joked around, but by the close of camp, most of the guys identified with the verses and sensed their seriousness. Some of even started memorizing that Psalm.

  KEN RECALLS THE ANTICS of Captain Ike Murphy, a military chaplain who volunteers at youth camp. He’s sort of a grizzly brown bear in looks, a gravely polar bear in voice, and a tender teddy bear at heart. Cap’n Ike has eyes like heat seeking radar, sensing when things are getting hot among the guys, and they need outside help to behave right.

  He would appear on the scene, growling in the basso profundo of the most villainous opera singer, shaking the walls or rumbling the trees. The toughest teens trembled, wondering which one of them would be the target of Cap’n Ike’s displeasure. They knew it was displeasure, not dislike that fueled his energy, and the boys tried not to disappoint him by acting like young men with no self-discipline.

  Boys suspected of misbehaving in the dorm, the cafeteria, or on the athletic field had to deal with The Bear. He’d use his size and voice to get their attention, and then his loving heart to convince them that doing right and living right is the correct way to behave.

  He often scared them silly, but he seldom upbraided a troublemaker in public. Instead, he’d encase the miscreant in a one-arm bear hug and walk him out of the view of his peers. With his back to the boys, Cap’n Ike’s physique could shield the trembling teen from the startled stares of the new guys and the knowing nods of the regulars. Ken learned that over the years, most campers had had a session with Cap’n Ike, so they knew what it was like to be the target of his laser like eyes.

  By the end of the two weeks of camp, the new guys knew that The Bear was not really scary, just serious about their growing up to be men of integrity. Cap’n Ike put up with no bullying in word or deed. He insisted they show respect not only for the senior and junior counselors, but for their fellow campers as well.

  KEN BITES HIS APPLE, chews and swallows, and then repeats the Bible verses. Next, he raises before the Lord the names of each of the young men he’s had this year at camp. Larry, of course. And his brothers Sam and Ricky; Pete, the teaser; George, the leader. Joey, the clown. “Oh my goodness,” Ken gasps. “Joey! His sister’s coming this weekend! Not another woman! Lord, I don’t have time for this!”

  He doesn’t like the direction his thoughts are taking. Who knows what Joey’s sister will be like? And ice queen, Angie. “She certainly chilled my interest with those frosty looks last night. Dear Lord, why women this week? I’m supposed to be concentrating on getting my education. I don’t have the emotional energy to be dealing with any of them now,” Ken fusses with God as he finishes his apple and decides to cut short his devotional time.

  Well, he needs to get his run in and get back to eat. His mother promised to fix breakfast, and he’s agreed to do one more morning up at the garden. They have a bumper crop of green beans, and she wants to get another dozen jars canned before he leaves next week.

  Ken drops the core in the trash can next to the storage shed behind the trailer. Then he tightens the laces on his sneakers and starts with stretching warms up for his run. Right finger tips to left toe; left finger tips to right toe. Right, left, right, left. He smiles and thinks of the garden. “The harvest is great, but the laborers are few. That Bible verse really applies to this family,” he huffs as he begins his jumping jacks.

  He’s careful to do this jumping in a flat cleared place in the yard. One time in high school, exercising out here, he’d jumped up and landed on a stone just large enough to throw him off balance. He’d twisted an ankle.

  That kept him from basketball for a couple of weeks. Off the courts anyway, but not out of the gym. He still showed up every day he could get away from the house.

  EVERY AFTERNOON, when he’d finished whatever chores or was through working with his uncle collecting junk, Ken would head over to the gym and watch the older guys play. That was one of the summers the mill had laid off scores of workers, so lots of the grown men met at the gym to burn off the vexation of not working.

  The fathers couldn’t face the disappointment in their kids’ faces when day after day daddy would shake his head when the ice cream truck went by. Tinkling musical invitations to the kids. Distressing dirge-like accusations to their dads. It was tough earning no income to meet the needs, let alone the wants, of their families.

  So the guys went to the gym to quench the fire of frustration with the sweat of killer basketball. Up and down the court. Dribble, pass, shoot. Blocked! Snag the ball, dribble the ball, flick it to a teammate or launch it themselves, aiming to arc it just so to swish the nets
. Back and forth. Up and down. They’d run – hot and steamy. Doing something right. Something to show they’re capable; something for which they’re respected.

  For weeks, injured Ken sits – cool and calm. He watches. Closely. He observes the moves guys telegraph just before they fake a pass, lurch around the guard and try a jump ball. He notices some of the guys bounce the ball the same number of times at the foul line, eyeing the basket as though it’ll move before they can get off their shot.

  He recognizes the camaraderie; he detects the enmity of guys from different sides of town. Admires the ones who play fair even when losing and scorns those who resort to cheating. With no referees, the teams play by the honor system. Some of the guys obviously have none. Still, the same guys show up every day. And so does Ken. But he is more than a spectator. He has become a student of the game.

  In the gym he watches. At home he stretches, doing any exercises he can without aggravating his ankle. Near the end of the summer, he returns to the court. Since he’d been such a loyal fan, coming to see them play every day, the guys humor him and let him play. They’re shocked, in awe, even. Despite his weeks on the sidelines, young Ken has become a formidable opponent, astonishing the older guys with his agility on the court and ability to read their game. Little does Ken know that Coach Mac had been watching, too. That’s when he had offered to help Ken get a scholarship for college. The one Ken never mentioned to his family.

  “AH! THAT SHOULD DO IT.” Warmed up and flexed, the now older Ken starts his morning run. Out onto the dirt road, look right. Check for oncoming cars. None. Turn right onto the paved road. Shoulder wiggle to get out a little twinge from the jumping jacks. Pump knees high, swing arms in sync. Jog in place. Wait for fast cars to pass on the main road. Cross the road and run facing the traffic. Pick up the speed. Get into a rhythm. Rhythm. Rhythm. Rhythm. Rhythm. One. Two. Three. Four. One. Two. Three. Four.

  Songs from last night’s service swell and play in his inner ear. The kids had sung with such passion that song, “A Servant of All”. Ken wonders if they have learned more than the words that week. One. Two. Three. Four. One. Two. Three. Four. Jesus taught that being great, means serving, too.

  That probably means serving ones parents, too. “O.K. Lord. I’m getting it. I gotta work on my attitude. I do want to be great in Your eyes. And well. I’m not doing so well at home. Apparently. Since You’re bringing these thoughts to my mind, I gotta be more servant minded.” He runs and muses. Trying to keep his mind on the Lord and off of Angie. “I thought I was immune. What’s with this Angie woman?”

  10 - Communions

  BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! “Oh no! Not morning already,” Angie gripes, wiping her eyes and trying to shade them from the sun squirming through the calico curtain on their dorm room window. Grammama’s back. With her internal clock, she never needs an alarm or the campground bell. She doesn’t like to wait in line to use the shared bathroom, so she’s probably been up half an hour already. Grampoppa swings his legs over the side of the bed and slips on the well-worn house shoes she can see below the blanket dividing their room.

  Angie’s grandparents don’t have a lot, but what they have, they spend on good leather shoes. Grammama always says, “If your feet not comfortable, nothing else gonna be. You gotta start from the ground up.” Their sons usually see to it that both parents are well shod with new leather slippers for holiday gifts and birthday presents.

  Grampoppa’s broken in house shoes will provide support for the short trip down the hall to the men’s bathroom. He collects his kit bag of shaving supplies and other toiletries and pulls his towel and wash cloth from the hook next to the door. Thinking Angie still is asleep, neither grandparent speaks. They just go about their morning routine of getting up, washed, dressed, and out to the morning prayer service.

  She is tempted to join them this Friday morning when the Faithfuls will be sharing the Lord’s Supper. But she doesn’t. Her heart isn’t ready to participate in that sacred sacrament. Even after a full night’s passing, she’s still puzzled by the anger and, yes, the jealousy she feels toward Ken and the Lady in Navy.

  Angie lies there, pretending she’s still asleep just in case Grammama pulls aside the blanket hanging between her cot and their side of the room. She sensed Angie’s mood last night, but said little more than, “Sleep tight, Angie.”

  No doubt Gramamma noticed the crowd at the ice cream stand after the evening service and assumed Angie was simply pooped. Angie had twisted and turned a good portion of the night trying to get physically comfortable on the cot and emotionally comfortable in her heart. Grammama respects folk’s privacy and seldom pokes or pries. She just prays.

  Grampoppa returns quickly, not wanting to hold up the other men eager to use the facilities so that they too can join the regulars at the sunrise communion service. Some of the men, though, had gotten up even earlier to work on the grounds. A number of the staff share an eight-bed room at the end of the hall near the back door, the one closest to the kitchen. Since they get up at the crack of dawn anyway, they’re not disturbed by the pots banging around below.

  Within half an hour, both grandparents are dressed and out the door, having eaten no breakfast before taking communion. Angie lies there, visualizing the communion service she’d attended with them the summer she was twelve. She’d accepted Christ as her Savior during youth camp that year, and her grandparents urged her to take her first communion with the Faithfuls during their Friday sunrise prayer service. Though a little groggy that early in the morning seven years ago, Angie readily joined them, still awed about what they called her new birth.

  IT IS A MISTY MORNING. Walking down the stairs from the dorm rooms in the still dark of dawn, Angie is surprised to see so many campers-- men and women, teens and tweens, young mothers and dads -- all walking serenely to the tabernacle. Few talk. None laugh. Not sad, just solemn. Pensive and reverent. Expectantly anticipating the time honored ceremony.

  Over the years, Angie has seen people take The Lord’s Supper, as they call it at her church, but has never taken part. Only those who are saved are invited to “sup at the table,” as they say there.

  Angie has seen the dressed-in-white deaconesses adorn the communion table with white damask cloths. They arrange the shiny golden plates filled with tiny cups of grape juice in a double tier of trays, covered with lids that have a cross serving as a handle. This container they’d set in the center of the draped table.

  Flanking this cross topped tray would be two golden plates stacked with tiny cubes of bread. These plates the ladies cover with matching crisp white linen napkins laid on top so the corners fall just so.

  Then two deaconesses stand at either end of the table, and a third tenderly lays a second cloth so that it falls gently, tent-like from the cross topped trays with the juice. The two deaconesses at the ends lovingly unfold this second cloth and arrange it so that it hangs neat and even.

  Finally, they all stand solemnly facing the table, pray a silent prayer and walk sedately to the front row. Here they sit until the pastor invites them to assist him serving the elements of Lord’s Supper during the communion celebration at her home church.

  HERE ON ZION’S HILL, TWELVE YEAR OLD ANGIE is anxious about participating for the first time in this ancient sacramental rite.

  This morning, the side doors of the tabernacle are closed, and everyone is heading to the rear, but no one hurries. Once there, each person pauses at the door as though shedding something, then steps up onto the cement slab outside the doorway and enters the silent tabernacle, free of whatever. No piano. No organ this morning. Just silence. Strange, Angie observes. It’s silent, but not quiet.

  She and her grandparents pause, enter, walk down the center aisle, and take seats in the front section about four rows from the white draped table. Grampoppa stands aside so Grammama can go in first and then, with his hand on Angie’s shoulder, guides her to the next seat and then sits at the end. With no one directly in front of her, she can see
very well.

  Angie’s a little uncomfortable. Things are very different – different from regular church service, sure, but also different from the communion services she’s seen at her home church. She peeks around furtively to see if anyone else thinks things are strange. No one looks puzzled. Each one seems absorbed and other worldly – walking without seeming to look where they’re going, but not bumping into furniture or other people. Rather surreal.

  Angie sits between her grandparents and scrutinizes the layout up front. There’s the snow white cloth on a long narrow table sitting front and center on the main floor just below the purple bannered lectern on the rostrum above. There are no golden trays with cross topped lids; there are no golden plates topped with white napkins.

  Instead, Angie sees what looks like a brown shoe box nearly covered with a large white cloth. A washbasin sits on the table, and a small hand towel lies folded next to it. And there also is a golden goblet. A white hanky looking cloth is draped across the top of this tall wide mouth chalice.

  Flanking these objects, on heavy squat brass candle holders, fat white candles glow boldly. They provide the only illumination in the room, other than the dawn light slipping through the narrow windows high up the side walls, just below the ceiling line. It’s rather dark, but, oddly, not the least bit gloomy.

  The congregants sit calmly with hushed expectancy. Angie can feel it all around her. She shuts her eyes a moment, feeling drawn to prayer. She’s not sure why, or what to say, so she just sits prayerfully. Soft singing brings her back.

  Let us break bread together or our knees