“The search for God, you mean? But you must have found what you were looking for, if you became a minister.” Delta bit her lip, debating whether to be completely honest with him. Then she took a deep breath and said, “I’m an agnostic. I hope that doesn’t offend you.”
Rankin chuckled. “Agnostic. Interesting word. Gnostic, to know. Agnostic literally means ‘not knowing.’ By that definition, I too am an agnostic. A Christian agnostic.”
Delta gaped at him. “But doesn’t your religion tell you what you need to know? Doesn’t the Bible specify what you need to believe?”
“The Bible gives me glimpses of God, hints of truth. But truth is not a treasure to be found and possessed. Perhaps the biggest heresy in the life of faith is the myth of certainty. Faith is not about knowing, about being sure. Faith is about seeking God, and continuing to seek. It’s the doubts and questions and uncertainties that fuel my ongoing search for God.”
He finished his pie and accepted a refill of coffee from the waiter. Slowly he stirred it, watching as the spoon created a tiny maelstrom in the center of his cup. “Tell me about this God you don’t believe in,” he said quietly.
Here it comes, Delta thought. The sales pitch.
But to her surprise it never came. He listened intently, respectfully, as she painted a picture of the God she had encountered as a child—an ancient gray-haired divinity who saw all and knew all and loomed overhead waiting to smite anyone who stepped out of line.
“Like Santa Claus without the presents,” Rankin said. “He knows if you’ve been bad or good —”
“So be good, for goodness sake,” Delta finished with a laugh. “I never thought about it quite like that.”
“A God who lays down rules we can’t possibly keep and then punishes us for violating them.”
Delta nodded. “Right.”
Rankin went on. “And then this demanding God further demands that we believe the incomprehensible without wavering, or we’re slapped down for doubting as well.”
“Yes.”
He arched his eyebrows. “If that was my definition of God, I’d still be an atheist.”
“But isn’t that everyone’s definition of God? And isn’t your job as a preacher to get people to believe in him?”
“My job isn’t to sell religion the way you sell a used car,” Rankin replied. “My job—my calling —is to help people find their own paths. To do justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly with God. God is the ultimate mystery of life, the joyful darkness that lies beyond the edges of our sight. I hold to only one definition of God, and it can be summed up in a single word: love.”
“So how did you know you had been … called?” Delta asked.
Rankin smiled. “I rejected the myth of certainty and embraced the mystery,” he said. “It felt like driving on a country road with all the windows down. Like standing at the ocean at sunrise.”
Delta gazed at him. “Like leaving home and coming home all at the same time?”
“Yes,” he said. “Exactly like that.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
THE MINISTER’S WIFE
Despite her initial misgivings, Delta felt drawn to Rankin Bal-lou. Magnetized. Theoretically, she didn’t believe in love at first sight, yet she had never imagined so much as a glimmer of what she experienced when she looked into this man’s eyes. A feeling of rightness, a sense of destiny. It both elated and terrified her.
On so many levels, they connected. She believed she could be with him forever and never be bored, never feel like she had settled for less.
This was exactly what she had dreamed of. Still, the specter of her parents’ divorce hung over her like a shroud. How could you ever know, really know, what the future might hold? How could you be certain?
Rankin would say it was a matter of faith.
But faith, when Delta tried to grasp it, slipped through her fingers like oil.
JUNE 1973
They married on the summer solstice, outdoors in the sunshine, the year she finished her masters and turned twenty-three. Rankin was almost thirty-three, established in his life’s purpose, certain about his call.
Delta didn’t fully understand his sense of mission and hated the idea of moving around from church to church, but she thoroughly enjoyed the philosophical and spiritual discussions their relationship generated. He introduced her to theologians and mystics—Julian of Norwich and Teresa of Avila and the Desert Fathers and Mothers, whom he called the Abbas and Ammas. She gave him Donne and Herbert and Milton, Yeats and Auden and T S. Eliot. He never talked down to her, never pretended to have all the answers. And yet…
And yet she always felt something lacking, a spiritual center he clearly possessed and she could never seem to find.
At first she tried to convince herself it didn’t matter, that her identity lay in herself, not in her role as a pastor’s wife. But she soon discovered a level of expectation she hadn’t anticipated. Only a few members of the congregation openly criticized her for pursuing her education rather than staying home, and they kept silent once Rankin made clear his support of her. Yet the subterranean rumblings continued. Why wouldn’t she organize a women’s Bible study? Why hadn’t she taken the lead in the Ladies’ Aid? And why did she bring the same tuna casserole to every blessed potluck dinner?
The external disapproval hounded Delta, but even more the accusations of her own mind and heart.
Until she met Grandma Mitchell.
Three years into their marriage, Rankin received a call from a church in Asheville, North Carolina. Delta was halfway through her Ph.D. and had been offered an instructorship at the W. It was only an entry-level position, teaching grunt classes like freshman composition and survey of English lit, but it was her first job offer, and she loathed having to turn it down.
Intellectually, she knew that her relationship with Rankin was first priority, worth whatever rootlessness she had to endure. But emotionally, she left the college like Lot’s wife abandoning Sodom, dragging her heels and looking over her shoulder, salting the way with tears of grief and resentment.
She hadn’t reckoned on the grace of Gladys Elizabeth Mitchell.
They had been in Asheville less than a year when old Mrs. Mitchell first came to live with her grandson Clay and his wife, Hannah. She had just turned ninety, and her declining health prevented her from coming to church. As soon as she was settled in, Rankin made a pastoral call, and Delta went along
She had expected a frail, elderly lady whose interests ran to crocheted doilies and scrapbook photos. Instead she walked into the room to find a beady-eyed crone sitting bolt upright in her wheelchair, pointing a bony, clawlike finger into Rankin’s face.
“Sit down, Sonny Boy,” she commanded, taking charge of the meeting without so much as an introduction. “And you too, girl. We need to talk.”
They sat.
Gladys wheeled herself over until her knees nearly touched Rankin’s. “So you’re the preacher my grandson has been telling me about.” She looked him up and down with a critical eye. “Tell me, what exactly do you believe?”
Delta watched Rankin’s face. She didn’t know quite what Mrs. Mitchell expected, but she was pretty certain a ninety-year-old woman would not cater to a liberal-thinking, justice-minded minister who stood in stark opposition to the conservative perspectives most people in the South clung to. How would he cushion the truth so that she wouldn’t be offended?
The old lady saved him the trouble. “You stand up for the rights of Negroes, I hear.”
“Ah, yes, ma’am.”
“Ever been arrested?”
Rankin quailed visibly under her unflinching scrutiny. “Well, ah, yes, ma’am, I have, but it was—”
She interrupted him before he could finish. “My grand-daughter-in-law Hannah is a member of your ministry council. I take that as an indication you don’t agree with the biblical injunction against women speaking in the church.”
Rattled by this inquisition, he hedged again. “Well, Mrs.
Mitchell, there are various interpretations—”
“For God’s sake, Sonny Boy!” she screeched. “Get a backbone! Whatever you stand up for, stand up for it, and don’t let anyone push you around, least of all a mule-headed intractable old broad like me.”
Delta suppressed a laugh and did her best imitation of a supportive wife. Never in his life had Rankin Ballou been called spineless. More times than she could count, he had been arrested at civil rights protests and antiwar rallies. He had always put himself on the line, had risked himself for the causes he espoused. It was part of his calling.
But this old woman had nailed him. Stunned into speechless-ness, he stared at her. Then, after a moment or two, he said, “Forgive me, ma’am. I was trying to be considerate of your perspectives.”
For the first time she smiled, and her face softened into a lattice of wrinkles. “Never judge perspectives by appearance,” she said. “In 1917 I went to jail with Margaret Sanger over the issue of birth control. In 1920 I stood on the steps of the Capitol lobbying for the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. In 1923 I helped draft the equal rights amendment proposed by the National Woman’s Party. In the sixties I campaigned for the passing of the Civil Rights Act. I was over eighty years old, and my children and grandchildren thought I was out of my mind.” She gazed placidly at him. “I can assure you I was never more sane.”
Delta looked at her, then slanted a glance at Rankin. She could almost see his internal battle. Caught in the web of his preconceived notions—his assumptions, his prejudices —he struggled to free himself, to find the words to make amends.
Again the old woman helped him. “All those years on the front lines,” she said, “all those decades of fighting for justice, and rarely did the church step forward to help. Now the time has come to pass the torch, and I’m wondering—what do you intend to do about it? What’s your plan, Sonny Boy, to make the world a different place?”
He considered her question carefully before answering. “We’re going to affirm the essential worth of all people,” he said at last. “We’re going to shout at the top of our lungs until everyone has a voice. We’re going to say ‘No’ to images of God that are violent and cruel and judgmental.”
As he spoke, Delta could see a change coming over him. She could feel his conviction swelling in his words until renewed passion swept over him like high tide. “We’re going to overturn the moneychangers in the temple and make sure the widows and orphans get more than the crumbs that fall underneath the table. We’re going to redefine what it means to be a Christian.”
“About damn time,” she murmured. “Jesus would turn over in his grave if he could see what has been done in his name.”
The image, so outrageously irreverent, hit Delta full in the gut, and she let out a bark of a laugh. The old woman winked at her and laughed too—not the harsh croaking laugh of an ancient crone, but a young, vibrant sound like chapel bells ringing on the night air. Then she turned and fixed Delta with her beady eye.
“And what about you, girl?”
Delta faltered. “What about me?”
“I hear tell you’re not much of a preachers wife.”
Delta fought back the temptation to make excuses for herself. Instead, she looked Mrs. Mitchell square in the eye and responded, “That’s probably right.”
Rankin opened his mouth to defend her, but she waved him off. “I know a lot more about literature than I do about the Bible,” Delta went on. “I don’t play the piano or teach Sunday school. I’m not much of a cook. I’m not much of a Christian either, if you get right down to it. I guess you’d call me a seeker.”
The old woman narrowed her eyes. “What is it exactly you’re seeking?”
“My own path,” Delta responded after a moment’s thought. “My own experience of God’s presence. I suppose you’d say I have a lot more questions than answers.”
Mrs. Mitchell grinned broadly, showing a gold-capped tooth. “I’d be interested in hearing those questions someday, if you’d care to spend a little time with a crusty old hag like me.”
Delta nodded. “I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”
The woman leaned forward and patted her hand, then turned toward Rankin again. “You got a cigarette?”
Rankin stared at her. “No, ma’am. I don’t smoke. But, Mrs. Mitchell, do you really think you should—”
“Call me Grandma,” she said. “Mrs. Mitchell was my mother-in-law, and I’d rather not go to my reward with that picture in my mind.” She arched an eyebrow. “What, you think a cigarette or two is going to kill me? For God’s sake, boy, I’m ninety years old. I’m living on borrowed time as it is.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said meekly.
“Camels,” she ordered. “Unfiltered. Bring ’em with you next time you come, along with those wafers and wine.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
GOING OUT AND COMING IN
ASHEVILLE, NORTH Carolina
SPRING 1976
In Grandma Mitchell, Delta found both a willing ear and a compassionate heart. And more. Much more. For almost two years she had been going every week to visit, and every time she came away feeling as if she had knelt at the feet of the oracle. A visionary who helped her shape her own vision.
“I love Rankin,” Delta confessed one afternoon. “And I love being married to him. But I still don’t think I’m cut out for this pastor’s wife thing.”
The old woman had transferred herself to a porch chair and now sat there rocking and smoking her Camels. “Those old biddies still giving you hell?”
Delta shrugged. “A few. I’ve learned to turn a deaf ear, for the most part. But that’s not the real issue. This is not about running bake sales and chairing the Ladies’ Aid. It’s about me. My faith—or lack of it. People expect me to be some kind of expert.” She sighed. “I used to say I didn’t believe in God. Now the most I can say is that I don’t understand God.”
Grandma Mitchell leaned back in the rocker and puffed on her cigarette. “One of the great forbidden pleasures in life.” She sighed. “How old are you, girl?”
“Twenty-eight. Almost twenty-nine.”
“And how long have you and Rankin been married?”
“Six years in June.”
Grandma Mitchell smoked some more and rocked some more. Delta waited in silence. Patience, she had learned, brought its own rewards. Despite the old woman’s crusty exterior, she harbored a deep well of wisdom and a fiery spirit.
“I’ve lived ninety-three years on this earth,” Grandma said at last. “And they’ve been full years too. I haven’t wasted a lot of time on trivialities. And yet I can’t shake the feeling that if I lived another ninety, I’d still go out with unanswered questions and an unfinished faith.” She stopped rocking and fixed her watery blue eyes on Delta’s. “Where do you find glimpses of this God you don’t understand?”
Delta thought about this for a minute. “In nature. In poetry. In people. In Rankin’s love for me.” She averted her eyes. “In you.”
She half expected this last declaration to draw a protest, but instead the old woman just laughed. “And where else?”
“Well, in some of the stories from the Bible, I suppose. Rankin and I always discuss the texts he’s going to preach on each week. Some of them, frankly, baffle me, but I see images of the divine there too. Jacob wrestling with God, for example. That’s a metaphor I can get my mind around—wrestling with an invisible foe and holding on for the light.”
“That’s one of my favorites too. Just remember that even after the dawn comes, the wrestling never ends.” She smiled, and the web of wrinkles deepened. “You’re young, my girl. Too young to realize that faith is the work of a lifetime.”
“But some people seem so sure!” Delta protested.
“The problem with being sure,” the old woman said, “is that you quit seeking. You quit growing. Life gives us two choices: change or die. My best advice is not to die until you’re dead.”
SEPTEMBER 1976<
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Delta sat upright in the hospital bed and gazed down at the curve of the baby’s cheek, the delicate lashes, the soft sucking motions as she nursed. A ripple of pleasure coursed through her as her newborn daughter’s mouth worked the nipple, an unexpected arousal.
How could it be that all the mysteries of the universe were wrapped up in such a small package? Here, in this defenseless infant, lay the ultimate metaphor. Incarnation. Resurrection. Divine made human, and human become divine. The face of God, the Creator’s touch and breath, a new world burst forth from the womb of the Holy.
Delta’s own journey of faith might be a work in progress, a labyrinth of intellectual and emotional and spiritual questions, a seeker’s way. But as she held the weight and warmth of her tiny daughter and fed her from her own body, she knew that one truth stood firm when everything else was shaken: God had a name, and that name was love.
The hospital room door opened slightly, and Rankin’s grinning face poked through the crack. “Daddy’s home.”
Delta laughed and motioned him in. He looked handsome and formal in a black clerical shirt with black slacks and a gray tweed jacket. Just briefly, she wondered what the occasion was.
He usually wore khakis to the office and rarely donned clerical garb except on special occasions. Now she found herself wishing he would wear a collar all the time. She found it oddly stimulating.
He moved closer to the bed. “How’s my little Sugar?”
Delta rolled her eyes. What was it about men and their penchant for nicknames? Rankin Ballou would be thirty-nine this year, and to all appearances an intelligent, mature, sensible man. But the moment their daughter had emerged from the womb, he had taken that round, wide-eyed baby girl in his arms, stroked her fine fuzz of white-blonde hair, and dubbed her “my little sugar pot.”
The child would no doubt be called Sugar until her dying day, but her given name was Mary Elizabeth. Delta knew the exact date and time of the conception—a rainy afternoon in December, the fourth Sunday of Advent, during halftime of the football game. The lectionary text for that Sunday was Mary’s visit to her elderly cousin Elizabeth after the annunciation. Rankin had backed up and told the story of the old priest Zechariah, Elizabeth’s husband, visited by the angel of God in the temple and told he was going to have a son. In the face of the impending miracle, the old man had been rendered speechless.
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