Life Goes On

by Philip Gulley

  “I never mind apologizing if I’ve done something wrong. But I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “Well, Sam, that isn’t quite true,” the superintendent said. “You’ve questioned a bedrock principle of the church.”

  “Don’t I have the freedom to do that? We’re Quakers, after all. We don’t have creeds. Aren’t I allowed to express doubts or ask questions?”

  “Not if it causes trouble,” Fern said.

  “Why does it need to cause trouble?” I asked. “Why can’t questions be asked and people reflect on them without getting bent out of shape?”

  “Now there’s your problem, right there,” Dale said. “We ought not question the Lord. If the Lord said His mother was a virgin, then that’s good enough for me.”

  “Except the Lord never said it,” I pointed out. “The Church said it about him. But the Church can be wrong. We’ve been wrong before.”

  “This is all very interesting,” the superintendent said. “But I’ve got a two-hour drive ahead of me and need to get back home. So, Sam, if you could just apologize to these good people for stirring up trouble, we’ll put this all behind us.”

  I sat quietly for a moment, thinking about what kind of minister I wanted to be, what kind of man I wanted to be.

  “I won’t do it,” I said quietly. “I’ve done nothing wrong, and to apologize would be insincere.”

  “Well, Sam, I have no choice but to dismiss you.”

  Our superintendent had a bad habit of confusing himself with a bishop.

  “You can’t do that,” I pointed out. “You don’t have the authority. Only my congregation can dismiss me.”

  “Well, then, I suppose you’ll just have to quit.”

  “I won’t do any such thing.”

  “It’s clear these people don’t want you as their pastor.”

  “They represent a vocal minority who wouldn’t be happy if Jesus were their pastor.” I said it without thinking, felt bad for an instant, then got over it. “Besides, there are many others in the congregation who value my ministry and tell me so regularly.”

  “Well, your supposed supporters aren’t here,” Fern said. “If they even exist. And we’re the elders. What do the rest of you think?”

  “Nothin’ personal, Sam,” Dale said. “But I think it’s time you went. We need new blood.” He paused. “You know, Sam, sometimes I wonder if the Lord even called you to ministry. You don’t seem to have a servant’s heart.”

  “Did you think that last month when I was cooking your breakfast, washing your underwear, and trying to talk your wife into coming home?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” Dale asked, genuinely perplexed.

  “You know what I think?” Opal said. “He’s been nothin’ but trouble. He doesn’t even like organ music. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you squirm while Bea’s playing. Next thing you know, he’ll have drums and guitars in here and we’ll be singing rock and roll.”

  “I’m inclined to agree with them,” Fern said. “Your presence here is divisive. I think it’s time you left. Do the rest of you approve?”

  “Approve,” they grumbled.

  The superintendent glanced at his watch. “Sorry it turned out this way, Sam. Come see me sometime next week, and we’ll see if maybe there’s another church that’ll have you. Though I think maybe you oughta lose that chip on your shoulder so you don’t run into this sort of trouble again.”

  “I won’t be coming by,” I said. “I’m still the pastor of this church. This committee doesn’t have the authority to fire me. They must have the approval of the meeting, which they’ve not done.”

  “There you go, quibbling over minor details again,” Fern said. “That’s just what we’re talking about, Sam. You’re always wanting to argue about things.”

  “Excuse me, Fern, but this is my livelihood we’re talking about here. My children have become accustomed to eating.”

  I was starting to get irritated.

  “We’re not the only ones who don’t like you,” Opal said. “Stanley Farlow and his wife are thinking of leaving the church, and Bea’s decided not to play the organ anymore.”

  There is a God in heaven, I thought to myself.

  “If we can’t fire you, then maybe you should just quit,” Dale suggested.

  “Sometimes that sounds very appealing,” I admitted.

  “It’s settled then,” Fern said. “Sam has quit. This meeting is adjourned.”

  The superintendent rose to his feet and clapped me on the back. “Takes a big man to admit that he’s been wrong and to step aside for new leadership.” He turned to Fern. “I’ll have some new candidates for you to start interviewing next week. Did I mention my nephew’s been looking for a pulpit?”

  They walked up the stairs, discussing the nephew’s sterling character, while I remained seated, trying to figure out what had just happened. I was beginning to suspect a trap had been set, and I’d blundered into it. For people with a history of integrity, Quakers sure could be sneaky. It occurred to me I should have feigned illness and stayed home.

  I wasn’t sure whether I was employed or not, but I knew when Fern got home, she’d start working the phone telling people I’d resigned, so I thought I’d beat her to the punch. I walked upstairs to my office and called Miriam Hodge, who answered the phone out of breath. “We just got home, Sam. How’d the meeting go?”

  “I think I might have quit, but I’m not sure.”

  “What do you mean you’re not sure?”

  “It all happened so quick. One moment I was the pastor, and the next minute they were talking about hiring the superintendent’s nephew.”

  “Him? He’s a twerp. He’s been fired from every church he’s ever pastored.”

  “According to the superintendent, he’s the greatest preacher since the Apostle Paul.”

  “Sam, you go on home and don’t worry about this. I’ll get it taken care of.”

  “Thank you, Miriam. Sorry to put you through this.”

  “It’s not your fault, Sam. Don’t give it a thought.”

  “Take care, Miriam.”

  “You too, Sam. Please know you’re in my prayers.”

  “Thanks, Miriam. You’re in mine.”

  I hung up the phone and walked home. A small part of me wanted to phone Miriam and tell her not to bother, that I’d go ahead and resign. I was tired of trying to keep people happy who took joy in being miserable. Tired of sacrificing my integrity on the altar of employment. The Quakers weren’t the only game in town. Maybe the Episcopalians needed someone.

  “How’d it go?” my wife asked, when I walked in the door.

  “Either I was fired or I quit. I’m not sure. The upshot is that the superintendent wants his nephew to become the new pastor.”

  “That moron? What does he know about being a pastor?”

  “That doesn’t seem to be a concern. He apparently believes in the Virgin Birth, which seems to be all that matters these days.”

  She shook her head in disgust. “What’s happened to Quakerism?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I mean we used to be known as thoughtful people who respected the right of others to think and believe differently. What’s happened to us?”

  “I guess the fundamentalists have worn us down. I know I’m feeling worn down.”

  She glared at me, then stamped her foot, a sure sign I was about to be counseled. “Enough of that talk, Sam Gardner. You need to gird your loins and fight. They’re nothing but bullies, the whole lot of them. Don’t let them run you off. And for God’s sake, don’t let them hijack this beautiful religion.”

  “It’s not that easy, honey. Quakers also believe in peace. I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to get caught up in a church fight.”

  “That doesn’t seem to bother them,” she said.

  “That isn’t the point. I can’t choose how they behave, but I can choose how I’ll behave. And I’m going to be kind.”


  “Then you’re history, “she predicted.

  “So be it. At least I’ll have my integrity.”

  She snorted. “Don’t be getting all self-righteous on me, Sam. You have a responsibility to do what’s best for the church. You’re the pastor. You’ve been entrusted with leadership. Don’t knuckle under.”

  “I’m too tired to think about that right now. I’m going to bed.”

  I don’t know when she came to bed. I promptly fell asleep. I woke up the next morning, ate my breakfast, and puttered around the garage a few hours, studiously avoiding my wife and the subject of employment. I went to the office after lunch. As I pulled into the church parking lot, Dale was leaving, scrunched down in his car, looking sneaky. My office door was locked. My books were stacked on the floor of Frank’s office.

  “He changed the locks,” Frank said. “He told me not to help you. Said you weren’t the pastor anymore, that you’d quit.”

  “I did no such thing. How can I do my job if I don’t have an office?”

  “You could ask me for a key.”

  “He gave you a key?”

  “Not exactly,” Frank said. “I kind of slipped the extra one out of the package when he wasn’t looking.”

  “That wasn’t right, Frank.”

  “Don’t be such a patsy, Sam. It’s time you lived in the real world. Stick with me, kid, and I’ll show you a few tricks.”

  For the first time in several days, I felt a rush of optimism, that I wasn’t alone, that others would stand with me.

  I reached down and picked up a stack of books. “If Dale or Fern call,” I said, “tell them I’m working. In my office.”

  Twenty-three

  The Petition

  Two weeks had passed since I had unintentionally quit. It was now the first week of March, and Fern, Dale, and Opal were laboring to rally people to their cause, while Frank and Miriam were advising me to hold fast. I’d no sooner returned my books to their shelves, than Dale had snuck in the next night and removed them again. I put them back a second time, after which Frank changed the office lock, thwarting Dale’s effort to oust me from my office.

  Meanwhile, the troublesome trio made an elaborate show of placing plugs in their ears whenever I rose to preach. Bea Majors was off the organ, and Paul Iverson had taken her place with his guitar, which he’d learned to play in his hippie days. The downside was that he only knew hippie songs, so we tended to sing the same songs each Sunday—Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie songs, with an occasional Peter, Paul, and Mary tune thrown in for good measure. Easter was a scant month away and I was encouraging him to expand his repertoire.

  The superintendent’s nephew had shown up the previous Sunday despite Frank’s best efforts. He’d phoned the week before, asking directions to Harmony. There are a handful of towns named Harmony in the United States and Frank had sent him to one two states away.

  He’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer,” Frank said. “He showed up at a church, preached, then sat in the office for two days before realizing they were Methodists.”

  Now he was at our church, circling like a vulture, ready to pick my carcass clean. He was staying with Dale, sleeping on their fold-out sofa. He’d been stopping by the meetinghouse each morning to see if I’d vacated the office. I was practically living at the place to keep him at bay.

  “My uncle told me I’m the pastor,” he complained each morning. “You need to leave.”

  “Your uncle’s not in charge,” I pointed out. “He just thinks he is.”

  And so went our verbal sparring, back and forth each morning. I would meet his thrusts with a parry, then send him on his way.

  Dale went to the bank and tried to close the church accounts so I couldn’t be paid, but Vernley Stout, the bank president, told him it required two signatures, neither of which was his. Even when Dale stood in the lobby and prayed aloud for a cloud of locusts to descend upon the Harmony Savings and Loan, Vernley was unruffled and suggested Dale go annoy someone else. Dale retaliated by closing out their anniversary cruise account, confident this would spell the bank’s ruination, though it appeared to absorb the three-dollar loss quite nicely and go forward without a hitch.

  Discouraged by my continued refusal to make their lives easier and die, Dale, Fern, and Opal formed a secret committee to oust me. But the secret was so well kept no one learned of the committee except for them, which hampered its effectiveness. I would never have learned about it, but they held it in the church basement one evening and Frank caught them.

  “What have we here?” Frank asked. “A man and two women alone in the church with the lights turned low. I’m not one to think the worst of people, but this doesn’t look too good. I hope no one asks me what I saw. I’d hate for this to get out.”

  That kept them quiet a few days.

  This couldn’t happen at a worse time. We are well into Lent, and though Quakers don’t go for Lent in a big way, we have assumed some of its attendant burdens, like the annual Easter play the youth and children of the meeting present. Miriam Hodge was going to direct it, but then told me she couldn’t save my job and direct the play at the same time, that she didn’t have time to do both, so the play fell to me. I promptly handed it off to my wife, after promising to take her away for a long weekend after Easter.

  It is the same play the youth perform every year, written by the late Juanita Harmon in 1959 as a tribute to her mother, whose crowning achievement was winning second place at the state fair four years in a row with her marigolds. The play is less about Easter and more about the beauty of God’s creation. It would help if Jesus were mentioned in the play, but Juanita Harmon was an early New Ager and preferred to see God in flowers and trees and butterflies. When I was growing up, I always played the part of the daffodil. Of all the plays I was forced to perform in as a child, I liked that one the most, as none of the flowers had speaking parts. We simply had to smile and look radiant.

  Dale has been opposed to the play since it first debuted. Each year he suggests one of the flowers give an altar call, but time confers a certain sacredness, even to church plays, and we’ve kept it unchanged.

  I would take their effort to fire me more personally if it were something new, but Dale, Fern, and Opal have conspired to get rid of every pastor since 1962, when Dale first arrived on our shores. There is, I’m beginning to learn, a certain aspect of fundamentalism that requires the fires of division to be regularly stoked. Fundamentalists must be against something, usually a person who typifies everything they resent. There must always be an enemy, a convenient target upon which the wrath of God must fall. This year, the bull’s-eye is pinned to my chest.

  Pastor Taylor, my predecessor, survived by smiling a lot and agreeing with everyone. Though I remember he ate Tums by the truckload. An ever-present chalky smear ringed his mouth. If he had any doubts about the Virgin Birth, he never said so. In fact, he studiously avoided theology, which isn’t easy when you’re a minister, though he succeeded. Instead, he would talk about ten steps to a healthy marriage or six signs of a growing church. But he would readily concede there might be more steps or signs he hadn’t considered. What ultimately prevented his termination was that he had the good sense to die before Dale could get him fired.

  On the third Sunday in March, three weeks before Easter, I asked Dale, Fern, and Opal to meet with me after worship. By the close of worship, they were fit to be tied. Despite my encouragement to expand his play list, Paul Iverson had played Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” for the third Sunday in a row.

  I thanked him for playing a song with the word heaven in it, but suggested he might occasionally play a Fanny Crosby song, maybe “Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior” or “Near the Cross.”

  “Fanny Crosby…Fanny Crosby…,” Paul mused aloud. “Didn’t she sing backup for Joan Baez?”

  “How about ‘Kumbaya’? Do you know ‘Kumbaya’?” I asked, pausing a moment to chew on a Tums.

  “That was the Rolling Stones, right?”
r />   I helped myself to another Tums.

  My meeting with Dale, Fern, and Opal wasn’t much better. They presented me with a list of thirty-five people whom the Lord had spoken to, saying it was time I left.

  “Who’s Althea Searcy?” I asked, scanning the list.

  “That’s my son Raymond’s mother-in-law.”

  “But she doesn’t even attend this church. Isn’t she a Baptist?”

  “What have you got against Baptists?”

  “Nothing. I have friends who are Baptists. But this doesn’t concern them.”

  “That’s a fine how-do-you-do,” Fern said. “You’re all the time telling us to reach out to our Christian brothers and sisters and the first time we do, you slap us down.”

  “How long are we gonna have to listen to that rock music during church?” Opal asked.

  “He’s doing his best, Opal. Besides, now that Bea’s not playing the organ, he’s all we have.”

  She turned to the others. “I knew he’d end up blaming Bea for all of this.”

  I continued to scan the list of my detractors. “Albert Finchum’s name is on here.”

  “You bet.”

  “But he’s been dead six months.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing, because your theology probably would have killed him,” Fern said.

  “I don’t think Albert cared one way or the other about theology,” I said.

  Opal shook her head in disgust. “Now he’s attacking the dead.”

  “What’s Edith Barker’s name doing on here?” I asked.

  “She wants to see you go,” Dale said.

  “But she has Alzheimer’s,” I protested. “She doesn’t know what she wants.”

  “Now he’s attacking the sick and shut-ins,” Opal moaned.

  “Who in the world is Paul Davis?” I asked, returning to the list.

  “He’s my cousin from Alabama,” Dale said. “I’ve told him all about you and he thinks you oughta leave too.”

  Frank stuck his head in the door. “Sorry for interrupting, Sam, but Uly Grant’s grandma has been taken to the hospital in Cartersburg, and they want to know if you could hurry over there.”