“Do you mean he is everyone’s Father?” said Cherity. “Everyone’s in the whole world?”
“Of course. Who else could be their Father? God is the creator of all the universe and everything in it. That makes him the Father of everyone and everything. When we speak of knowing who God really is, that is what we mean—who he really is, is our loving Father.”
“As I started out an hour ago, before I stopped off in town for a while,” said Veronica, “I thought I saw you riding up on the ridge.”
“Oh… yeah, I guess you might have,” replied Seth.
“Well, were you up there riding an hour ago or not?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought I saw two riders. Were you with someone?”
“Uh… yeah. We went riding up there.”
“Who were you with?”
“Oh, nobody… just some, uh… friend of my dad’s.”
“It looked like he was wearing a cowboy hat. Where is this friend of your father’s from anyway,” she laughed. “Texas! Ugh—the thought of the West gives me the shivers. I can’t imagine anyplace so horrible!”
“It makes my heart so glad to hear you speak of God like that,” said Cherity in reply to Carolyn’s last statement. “If he exists, I mean… you make him sound so good! That is the kind of God one could believe in—and be glad about.”
Carolyn laughed. “He is good, Cherity,” she said. “He is so good and so loving and so generous and so forgiving and so patient that we cannot even think of words to describe how wonderful he is.”
Cherity sat for a moment with a smile on her face, as if it were simply too good to drink in, yet as if she wanted to drink it all in… and more. Gradually, however, her face began to fall.
“But what about people like my father… or me,” she said at length, “who say they don’t believe in God, or at least don’t believe in him in the same way—is God just as loving and kind, and all those other things, to them as he is to church people?”
“Does he love them just as much, do you mean?”
Cherity nodded.
“Of course he loves them just as much. He loves everyone as much as it is possible to love. But there are some people whom he can’t get his love inside of.”
“Why not?”
“They won’t let him.”
“But why?”
“They don’t want it. He loves them, but they won’t let that love in. Even though there is love in God’s heart, it never gets inside the hearts of many men and women because they won’t let it.”
Carolyn rose to pour out two cups of tea.
“That seems a strange thing,” said Cherity as she followed.
“It does, but many people don’t know that God’s goodness is waiting for them. The false images they have of God prevent it. Others don’t let God’s goodness in because they don’t want it.”
“Why would anyone not want it?”
“Because most people don’t know how good God is. They have been told many things about him that sound unappealing.”
“Again, it’s kind of like what Seth said.”
Carolyn nodded.
“But if they knew he is good,” Cherity went on, “I mean really good, like you say… they would want it then, wouldn’t they?”
“Not everyone, I’m afraid.”
“I can’t see why not.”
“Because there is reciprocation involved. Love always flows two directions. When you let God’s love inside, it changes you. Maybe there is a requirement involved too. Some people are afraid of that. They don’t want to be changed. They especially don’t want anything to be required or expected of them.”
“So God feels the same way toward them, but everyone doesn’t feel the same way toward him.”
“That is something like it.”
Cherity grew thoughtful for a minute.
“Something is bothering you?” smiled Carolyn.
“No… not bothering me,” replied Cherity slowly. “I was just thinking about what you and Seth say about the importance of knowing God the right way, knowing who he really is instead of having some false image of him. How are we to know him as he really is? It seems impossible since we can’t actually see him.”
“That’s why Jesus came—to show us and teach us what God is like. We can trust what he tells us because Jesus is God himself—God in human form.”
“That is so hard to understand!”
“It is, I know… but it explains how Jesus was able to conquer death. And what Jesus told us is that God is a good and loving and forgiving Father.”
“My mother and I have been looking at the calendar,” Veronica said as she and Seth rode along. “We think a December wedding would be wonderful, with a grand Christmas ball to coincide with it. We have settled on December 11 as the date. So put it on your calendar, Seth, dear—you mustn’t be late!”
Seth swallowed hard. He hadn’t realized things had already progressed this far! He stared straight ahead at the horse’s ears in a daze.
“And mother and I have already been shopping for material for the dresses,” Veronica went on. “You must come by to see. It will be the most dazzling wedding in the whole county for the last ten years! I want it to be the wedding no one will stop talking about.”
Seth struggled to bring his brain back to the present. He had to get out of here. He had to think of some excuse to bid Veronica a very pleasant good afternoon, while he went on his way… in the opposite direction!
As they took their cups, Carolyn sipped at her tea.
“I’ve noticed you sitting out on the rail gazing into the pasture,” she said after a moment. “You love horses, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes!”
“You love all horses?”
“Yes.”
“But some of them won’t come near you, will they? They don’t know how much you love them.”
“Oh, I know! If only they realized how full my heart is with love for them, and that I’m not mean but would be nice to them, I’m sure they would—”
Suddenly she stopped. A light dawned on her face.
“That’s like God, isn’t it?” she said.
Carolyn nodded. “What you described in your heart toward the horses is a tiny picture of what God feels toward mankind, and toward every man and woman and child in the world. God aches with love in his heart—oh, so much love!—and he wants to give that love to everyone even more than you want to be able to love those horses. But people are like horses—some of them won’t come. Do you know the horse Moonbeam?”
“She is a proud one! Seth’s told me how he and Alexander and Mr. Davidson have been trying for months to break her, but she won’t let them.”
“Yet there are other horses who seem happy and content to be broken.”
“They’re happier and more content after they’re broken too.”
“Seth is a marvel with horses,” nodded Carolyn. “Sometimes I am amazed at the way he has with them. They actually seem to understand when he speaks to them.”
“I know!” exclaimed Cherity excitedly. “Seth is so—”
She stopped herself, her cheeks reddening.
“They know his voice, don’t they? Just like they do Alexander’s,” said Carolyn. “When either of them call, they come. They come because they want to. They have learned to love their masters just as Seth and Alexander love them. They have learned to return their love. They know they will always be good to them. They have learned to trust them and therefore they come when they call. But Moonbeam doesn’t know it, so she doesn’t come when they call. But it’s only because she doesn’t know Seth and Alexander like the other horses do.
“That’s why a week or two ago they put her in with the riding horses, in hopes that by being around the others, she will see the love that flows between them. They hope in time that Moonbeam will also begin to recognize Seth’s or Alexander’s call as the voice of goodness and love.”
It was silent a long while.
“Here
, Veronica, take the reins a minute,” said Seth. “I think I’ve got something in my boot.” He handed her the reins and took off his boot. Gradually the buggy began to slow. By the time Seth had removed the offending twig, they had come to a complete stop.
“Get going, you!” cried Veronica. She yanked and whacked at the reins, but the horse had taken it into its head to stand right where he was and admire the scenery.
“You stupid horse!” yelled Veronica. “Move—get going!”
Seth was just pulling on his boot when suddenly Veronica grabbed the whip from its stand beside her and lashed violently four or five times at the horse’s back. With the first stinging blow, the horse lurched forward at a run as she whipped its back.
“Veronica!” yelled Seth, grabbing both whip and reins from her hands in a single motion.
Her eyes flashed fire as he gently eased back on the reins until the horse was calm and had come again to a stop. Seth jumped down, ran forward, and began to stroke the horse’s head.
“That was totally unnecessary,” he said. Obvious anger sounded in his tone to meet the flames in her eyes. “There are reasons why horses behave the way they do.”
But Veronica was no longer thinking about horses.
“Don’t you ever speak to me like that again, Seth!” she said. “Don’t you ever yell at me.”
“Then don’t take a whip to a horse,” he said calmly. “I apologize for raising my voice. But an unnecessary whip is one thing I cannot tolerate.”
He reached across and replaced the whip in its stand.
“I think it would be best if I walked back from here,” he said. He handed Veronica the reins. “Good-bye, Veronica. Thank you for the ride,” he said, then walked back along the road in the direction of the house.
Smoke coming out her ears, Veronica managed to get the horse to resume a slow walk toward town. She waited until she had gone far enough that Seth could not hear, then grabbed the whip again and beat the horse mercilessly. But it only took a few seconds of dramatically increased speed before she realized that if she wasn’t careful she would upset the buggy and wind up in the ditch, possibly with the wretched thing on top of her. She stopped the chastisement, and somehow reached home safely. Her smoldering wrath toward both man and beast, however, was not abated.
“People aren’t like horses, are they?” said Cherity at length.
“No,” nodded Carolyn. “God put into people something different than he did into any other creature. He made us able to think and to choose. He doesn’t force us to be broken. He calls our name and offers his goodness, and then he gives us the freedom to come to him or not. But even though animals do not have that same level of freedom to determine what they want to become, in another way the choice is just like the choice Moonbeam has to make—because when she finally comes to Seth, it will be to let Seth become her master from that day on. To answer Seth’s voice means to let him put the bit in her mouth, and then to let Seth ride her wherever he wants to go.”
“Is it like that with God too?” asked Cherity.
Carolyn nodded. “God says, ‘Do you want to be my horse, sugar and bit and all? I offer you my love and all the goodness in my heart. But it means more than just sugar chunks and apples—you also have to let me put my bit in your mouth, and go where I want you to go.’”
They sat slowly sipping at their tea. Neither said anything further. Carolyn did not push the discussion beyond its natural boundaries. She knew that Cherity had enough to stir her heart and stimulate her brain for one day. She was not one who viewed such eternally momentous movements in the human heart with urgency. She knew who was the Author of every man’s and woman’s story, and did not intrude herself into his solemn and invisible work. That the still small voice was calling to all the horses on the distant pastures of his kingdom was enough. Cherity had already heard the voice, and Carolyn was not anxious to drown it out with her own. It was time to let Cherity perceive the soft call of love on her own.
When Seth returned walking up the drive, he saw Cherity out in the pasture.
She was walking slowly toward Moonbeam, gently inching closer step by step, speaking quiet words of love which Seth could not make out. Nor could he know that she was seeking thereby, observing the horse’s responses to her soft and gentle entreaties, as much to understand her own heart toward God as Moonbean’s toward her. Cherity was intelligent enough to have drawn the applicable parallel. With the horse’s every move, every whinny, every bob of the head, every tentative step toward her and every reluctant jerk away, she intuitively recognized that she was watching an image and type of herself as she struggled to understand her own response to God.
Seth stepped back among the trees and watched a few moments more. But he recognized that the many-dimensioned exchange taking place in the pasture was a holy one that ought not be intruded upon.
He turned and stole quietly away through the trees.
At dinner that evening, both Seth and Cherity were unusually quiet. Both were thinking of the race to Harper’s Peak and the very different interviews they had been involved in afterward.
“I saw you out with Moonbeam this afternoon,” said Richmond, turning toward Cherity. “Or should I say, talking to her rather than with her?”
“Yes,” smiled Cherity. “Carolyn and I had a long talk about horses… and other things. I wanted to see if I could understand what she was thinking and feeling.”
“Any success?”
“I don’t know,” replied Cherity with a quiet smile. “I kept telling her that I mean only good for her. I don’t think she understands yet… but she will. She just has to get used to my voice, that’s all, and realize how much we all love her.”
Nineteen
Both Waters lay awake in their rooms. Very different mental and emotional sensations stirred within each.
Cherity could not have identified what she was feeling. The human heart is like many ancient gardens, in which old and forgotten seeds, for eons buried under the mold of bygone years, when newly upturned toward invigorating rays and rain from above, will burst into new life. Who can tell, likewise, what diverse forms of divine life lie buried within each of us, planted by the hand of God when he created us, awaiting the moment when their blossoms are ready to flower.
Cherity did not know that a new place was dawning into wakefulness in her soul that had lain dormant in anticipation of the sun of a mother’s smile. Most such beginnings—like the life that stirs in the heart of a seed as it begins the invisible breaking of the shell—are unlike their daily morning counterpart which we call waking. They occur slowly, sometimes over many weeks or months, even years.
The human plant called Cherity Waters had been planted eighteen years before in soil containing certain rocks and thorns, yet which was capable of producing physical growth. All the while other spirit seeds within the soil of the growing human tree had been awaiting their own moments of wakefulness. Like all such births of the implanted God nature within the human species, its first stirrings were silent, invisible, mysterious. Who can say whence begins the infinitesimal stirrings of that life, or in what form first beckons the faint call from the distant father tongue of our eternal Home.
As she heeded these stirrings, however, and flexed the limbs and muscles of that new consciousness and turned to the only place she knew to seek help, the churchy clichés of her mother’s acquaintances had been unable to soften her heart in such a way as to allow the new life to burst forth. The whisperings had quieted. The new life had retreated back within its shell, disappointed, confused, but not extinguished. For that which had begun in the heart of Cherity Waters was the most vital of all eternal movements within the human soul—the mystery of being born again. Once begun, none can stop it but the man or woman himself. The Spirit of God is the Author and Originator and Divine Awakener of such rousings. He will not be thwarted by those who misrepresent him with contorted explanations of his ways. He will find whatever means are necessary to germinate the seed h
e himself planted. In his time, he will send the sun and rain and warmth of eternal Spring, ever hopeful for the moment when each is ready to break free of the husk and send roots down into the Soil of life, which is the Spirit himself, and then turn the face of its new-blossoming life flowers upward toward the sun of his being above, and say, “I will be my Father’s child.”
In truth, Cherity was much closer to such a blossoming than she realized. Her very nature had always turned itself toward the light because she was essentially of the truth. Her soul had been developing all its life toward more truth because, what truth she did see, that same truth she obeyed. That development had been protected and, to some degree even nurtured, by the lack of that very church education her mother’s friends so condemned her father for not providing. Thus, her shoulders had not been heaped high from her very birth with degrading doctrines of a God whose justice would express itself to sinful man as the very opposite of love. She was not one who needed to be convinced—as useless a commodity for the growth of wisdom as could be imagined—she only needed her heart opened in the right directions. Nothing but opinion can result from argument where persuasion is the goal, and opinion, even right opinion, though better than wrong opinion, is of little lasting value in knowing God.
Like many who suppose themselves possessed of no belief, Cherity had never really been an atheist. What she called atheism was but the name she gave—knowing nothing else to call it—to her rejection of the dogma that had been presented to her as the gospel. In truth, she was no more an atheist than the horses she loved, who drew the breath for their great lungs from their Creator while knowing nothing of what to call him.
Cherity was, in fact, considerably less an atheist than the rebellious Moonbeam. Cherity had begun to look up and wonder who had given her life. She was but a thirsty young soul ready to look up to the fathering Sun of life.
Would that there were more such “atheists” in our churches, who, with courage and stout hearts, rose up to say, “I do not believe in your God. If God exists, he can be none other than the Father of Jesus Christ, and must be as Jesus describes him—the Father of lights, a Father of goodness, a Father of open arms and smiles and outflowing forgiveness, not an almighty autocrat wielding thunderbolts of retribution against all who dare tread on what some call his holiness.”
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