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Almost Friends

Page 16

by Philip Gulley


  All across the meeting room, people hung their heads, embarrassed. Dale Hinshaw looked about, panicked, seeming to sense the tide was shifting in Krista’s favor. “Matthew 18 is clear. She’s refusing to cooperate. She needs to be to us as a tax collector and a Gentile.”

  Oscar Purdy plunged an index finger in his ear to adjust his hearing aid. “What’d he say about raising our taxes?” he asked his wife.

  Fern Hampton stood again to speak. “Don’t let her distract you from the real matter. We’ve asked her a simple question on a matter of great consequence to the church. She’s refused to answer it. If we suspected her of stealing money from the church and she didn’t answer our questions, we’d fire her. Why is this any different?”

  “She’s got a point there,” Ned Kivett said to his wife.

  The Quakers sat quietly, weighing Fern’s words.

  Sam closed his eyes, recalling what Miss Rudy had told him that week at the library. “Honoring one’s commitments when life is difficult is the measure of one’s character.”

  Years ago, Sam had sat in this very room and made a commitment to the Lord to be a minister worthy of that high calling, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Dear God, give me the words to say, he prayed silently, then rose to his feet.

  He surveyed the room, taking measure of who was there. Almost everyone who meant anything to him was present—his wife and sons, his parents, his friends, his flock.

  “I’m glad you’re here tonight. This is an important day for our church. Because tonight we get to decide what kind of church we’re going to be. Not every congregation gets that chance. Most days in the church are business as usual, not at all that much hangs in the balance. But not today. Today we get to decide what kind of church we’re going to be.”

  He paused, gathering his thoughts.

  “Something here tonight doesn’t feel right to me. I can’t quite define it, I just know how it makes me feel: sad. Sad that somewhere along the line we missed the boat. Instead of figuring out how best to prepare Krista for ministry, we’ve met to judge her. We got suspicious and asked her a question we’ve never asked anyone else in this church. We’ve asked Krista to tell us about her sex life and defended our right to know because she is a pastor. But in all my years of ministry, not one person has ever asked me about my sex life.”

  Across the room, Dale Hinshaw frowned at the mention of sex.

  “But since we’re all so curious to know about our pastors’ sex lives, I think we ought to start with mine. There’s something about me you don’t know. Something I kept secret for years. There was a certain Sausage Queen—I won’t name her name—whom I was infatuated with. I never told anyone and never acted on it, but I had thoughts about her, thoughts that weren’t appropriate.”

  Barbara stared at him, an odd look on her face.

  What he said next came as an utter surprise to him and everyone else in the meeting room. “So if we’re going to get rid of anyone around here, it should be me.”

  He sat down, worried they’d follow his suggestion, but also feeling strangely free.

  Shirley Finchum fanned herself vigorously, utterly appalled. “I agree. Let’s give him the heave-ho.”

  “I bet he had the hots for Nora Nagle,” Ned Kivett said to Kyle Weathers.

  “Can’t fault him there,” Kyle whispered back.

  Across the meeting room, Judy Iverson rose to her feet. “Sam is right. Tonight we get to decide what kind of church we’re going to be. Are we going to be a church where people are accepted and loved and forgiven, or are we going to be a church with no room in our pews for folks who’ve fallen short or are a little different?”

  “Be ye perfect,” Dale Hinshaw piped up, “even as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

  “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone,” Gloria Gardner said, fixing Dale with a glare.

  Asa Peacock went to the pulpit. “Anybody else have something to say?”

  “I think the Lord’s telling us to purify ourselves, and it needs to start with our leaders,” Fern Hampton said. “A church is only as good as its leadership.”

  “Amen to that,” Dale said.

  Frank snorted. “If the Lord’s telling us to do something, how come the rest of us aren’t hearing it?”

  Asa studied the congregation in an effort to gauge their sentiments. “Seems like there’s only a few folks who want Krista and Sam to go. So as near as I can figure, we ought to keep them on. Do folks agree?”

  “Agreed,” the congregation replied, except for Fern and her minions.

  “I don’t agree,” Fern said. “I don’t agree one bit.”

  “Well, I suppose you can bring it up at next month’s business meeting,” Asa said.

  “She’ll be gone by then,” Fern whined, clearly distressed the church wasn’t doing all it could to make Krista’s life miserable.

  Asa elected not to respond. He glanced at his watch. “Friends, if we hurry, we can catch the second half of the football game.”

  The crowd dispersed quickly, except for Fern and Dale, who huddled with their few allies at the back of the meeting room, clearly distressed by this outburst of common sense and grace.

  Krista turned to Sam. “Thank you, Sam. That was very kind of you. And brave. Not many pastors would have the courage to confess such a thing.”

  Sam beamed, thoroughly pleased with himself.

  Barbara tugged on his sleeve. “Come on, lover boy,” she said brusquely.

  “See you, Sunday,” Sam said to Krista. “I’m looking forward to your message.”

  “Thanks again, Sam. It was awfully kind of you.”

  “Don’t mention it,” he said magnanimously. “Glad I could help.”

  It was a quiet walk home. Barbara hurried the boys along to bed. She stood over them while they brushed their teeth, then hurriedly read them a story.

  She came downstairs to find Sam reading in his easy chair.

  “Now what’s this about you having the hots for a Sausage Queen?” she asked, a slight edge to her voice.

  Sam, sensing for the first time he might be in trouble, grinned weakly. “Pretty clever, wasn’t it? I thought I’d show them that some matters were private, sex being one of them.”

  “Why didn’t you just say that?”

  “Not my fault,” Sam said. “Right before I stood up, I asked the Lord to give me the words to say and those were the words He gave me. You’ll have to take the matter up with Him.”

  “Oh, brother.”

  “Can’t have it both ways,” Sam said. “You got mad when I didn’t defend Krista. Now I speak and you’re angry.”

  “I suppose I’ll get over it. I just wished you had exercised more discretion.”

  She whacked him with a rolled-up newspaper. Fortunately, it was the Herald and not the New York Times Sunday edition, so it didn’t hurt.

  “You really think about the Sausage Queens?”

  “It was a long time ago,” Sam said. “And I’ve thought about you a lot more. And I never acted on it and never would.”

  “You better never, mister, or you won’t be able to have a sex life. Is that clear?”

  “Crystal,” Sam said.

  Later that night, in bed, Barbara scooted beside him and rested her head on his shoulder. “You’re a bozo,” she said affectionately.

  “Yep.”

  “What do you think will happen to Krista?”

  “I think she’ll go on to make some church a fine pastor. She’ll probably be my superintendent some day.”

  “Wonder what Dale and Fern will do?”

  “Probably move on to other endeavors, like tormenting orphans and widows.”

  They fell asleep that way, Sam on his back, his arm around Barbara, her leg draped over his, in the steady, familiar way husbands and wives have with each other when their love is deep enough to forgive the occasional fantasy, so long as it doesn’t become a habit.

  Twenty-four

  A Grand
Slam

  The next morning, Sam went for a haircut at Kyle’s.

  “Still married?” Kyle asked, as he snipped around Sam’s ears.

  “Happily.”

  “I don’t believe I’d have publicly confessed to hankerin’ after a Sausage Queen. Some things you ought to keep to yourself.”

  “You might have a point there,” Sam agreed. “Though I guess the proof is in the pudding. Krista and I still have our jobs.”

  “Can’t argue with success, I suppose.”

  Kyle shaved the back of Sam’s neck, clipped a wayward hair sprouting from his right ear, then dusted his neck with talcum.

  Kyle stepped back to inspect him. “Want you to look your best now that you’re going back to work. Wouldn’t do to have a shaggy pastor.”

  Work. The word fell sweetly on Sam’s ear. He’d missed it. Missed waking up each day with a purpose, with some noble venture to engage him. He’d end up like Harvey Muldock and Fern Hampton, people who couldn’t let go, lest the world forget them. Three months off the job had nearly ruined him. He couldn’t imagine what retirement would do to him.

  He spent the day raking leaves, lining them up in long piles along the driveway, then setting a match to them. The wind, he noted with some satisfaction, carried the smoke toward Shirley Finchum’s laundry hanging on the clothesline.

  He and Barbara and the boys arrived at the meetinghouse fifteen minutes before the start of worship, just in time for donuts and coffee. He greeted Fern and Dale warmly—victory had made him charitable toward his foes. A few people, those who believed pastors should be sinless, kept their distance from him. But everyone else seemed genuinely glad to see him.

  While Sam was in seminary, his professor of preaching told him, “You won’t hit a home run every week, but always try to advance the runners.” That Sunday morning, Krista hit a grand slam. She spoke on forgiveness, and her words soared; her sincere and gracious manner added to the luster. Sam had often joked with Barbara that he’d become a minister so he wouldn’t have to listen to other pastors preach. But he could have listened to Krista all day.

  After her message, she sat down, and silence enveloped them. Sam’s mind turned back over the past four months. He remembered Brother Lester, the one-legged evangelist, coming to revive them, how Dale had seized the reins of evangelism, alienating the entire town and nearly killing his father. Yet, in the words of the Apostle Paul, it had all worked together for good. Krista had come to their shores, teaching them much about dignity, courage, and grace.

  When Dale had invited Brother Lester to bring them revival, this likely hadn’t been the new life Dale had envisioned. But then it was never wise to constrain the ways of God. The Spirit blew where it wished—one day a balmy breeze, the next a burly blast, sweeping clean the soul of all its hard debris.

  A Note to My Friends

  When I was a child, I spent a lot of time in the woods, dreaming of becoming a forest ranger when I grew up. Forest rangers, it seemed to me, lived an idyllic life, freed from the clinch of church and school. I most certainly did not want to become a pastor. I could barely tolerate the one hour a week my parents made me attend. As for school, I was a flop, failing one subject after another, and not just barely, but spectacularly, like a spiraling plane, its engines crippled, smashing headlong into the ground. I despised English and composition most of all. The parts of a sentence were, and remain, a mystery to me. I wouldn’t recognize a pluperfect predicate if it kicked me in the shins.

  And so God, in that whimsical way of the Divine, determined I should spend my life pastoring and writing.

  The pastoring came first. In 1983, I became the youth minister at Plainfield Friends Meeting in Indiana. It has always mystified me why churches allow novice pastors to practice on their most vulnerable members. I’ve always thought new ministers should train with the elderly, who are not as easily corrupted. But the experience was a fine one and I made many friends.

  In 1990, I became the pastor of Irvington Friends Meeting in Indianapolis. There were twelve people in the congregation and their first request of me was to start a newsletter, even though I could have phoned everyone with the news in five minutes. I knew nothing about writing, so returned to college, to the Earlham School of Religion, where I sat at the feet of Tom Mullen, one night a week for a year. Those newsletter essays became my first book, Front Porch Tales. You’re holding my thirteenth book in your hands. Thirteen, for the superstitious-minded, is unlucky. But I’m not turned that way and feel nothing but blessed.

  I continue to pastor, serving as the co-pastor of Fairfield Friends Meeting near Indianapolis. If you’re ever in the area, stop by and visit. I venture out occasionally to give a talk or visit a bookstore, where I meet my readers, many of whom have become my friends.

  If you’re interested, here are some ways we can get to know one another a little better:

  If you have e-mail, I can be contacted at info@philipgulleybooks. com.

  If you’re old-fashioned, you can send a letter to me at Harper-SanFrancisco, 353 Sacramento Street, Suite 500, San Francisco, CA 94111-3653. They’ll forward your letter to me and I’ll answer it, just as my mother and father taught me.

  If you’re reading one of my books in your book club and would like me to phone in for a visit, write to info@philipgulleybooks.com and we’ll get the ball rolling.

  If you would like me to speak at an event, contact Mr. David Leonards at ieb@prodigy.net or (317) 926-7566.

  Thank you for buying and reading my books. I derive much joy in writing them; it is my prayer that you find joy in reading them.

  Take care.

  Philip Gulley

  About the Author

  It is hard to believe that it's Sam Gardner's sixth year as pastor of Harmony Friends Meeting. He never thought he'd last this long. But when circumstances come up that cause him to take a leave of absence from his post, the real question arises: will the quirky Quakers want him back? Wahtever happens, it's a wonderful trip to Harmony, Indiana&mdash the place everyone wants to call home.

  Visit the author online at www.philipgulleybooks.com.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Copyright

  ALMOST FRIENDS: A Harmony Novel. Copyright © 2006 by Phillip Gulley. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  ePub edition May 2007 ISBN 9780061739262

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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  Philip Gulley, Almost Friends

 

 

 


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