by Jan Karon
Thank the Lord, Father Tim was back again. Two Sundays in a row! She tried to keep her opinion to herself about why she was so glad to have him back, but the truth was, she’d never warmed up to Father Talbot, though she’d been impressed to start with.
You take Father Tim—he was a big hugger and hand-shaker, even a kisser. He’d whopped her one on the cheek when she and Gene had their first grandbaby, and given her a hug into the bargain.
But you take Father Talbot. If you started to hug him, he jumped back a foot, probably because you might mess up his hair. Or was it a wig? Nobody knew for certain, but his hair always looked perfect, like it was never slept in.
And another thing. It seemed like Father Talbot had this relationship with God that he didn’t want to share. Somehow, it was just him and God, with nothing dribbling out on his parishioners. On the other hand, he was smart as a whip, using words she’d never heard before in her life. Plus, his sermons were like the front page of the newspaper. Unfortunately, she had already read the newspaper by the time she got to church and so occasionally took a nap while he preached.
Somebody said he’d gone to Harvard. Or was it University of Michigan? She could never remember which. The story was, he’d come out of college as a stockbroker. According to Hessie Mayhew, who knew all about the Episcopalians even though she belonged to the Presbyterians, he did stockbroking ’til he was forty, then got called and went to seminary. Maybe his late start was the problem. She wondered how his wife liked him jumping from one job to another.
Anyway, it was a blessing to have Father Tim again, she didn’t know why they couldn’t let him attend his old church—what an aggravation it must be to tool over to Wesley every Sunday! The problem, of course, was that ridiculous church law saying the old priest couldn’t hang around because everybody would run to him and leave the new priest out on a limb.
There went the bells chiming! Since childhood, that had been one of her favorite things about church. Then the organ cranked up the prelude. Though she had no idea what music it was, she knew it was something Father Tim liked, Richard often played it in the old days….
It was easy to think, if only for a moment, that nothing had changed—except, of course, that Father Talbot had talked the vestry into having the carpet yanked up so the choir would have better acoustics. Unbelievable! Walk down the aisle on a snowy Sunday morning with your boots melting snow on that slick wood floor, and blam! down you could go, ending up in the hospital with a broken hip and a blood clot racing to your heart. Or was it your brain?
She would never in a hundred years understand church politics.
Hélène Pringle stepped from the bright, warm sunlight into the cool, sweet shadow of the narthex.
Before she quite recovered from the small shock to her senses, someone thrust a copy of the pew bulletin into her hand and gave her a surprised, albeit warm, greeting, which, to her regret, she returned in French.
She was trembling slightly, with both fear of the unknown and a deep, childlike excitement.
The service would be different from the services her grandmother had forced her, for a brief period, to attend in that great, cold church built of stone. She’d hardly ever understood anything the priest had said, for the echo made his voice sound tremulous and metallic, as if it were coming from the walls and not from a man. The acoustics, however, had done wondrous things for the voices of the choir; she remembered the goose bumps she felt as a nine-year-old; they prickled along her spine and made her hair feel as if it were standing.
She was afraid she wouldn’t know what to say or do in this morning’s service, though someone had declared that Episcopal and Catholic liturgies weren’t so vastly different, in the end. Of course, the whole Episcopal thing had come about in the first place because of Henry the Eighth, who’d been a vain and vulgar man, to say the least. She wondered that anyone would admit to being part of something he’d established. But she sensed the moment she awoke this morning that she had to be here, and so she had arisen and dressed, asking the unseen Being on the other side of the drapery to help her select attire that wouldn’t stand out or offend.
She suspected there would be a lot of kneeling and jostling about, which led her to choose the very back row, on the side by the stained-glass window of the Sermon on the Mount, where she tried to shrink herself as small as she possibly could, so no one would notice she was there.
“How lovely is thy dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts, to me!
My thirsty soul desires and longs
Within thy courts to be;
My very heart and flesh cry out,
O living God, for thee.
Beside thine altars, gracious Lord,
The swallows find a nest;
How happy they who dwell with thee
And praise thee without rest,
And happy they whose hearts are set
Upon the pilgrim’s quest.
They who go through the desert vale
Will find it filled with springs,
And they shall climb from height to height
Till Zion’s temple rings
With praise to thee, in glory throned
Lord God, great King of kings.
One day within thy courts excels
A thousand spent away;
How happy they who keep thy laws
Nor from thy precepts stray,
For thou shalt surely bless all those
Who live the words they pray.”
Hope Winchester entered the church as the pipe organ began the prelude, and looked around anxiously for a place to sit. There was only one person in the rear pew on the left.
Thinking the rear pew a good choice, she slid in quickly, noting that Hélène Pringle occupied the other end. She nodded to Miss Pringle, who had bought note cards at Happy Endings just last week.
She consulted her pew bulletin, turned in the prayer book to page 355, and hugged the open book to her chest. She’d been inside Lord’s Chapel only twice before, and was feeling utterly naked, as if she were raw and exposed altogether. She hoped she wouldn’t make a fool of herself, and especially hoped that George wasn’t sitting where he could see her in case she did. She only knew that it was important to be here this morning, though she wasn’t sure why.
Perhaps, she thought, it was because she’d given up being a noun, and was being transformed into a verb.
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen,” he said, crossing himself.
“I wrestled with this morning’s message as Jacob wrestled with the angel, until at last I said to God, ‘I will not let You go until You bless me.’
“I had prayed and labored over a sermon, the title of which is listed in your bulletin and which no longer has anything to do with what I have to say to you this morning, nor does it delve the meaning of today’s Propers.
“What I’d hoped to say was something we all need to know and ponder in our lives, but the message would not come together, it would not profess the deeper truth I felt God wanted me to convey.
“And the reason it would not is simple:
“I was writing the wrong sermon.
“Then…at the final hour, when hope was dim and my heart bruised with the sense of failure, God blessed me with a completely different message—a sermon expressly for this service, this day, this people.”
Father Tim smiled. “The trouble is, he gave me only four words.
“I was reminded, then, of Winston Churchill, how he was called to deliver the convocation address at his old school—where, by the way, he had not done well, his headmaster had predicted nothing but failure for Churchill. He was called to give the address and he stood to the podium and there was an enormous swell of excitement among the pupils and faculty that here was a great man of history, a great man of letters and discourse, about to tell them how to go forward in their lives.
“Mr. Churchill leaned over the podium, looked his audience in the eye, and here, acco
rding to legend, is what he said; this is the entire text of his address that day:
“‘Young men, nevah, nevah, nevah give up.’
“Then he sat down. That was his message. Seven words. In truth, if he had said more, those seven words might not have had the power to penetrate so deeply, nor counsel so wisely.
“Last night, alone in my study, God gave me four words that Saint Paul wrote in his second letter to the church at Thessalonica. Four words that can help us enter into obedience, trust, and closer communion with God Himself, made known through Jesus Christ.
“Here are the four words. I pray you will inscribe them on your heart.”
Hope Winchester sat forward in the pew.
“In everything…give thanks.”
Father Tim paused and looked at those gathered before him. At Emma Newland…Gene Bolick…Dooley Barlowe…Pauline Leeper…Hope Winchester…Hélène Pringle. Around the nave his eyes gazed, drawing them close.
“In everything, give thanks. That’s all. That’s this morning’s message.
“If you believe as I do that Scripture is the inspired Word of God, then we see this not as a random thought or an oddly clever idea of His servant, Paul, but as a loving command issued through the great apostle.
“Generally, Christians understand that giving thanks is good and right.
“Though we don’t do it often enough, it’s easy to have a grateful heart for food and shelter, love and hope, health and peace. But what about the hard stuff, the stuff that darkens your world and wounds you to the quick? Just what is this everything business?
“It’s the hook. It’s the key. Everything is the word on which this whole powerful command stands and has its being.
“Please don’t misunderstand; the word thanks is crucial. But a deeper spiritual truth, I believe, lies in giving thanks in…everything.
“In loss of all kinds. In illness. In depression. In grief. In failure. And, of course, in health and peace, success and happiness. In everything.
“There’ll be times when you wonder how you can possibly thank Him for something that turns your life upside down; certainly there will be such times for me. Let us, then, at times like these, give thanks on faith alone… obedient, trusting, hoping, believing.
“Perhaps you remember the young boy who was kidnapped and beaten and thrown into prison, yet rose up as Joseph the King, ruler of nations, able to say to his brothers, with a spirit of forgiveness, ‘You thought evil against me, but God meant it for good, that many lives might be spared.’ Better still, remember our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who suffered agonies we can’t begin to imagine, fulfilling God’s will that you and I might have everlasting life.
“Some of us have been in trying circumstances these last months. Unsettling. Unremitting. Even, we sometimes think, unbearable. Dear God, we pray, stop this! Fix that! Bless us—and step on it!
“I admit to you that although I often thank God for my blessings, even the smallest, I haven’t thanked Him for my afflictions.
“I know the fifth chapter of First Thessalonians pretty well, yet it just hadn’t occurred to me to actually take Him up on this notion. I’ve been too busy begging Him to lead me out of the valley and onto the mountaintop. After all, I have work to do, I have things to accomplish…alas, I am the White Rabbit everlastingly running down the hole like the rest of the common horde.
“I want to tell you that I started thanking Him last night—this morning at two o’clock, to be precise—for something that grieves me deeply. And I’m committed to continue thanking Him in this hard thing, no matter how desperate it might become, and I’m going to begin looking for the good in it. Whether God caused it or permitted it, we can rest assured—there is great good in it.
“Why have I decided to take these four words as a personal commission? Here’s the entire eighteenth verse:
“‘In everything, give thanks…for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.’
“His will concerning you. His will concerning me.
“This thing which I’ve taken as a commission intrigues me. I want to see where it goes, where it leads. I pray you’ll be called to do the same. And please, tell me where it leads you. Let me hear what happens when you respond to what I believe is a powerful and challenging, though deceptively simple, command of God.
“Let’s look once more at the four words God is saying to us…by looking at what our obedience to them will say to God.
“Our obedience will say, ‘Father, I don’t know why You’re causing, or allowing, this hard thing to happen, but I’m going to give thanks in it because You ask me to. I’m going to trust You to have a purpose for it that I can’t know and may never know. Bottom line, You’re God—and that’s good enough for me.’
“What if you had to allow one of your teenagers to experience a hard thing, and she said, ‘Mom, I don’t really understand why you’re letting this happen, but you’re my mom and I trust you and that’s good enough for me’?”
He looked around the congregation. “Ah, well,” he said, “probably not the best example.”
Laughter.
“But you get the idea.
“There are, of course, many more words in the first letter to the Thessalonians. Here are just a few:
“‘Pray without ceasing.’
“‘Abstain from all appearance of evil.’
“‘Quench not the Spirit.’
“These words, too, contain holy counsel and absolute truth.
“But the words which God chose for this day, this service, this pastor, and this people, were just four. Yes, do the other things I command you to do, He says, but mark these.”
He gazed upon his former flock with great tenderness.
“Mark these.”
Hélène Pringle realized she had been holding her breath for what seemed a very long time.
“When we go out into this golden morning and meet in our beautiful churchyard, let those who will, follow yet another loving command from Paul’s letter. ‘Greet the brethren with an holy kiss!’
“Amen.”
Miss Pringle exhaled; and then, with the congregation, gave the response.
“Amen!”
Hélène Pringle went quickly out the side door of the church and along the street to the corner of Main and Wisteria, where she stopped for a moment and looked back.
She hadn’t wanted anyone to kiss her, not at all, that was the trouble with Americans, they required a lot of touching. Yes, of course, the French greeted each other with a kiss—a kiss on both cheeks, for that matter—but it meant nothing in particular. It seemed to her that the holy kiss the father spoke about might actually mean something, though she wasn’t sure what.
She trembled slightly, and wondered what on earth was grieving the father so deeply. Then she turned and hastened up Wisteria Lane toward the old rectory, where Barbizon would be wanting his liver snacks.
Hope Winchester had gotten over feeling naked and now felt fully clothed, able to stand in the sunshine and talk with several of her customers, as young people passed trays of cookies and lemonade in paper cups.
“Why, bless your heart!” said Esther Bolick. “Look who’s here!”
“Will wonders never cease?” A choir member who collected Penguin Classics gave her a hug.
Though Hope didn’t see George, Harley Welch bobbed his head in her direction and offered a shy grin.
She was turning to go down the walk when the chaplain from Hope House, standing with a group on the church walk, suddenly swung around and jabbed her in the ribs with his elbow.
“Ouch!” she said.
“Miss Winchester! I’m so sorry.”
He looked sincerely distressed.
“It’s all right,” she said. “Really.”
Scott Murphy turned and picked a small, cream-colored hydrangea blossom from the bush next to the church walk. He smiled congenially, ducked his head in a modest bow, and handed the bloom to her. “Forgive me!”
&
nbsp; Having no idea what to do with it, she tucked it into the small chignon she’d been wearing these days.
“There you go!” he said, looking pleased.
She thought the chaplain, whom she’d seen only twice, and both times in blue jeans, looked very grown-up in a tie.
For someone whose life consisted of little more than going to the bookshop and home again, she found church a dizzying whirl of laughter, music, cookies, pealing bells, new ideas, children playing on the lawn, and people who were generally swarming like bees in a hive.
Father Tim walked over and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
She touched her cheek and smiled. “A holy kiss!”
“Yes. We’re happy to see you, Hope.”
Hope! Once again, her name sounded brand-new.
CHAPTER TWENTY
In Everything
After a quick lunch, he rang the number in Kinloch. No answer.
“Barnabas!”
Barnabas crawled from under the hall table and stretched. Then he trotted to the study and sat down, looking steadily at Father Tim.
“How would you like to get out of Dodge?”
The Great Wagging of the Tail began.
“Meet new squirrels! See new sights! Broaden your horizons!”
The wagging accelerated.
The crowd in Kinloch would surely have a corner where he could tether his dog to a table leg, or perhaps some intrepid youth would dog-sit him in a rear pew.
He went to the study and thumped onto the sofa for a thirty-minute nap. Then he got up and changed clothes, foraged in his desk drawer for his handwritten directions, rounded up a dog bowl and bottles of water for the car, and set a dish of tinned liver on the floor by the refrigerator.
“Violet,” he said, “you’re on your own.”
He felt wonderful, he felt eager.
He felt ready for anything.
They were well out of Mitford and heading north, north where the rain had obviously come with greater regularity and the hills were still green with summer.