Land of the Brave and the Free

by Michael Phillips

“You are getting too far ahead of me on the path again, I’m afraid,” I said.

  “We do not face literal death. Yet every time—as I said it comes to us moment by moment throughout every day—we engage the decision-making part of us, and willingly choose to relinquish what we might want in and of ourselves, and choose instead to do what our Father wills, or choose instead to put the interests of another ahead of our own . . . in that moment we share, we appropriate, we partake in the very same part of Jesus’ nature that led him to the cross. Jesus wanted to escape that death. That’s what the Garden was all about, as we just read a little bit ago. I might even say that the world was redeemed in Gethsemane as much as it was on the cross, because there is where Jesus willingly chose to lay himself down, and to relinquish himself into the will of his Father.”

  “How do we face that same thing every minute, like you said? Jesus faced it only that one time.”

  “Every moment we live, our selves try to put themselves first . . . in everything! In the way we talk, how we behave, in our mannerisms, in every tiny aspect of how we think and go about all the multitude affairs of life. The question is—do we yield to that impulse to put our self first, and to do and say and think what pleases that self? Or do we by conscious effort of the will do the opposite of what it would have us do, say, and think?”

  He paused, his face aglow. I could tell he was struggling to find just the right words to convey what he felt.

  “Actually, Corrie,” he said, “I believe that Jesus consciously willed his self to death a million times during his life. That moment in the Garden was the culmination of a lifetime of practice in yielding himself to the will of his Father instead of his own. Oh, it’s so enormous in my mind I can hardly contain it! It’s this that makes the prayer of asking God to make us like Jesus . . . this that makes it such a down-to-earth and practical prayer. If we pray it, and truly mean it, then God will confront us with millions of choices all the rest of our lives, giving us the opportunity in each one to do as Jesus did in the Garden—to yield ourselves to the will of the Father and to the good of others. And thus we allow God’s Spirit to bring about that transformation of our characters that we have prayed for, and become the full sons and daughters of God we were created to be.”

  A long silence followed.

  “I think I understand,” I said finally. “I’ve talked to Almeda about this too, though it comes out differently from your mouth. I want to try to write down everything you said so I can read it over several times.”

  “Do you have room in that journal of yours?” grinned Christopher.

  “I’m only writing very special things in the book you gave me,” I answered. “I’ve decided that I want to go back through my old journals and find some of the things Almeda told me when I was younger, or bits of Avery’s sermons I wrote down, and even thoughts I had of my own, and collect them all in one book of thoughts and ideas, things like what you’ve just been telling me. I’m going to make the book you gave me a collection of truths and principles and things people have told me so I can read back over them and never forget. That’s where I will write down everything you’ve just said about the crucifixion and choosing . . . if you will help me get it all down,” I added.

  “My pleasure.”

  Christopher sighed deeply.

  He rose, walked slowly to where I sat on a wide divan. By this time Mrs. Timms had returned to the kitchen. Christopher sat down beside me and began to pray.

  “Oh, Father,” he said softly, “we do so want to be made like your Son Jesus, and we ask you to carry out that work in us.”

  It was not a long prayer, yet it was full of a depth of longing that I knew expressed the desire of Christopher’s whole being.

  “Help me to understand more about you, Father,” I said aloud, my eyes now closed. “I want to know you and your Son Jesus more and more in my heart. And when all those times of choosing come, help me, God, to do what Jesus did and put your will first.”

  “Yes, oh yes, Father,” said Christopher with a quiet and passionate sincerity. “Make the very nature of the redemption alive and practical in our mouths and in our characters by helping us to lay down and yield to your will and to the good of others, just as Jesus did. Help us, our Father, we pray, for we possess no power within ourselves to complete, nor even to begin this magnificent work you purpose to do within us. So help us, Lord . . . help us choose . . . help us to willingly yield to you. Amen.”

  We sat for a long time in silence.

  “Well, that felt good!” he said after a while.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I haven’t preached a sermon in I don’t know how long. I’d begun to wonder if I still was able to.”

  “No fear of that.”

  He laughed. “No doubt you’re right there. Once a preacher, always a preacher. But you can’t imagine how nice it feels to engage in meaningful dialogue—even preaching!—with someone who is listening enough to ask questions instead of sitting in the pews falling asleep. I’d sooner preach to a congregation of one—if that one was you—than to any audience of ten thousand!”

  I rose and went to see if I could help Mrs. Timms with the dinner. Christopher picked up the newspaper again.

  “Hmm,” he said as I was leaving the room, “it says here General Grant and his wife are in Washington as guests of Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln. They’re going to the theater on Friday—that’s tonight.”

  “What’s playing?” I asked absently.

  “Uh . . . let’s see—Our American Cousin.”

  “Who’s in it?”

  “An actress named Laura Keene, it says.”

  Just as the end of the war signaled a season of returnings for many people to their former homes and way of life, I could not help finding myself pensively reflecting on what course I myself should now follow.

  I obviously could not stay here.

  In his letter, Christopher had asked me to come . . . for a visit . . . to see if we could help and minister to those suffering from the fighting. I had visited, and we had done what we could.

  But it was now past. The war was over. Everything had suddenly changed. It was time to look ahead. It was time for me to think what to do next, to find out the next chapter in the book of my life God had written for me. I didn’t know what was in that chapter. But somehow I knew the first page had already turned and the new chapter begun.

  It was time for me to follow to see where God was leading. Yet I could not see him ahead of me.

  I was certain of only one thing: I could not think and pray clearly and rationally about my future here. Christopher was too much of a distraction right in the middle of everything. If God was going to speak to me and show me what was written in the new chapter which had begun, I strongly doubted he would be able to do it while I was here.

  A time of returnings had come for me, too. Right now that clearly meant Washington. After that . . . who could tell? Back to California? Back to the Convent of John Seventeen in Pennsylvania? Right now I couldn’t be sure. Perhaps I might remain in Washington and continue to write and work for the Commission. Mr. Hay said there was still a great deal I could do for our country.

  I decided to stay through Easter Sunday. Somehow it seemed right to spend that most special of days with Christopher. But the next day it would be time for me to leave again.

  I told Christopher on Saturday.

  He was quiet and unusually subdued. Oh, what I would have given for even the tiniest slice of his thoughts! But he said little, and I knew him well enough by now to know that when the time was right for sharing, he would tell me all. Until then he had to keep to himself and weigh his thoughts on prayer with his Father. It was so hard not to know what he was thinking. Yet how I admired him all the more for this cautious and measured part of his character.

  “What will you do, Corrie?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, exactly,” I replied. “Suddenly everything’s changed. Four years, and all at once it’s over. I suppo
se I have to think about what’s next and where I really belong now that it’s over.”

  He nodded in thoughtful understanding.

  “And there’s my writing, of course.”

  “Yes . . . you really like to write, don’t you?”

  “It’s part of me,” I said.

  Again he nodded. “Women have to pursue their dreams just like men,” he said.

  “You’re not against a woman having a career?”

  “I see nothing about it to be against. God has plans for women just as he does for men.”

  “I don’t suppose my career will ever be that brilliant. But I find fulfillment in writing. I do think God wants me to do it.”

  “As do I.”

  “You . . . want me to write?”

  “Of course. If that’s what God wants, then I want it too.”

  Again there was an awkward silence. I knew Christopher was thinking more than he was saying.

  “I think I’ll go on Monday,” I said.

  “I’ll check the paper and see if there’s a schedule of trains leaving for the capital. I’m sure service has resumed to Fredericksburg.”

  “You don’t need—”

  “Nonsense. I’ll take you into the city and see you off.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  It was all I could do to keep back the tears. Everything sounded so cold and emotionless and final. The last time we’d parted, there had seemed so much to say and no chance to say it. Now we had two whole days ahead of us, but the only words that would come were thin and empty!

  The conversation wound down to nothing. Christopher excused himself and went outside. It was time to feed the animals, he said.

  I mumbled something about needing to get my things ready. I don’t know why I said it. I hardly had anything to pack. I’d brought only a small carpetbag and two journals. All my possessions were at Mrs. Richards’ boardinghouse.

  That whole Saturday was a quiet, downcast day.

  If only we’d known. It would have been horrible, of course, but it would have jolted my mind out of the despondency of my own troubles.

  As it was, we didn’t learn of the horror until the following day.

  Death was no way to celebrate Easter Sunday. Except for Jesus’ words “Though you die, yet shall you live,” I think I might have lost hope altogether. But ever after in my mind, the message of Good Friday and Easter fused into one. Never the rest of my life was I able to celebrate Easter without a heart-sickening sense of anguish at how awful was the death of the one innocent, sacrificed for the freedom of the many. To deify the President would not be right. Yet I could never escape the parallel that he, too, had given his life to free the slaves from their captivity.

  Midway through the morning, we heard the sound of urgent hooves galloping up the road.

  The self-appointed messenger of evil tidings was riding from farm to farm.

  “The President’s been shot!” he cried as Christopher ran outside onto the porch.

  The question from his bewildered listeners was the same at every stop, as was the hopeless finality of his reply. “Shot, Mister . . . I’m telling you the truth. It’s all over the telegraph. Abraham Lincoln’s dead!”

  Then he was gone in a receding cloud of dust, as quickly as he had come. Mrs. Timms and I had followed him outside at the shouts and had clearly heard the last of the message. Christopher’s arms closed about us both. We stood on the porch, weeping and holding one another, shaken with a depth of grief not even the war itself had caused.

  Not a word was spoken for over two hours.

  Mrs. Timms eventually returned to the preparation of Easter dinner.

  Christopher had a few chores, and then later I saw him in the distance walking in the fields. Every once in a while one of his hands would gesture toward the heavens.

  I sat for over an hour on the porch, staring straight ahead. The only sensation I can think of calling it was numbness. My brain had been seared by the news. I felt all color leave my body. It was as though my hands and feet and legs and arms all went dead. I felt nothing. All sensations stopped. I thought for a while that the amnesia was about to return, because I could not even force myself to think. I thought I was going into a waking sleep. After the initial shock, even the tears dried up. It was all beyond imagining.

  Christopher saddled a horse and rode into the city.

  He returned two hours later with a paper, an extra edition, only one folded sheet, that told of the assassination.

  The instant my eyes fell on the name Booth my heart sank all the more.

  I couldn’t believe what I read! He’d been in the room right next to me back in October!

  “Were there any others involved?” I asked Christopher, who was still reading through the report.

  “There were several accomplices,” he replied. “Some stage hand held the getaway horse. A fellow named Powell was with Booth and stabbed Secretary of State Seward. They suspect more, but don’t give names.”

  “Was General Grant hurt?”

  Christopher read on hurriedly. “No, the Grants decided not to attend at the last minute and weren’t even there.”

  “Was Booth captured?”

  “No . . . apparently he jumped down onto the stage, screamed something about avenging the South, and fled. He’s still at large.”

  Christopher finished reading the account and handed it to me. I read through it, crying again. It was too unbelievable . . . too awful . . . how could God allow such a thing . . . how could our country survive without him?

  I read on, though I had to stop and wipe my eyes every few seconds.

  Then I noticed a fact that hit me with stunning force. “Soldiers took the unconscious President from the theater,” I read, “and to the street. A civilian directed them to a boardinghouse across Tenth Street, where Mr. Lincoln was laid out on a bed on the first floor. Surgeons were summoned from throughout the city, but they could do nothing.”

  Tenth Street! Of course . . . I had walked past Ford’s Theater many times. President Lincoln had died in Mrs. Richards’ boardinghouse, directly underneath my own room!

  I don’t know why, but the realization brought Mr. Lincoln’s death all the closer and made me sick to my stomach. I went outside and gagged several times.

  Later in the afternoon, Mrs. Timms served Easter dinner, but none of us ate much. Christopher prayed. We tried to focus on the Lord’s resurrection, but all our thoughts were on Abraham Lincoln instead. I doubt if ten words were spoken between us throughout the meal.

  How the rest of the day passed I hardly remember. Every minute seemed like an hour.

  Christopher took me into Richmond the next morning.

  It was not at all like I had hoped it would be. The ride was quiet. We had always had more to talk about than we could get said. Now it seemed everything had changed. There was the assassination, of course. But I knew it was more than that, though I didn’t want to ask myself what it could be.

  He waited with me until it was time for me to board the train.

  “Well,” he said when the time had come, “you have Mrs. Timms’ address.”

  “And you have Mrs. Richards’,” I returned.

  “Right,” he rejoined, forcing a smile.

  An uncomfortable second or two passed. I picked up my bag, then turned toward the train. Christopher’s gentle hand on my elbow stopped me.

  “I . . . I wish you the best, Corrie,” he said. “I really mean that! Truly may God go with you.”

  “Thank you,” I said softly. As much as I know he meant them, the words just weren’t enough. Tears stung my eyes again. But I didn’t want to cry . . . not here . . . not now!

  “Good-bye, Christopher,” I said, choking, then quickly turned and climbed on board the train. I didn’t look back. I knew if I saw his face again, I would break down sobbing and might not be able to stop. If I was going to cry today, I wanted it to be for Abraham Lincoln . . . not for Corrie Hollister.

  I took a seat,
tried desperately to draw in a few breaths of cleansing air, pulled out my handkerchief and dabbed my eyes, then drew a long, slow draught into my lungs and exhaled.

  “Well,” I said to myself, “whatever the next chapter of the book holds from here on, I am not going to look back and feel sorry for myself!” I remembered again what Ma’d always said, and tried to remind myself that she was a wise lady, and that she wouldn’t have said it if it weren’t true. If God had wanted me to . . . No, I wasn’t going to say it, not even to myself! He didn’t seem to want that for me, and I’d settled it a long time ago, and I was happy with my life as it was.

  Once we were underway, I pulled out the letter I’d received from home just a few days earlier. There had been a steady, though not always regular correspondence between me and Almeda the whole time I’d been gone, though sometimes it made it easier not to write, so I wouldn’t have to think about how much I missed everyone back in Miracle Springs. I think it was something like that for Almeda too, and she usually mostly just told me what was happening and didn’t get as personal as she would have if we’d been talking face-to-face. She didn’t want to make me any more homesick by something she might say.

  Pa wasn’t much of a letter writer. I’d had only a few words from him the whole two years I’d been gone. But then in this letter, down at the bottom after Almeda had signed her name, he added just a line: “It’s been two years since you left, Corrie Belle. Ain’t that about long enough for you to be away? We’d all like to see your face again. Especially your pa.”

  I must have read over his hand-scrawled words twenty times. And just like after every one before, I cried again today. A change was coming, I could feel it. Pa was right. It had been a long time.

  Back in Washington, Mrs. Richards was beside herself with grief. She let me have my room back as always. There were people about for some time. There was blood to be cleaned off the carpet. Photographers came and took pictures of the room and the house. The entire city lay under a cloud of silence. The whole capital, the whole nation, mourned.

  I went to pay my last respects to the man I had loved and whose invitation had brought me east in the first place. President Lincoln’s casket lay in state, first in the White House, and then in the rotunda of the Capitol building. After that it was loaded onto a special funeral train and borne to Philadelphia, where the coffin lay in Independence Hall. A double line of mourners stretched three miles to see it. It was there he had earlier declared that he would “rather be assassinated” than surrender the principles of the Declaration of Independence.