A Grain of Wheat

by Joseph Jacobson

  Steve nodded and Harold went on.

  “C.S. Lewis illustrates this in his little book on Miracles. As I recall it, he cites the case of a woman who, as a child, had been raised by parents who prided themselves on their enlightened understanding of God as Infinite Substance. In her child’s mind this suggested a vast tapioca pudding, an image of God that was further tainted by the fact that she greatly disliked tapioca pudding. I suppose most of us in moments of honesty would have to say that we have at times entertained some pretty far-fetched images of God ourselves.”

  “Well,” chuckled Steve, “I’ll have to admit that your friend’s picture of ‘whirling electrons in infinite space’ hit me pretty close to home, at least at one stage in my life. Not that I consciously thought of God in those terms, but I take your point.”

  “Well,” smiled the artist, “no need to feel alone. It’s a strange but self-evident fact that we’ve got to think of the Creator in the categories of His creation or we can’t think of Him at all. So in the end it seems to be a question of discovering the most accurate way of applying the categories of creation to the Creator, always taking care not to confuse the two. The Church Fathers were wrestling with an issue closely related to this when they sought to define the dual nature of Christ, human and divine. At any rate, let us suppose that in addition to being Power, the Supreme Being is also Love and Justice, and that He is all three of these in relation to His creation, and especially to us mortals created in His likeness. What image do you think would capture this reality for us?”

  “Father, of course. Or even Almighty Father. Or even ‘Our Father who art in Heaven.’ The word ‘Father’ is drawn from our human categories, and the word ‘almighty’ or the words ‘who art in Heaven’ lift us beyond the human to the divine, beyond this creation to its Creator.”

  “Precisely. And the moment one understands both the necessity of calling God ‘Our Father’ and its inherent limitations, one is ready to enter into the rich adventure of becoming acquainted with how the Church over the years has appropriated suggestive imagery to embody and proclaim spiritual truths. We say, for example, that our prayers ‘ascend’ to God simply because we associate dignity with height. If we said our prayers descend to God, this would inevitably suggest to us that He is an inferior Being, someone we could step on and walk over. Nor could we say that our prayers fan out to God without suggesting that He has little more status than we have, that we can look Him almost straight in the eye.”

  Harold drew on his pipe, now gone dead, and went on.

  “That’s why Christian symbolism is ageless. It evokes associations in the human mind that do not radically change. Symbolism by definition is a representation of truth, even of very Great Truth. No one in 1948 need recoil from referring to prayer as ascending to God any more than a person in AD 33 needed to recoil from it, even if in those days people thought of Heaven as located directly above earth, since the main point then and now refers to God’s superior dignity and power. It is likely that the words ‘up and down’ in the context of human society will always mean the same thing whether we’re standing on earth, landing on the moon, or dangling in space somehow.”

  “Besides,” added Steve, “changing it to ‘in and out’ would be no more accurate geographically and no less accurate spiritually.”

  “Right. So that to speak of God’s mercy as an ever-descending stream from on High and of our response as ever-ascending incense from below serves only to wrap a wonderful spiritual truth in easy-to-grasp imagery.”

  “All right,” Steve responded playfully. “But you’ll have to forgive someone like me for finding it a little difficult to picture how the source of a column of smoke can survive directly in the path of a stream pouring down on it from on High.”

  “Ach, you scientists!”

  And the conversation moved into a lighter vein until they parted company for the evening.

  The discussion that night led to Steve’s attending Matins with Harold the following morning in the side chapel before classes began. This daily event was open to all, but attended mostly by faculty members. In this way Steve gradually succumbed to the joy of adoration. It was a slow process, akin to the healing effect of medication on a serious wound. And then one day he found himself caught up in the serene thrill of blending his voice with the voices of worshipers from all ages and places in a single act of praise and thanksgiving rising to the Throne of Grace.

  But there was even more than this to his joy.

  Harold’s unblushing love for the liturgy of the Church, in which for nineteen hundred years Christians the world over had been expressing their faith toward God in one tide of praise and supplication, soon affected Steve’s struggle against his postwar fears that events in the world were making it impossible to believe in a good God. Here he was in the midst of a formidable army of men and women, many of them sufferers, martyrs, victims of injustice and disease, all praising God in the most consistent terms for His great goodness! Nothing gave voice to this miracle more effectively than the great “Te Deum Laudamus!” sung nearly every day:

  “We praise Thee, O God: We acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.

  All the earth doth worship Thee: The Father everlasting.

  To Thee all angels cry aloud: The heavens and all the powers therein.

  To Thee Cherubim and Seraphim: Continually do cry,

  Holy, Holy, Holy: Lord God of Sabaoth;

  Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty: Of Thy Glory.

  The glorious company of the Apostles: Praise Thee.

  The goodly fellowship of the Prophets: Praise Thee.

  The noble army of Martyrs: Praise Thee.

  The holy Church throughout all the world: Doth acknowledge Thee.

  The Father: Of an infinite Majesty;

  Thine adorable, true: And only Son;

  Also the Holy Ghost: The Comforter….

  Lord, let Thy mercy be upon us:

  As our trust is in Thee.

  Lord, in Thee have I trusted:

  Let me never be confounded….”

  Through wars and treachery, plagues and famines, in good times and in bad, the Church had faithfully raised these strains to God, entrusting Herself to His perpetual care and then boldly going about Her mission. The fact that She was still here singing these same words to Her eternal God, was this not proof that She had indeed never been confounded despite Her faltering steps? And were not Steve’s steps Hers?

  In short, Steve came to believe that the goodness of God means that evil is transitory and must be seen in its limited role in the mystery of His broader plan, never in isolation. Thus, when he thought of his own past and the evil he had helped to create, or when some evil from the wider world caught his attention, he repaired to the liturgy of the Church and immersed himself in its authoritative constancy and calm assurance within which evil appears as a passing shadow, a spent force. And this kept him from coming unraveled.

  “In Thee, O Lord, have I trusted: Let me never be confounded.”

  This was Dr. Stephan Pearson’s peaceable religion. It was his solid wall to lean on when he was world-weary, his assurance that Providence would honor his efforts to guarantee that science would in the end serve to eradicate poverty and evil, not to promote them. He had little faith in human beings to achieve this. He knew far too many scientists who went about their business totally unconcerned about the long-term effects of their work. For him, on the other hand, everything now began and ended with prayer. And as a teacher this meant above all to instill the right motives in his students so that when they lost themselves in the pure allure of science, they did not abandon their moral sense. Liturgical prayer did this for him, leading him to have peace in doing his best and leaving the rest to God.

  This transformation in Steve did not, of course, happen in a day. It grew in him slowly but surely as the Church’s liturgical celebrations came to provide the consolation and hope which the world could not. Kay, too, shared in Steve’s gradual recovery o
f reliance on God as the Ultimate Unifying Force. She was mindful of how healthy it was for Steve to have a place of refuge from the storms of life, a rock on which to stand in the shifting sands of world events, a last court of appeal to which to take his case. And as he was restored in spirit, so was she. Discovering the riches and depth of true liturgical worship was a real eye-opener for her. The church of her youth had had little commitment to liturgy. Worship was a free-for-all much of the time. Everything depended on the personality and gifts of its ever-changing ministers who ranged all the way from devout to flippant in their conduct of worship. In the changeless but prolific traditions of the Church, she found something much truer, more authoritative, more enduring, than anything she had known before. And her drifting soul found a mooring place.

  The respected professor’s blend of brilliance as a research scientist and mathematician and his humble devotion to God did not fail to leave its mark on both students and colleagues. If a man of his caliber could excel in both science and religion, how could anyone question their compatibility? Both must be essential in the pursuit of truth. Even the students who were the most indifferent or even antagonistic to religion could not avoid the message implicit in his daily routine of removing his white laboratory coat at chapel time and making his way across the campus to the church. It didn’t matter if he were right in the middle of something, such as assisting a student. When the moment came to leave, he excused himself and left, transformed in an instant from master to servant, from academic to mystic.

  The disputes of the renowned theologians of that time meant little to him. It was not that he disdained them. It’s that he found himself in agreement with Harold Thorsheim, who was better acquainted with them than he was, that most commotions in the specialized arena of theological combat affect the basic genius of the Church’s faith about as much as a few noisy splashes on the surface of the ocean affect its changeless depths.

  It took almost two years for Steve to feel at liberty to share with his friend the exact nature of his burden of guilt, his direct personal responsibility for contributing to the development and successful production of the atom bomb. It happened near the end of one of their cherished evenings together as couples.

  “Harold, you need to know something about me. You have generously shared with me from the very depths of your heart and soul, and I have been greatly blessed by that openness and candor on your part. I now need to share with you something from the depths of my heart and soul, but it will not come as a blessing to you.”

  And he spilled it all out, all the way from the circumstances surrounding his love for Cecilia and her death, to the letter from President Roosevelt and its consequences, to his providential encounter with Kay, and everything in between.

  The shock and wonder of it did leave Harold quite stunned, at a loss for words, but not for long.

  “Steve, I have come to know you well, and I have come to love you. You are my brother in Christ. Nothing can change that. God is bringing some great good out of all this, of that I am certain.”

  Steve looked at his friend through the tears in his eyes.

  “I can’t thank God enough for you and Mary. You won’t know until you are in the presence of God Himself how much you have blessed us.”

  It remains only to take note of a little ritual that developed whenever the Pearsons and the Thorsheims spent an evening together. They would end it by singing a hymn which Steve found very meaningful. Its words were by John Ellerton and its hymn tune was by John B. Dykes. All four of them sang well, and in four parts, Mary informs me. I would love to have been there. This is the hymn:

  Behold us, Lord, a little space

  From daily tasks set free,

  And met within Thy holy place

  To rest awhile with Thee.

  Around us rolls the ceaseless tide

  Of business, toil and care;

  And scarcely can we turn aside

  For one brief hour of prayer.

  Yet these are not the only walls

  Wherein Thou may’st be sought;

  On homeliest work Thy blessing falls,

  In truth and patience wrought.

  Thine is the loom, the forge, the mart,

  The wealth of land and sea;

  The worlds of science and of art

  Revealed and ruled by Thee.

  Then let us prove our heavenly birth

  In all we do and know:

  And claim the kingdom of the earth

  For Thee, and not Thy foe.

  Work shall be prayer, if all be wrought

  As Thou wouldst have it done;

  And prayer, by Thee inspired and taught,

  Itself with work be one.

  These were very happy years for Steve and Kay. They knew the peace of being reconnected to God, of thoroughly enjoying one another, of loving their work, and of having close and trusted friends. In addition, they enjoyed the respect of the broader community, Steve from his colleagues on campus and Kay from her colleagues at school. One might call it an equilibrium of soul that was theirs in those years, a state of great blessing which allowed their energies to flow outward for the benefit of people around them rather than being sucked inward by their own neediness.

  V

  Like college campuses all across the United States in the fall of 1942, campuses in 1950 also bore mute testimony to the fact that our country had been drawn into yet another war. Whereas the women’s dormitories were filled to capacity, the men’s dormitories were almost empty. Only the lower floors were occupied. The shades were pulled down and the curtains were drawn together on the upper floors. The nations of the Free World were rushing to the aid of the beleaguered South Koreans, aware that Moscow was the force behind the aggression of North Korea. Once again all able-bodied American young men had been summoned to fight the enemy on foreign soil, spilling their blood and the blood of the enemy for the imperiled cause of freedom. The world was tense, watching its two opposing nuclear giants spar at each other from behind the thin masks of the United Nations and North Korea. Mortal fear gripped everyone. What would happen if these giants threw off their masks and faced off against each other directly? Gory as this war had become, it had so far remained within the arbitrary bounds of conventional weaponry. Would it at some point break loose and engulf the whole world in a nuclear holocaust with unthinkable consequences?

  But this unwanted interruption in normal scholastic activities seemed short-lived. Already in November the United Nations’ forces had routed the aggressor. Our boys would be home for Christmas, ready to resume their education after a six-month hiatus that had added years to their stature. Soon the musty rooms would be aired out and life would be back to normal. No one anticipated the enemy’s next move that would result in the return of the Korean peninsula to much the same state it had been in before the conflict began and would prolong the bloodshed fruitlessly for another two-and-a-half years.

  Shortly before Christmas, a scrambling torrent of ill-equipped Chinese soldiers poured into Korea from Manchuria, sending the UN forces reeling backwards. The human avalanche kept coming and coming, overrunning the very men whose gunfire was mowing it down in waves. It rampaged onward until it ran up against a line deep in South Korean territory where UN troops had had time to dig in their superior equipment. From there, at great cost in terms of time and lives lost, our men fought their way back to the thirty-eighth parallel.

  There were no boys home for Christmas that year.

  Nor the next, except for a trickle of wounded veterans.

  The peace talks dragged on and on. The Communists were waiting for a withdrawal of Western troops, much as had happened in Europe after World War II, and were poised to capitalize on it to recoup their losses. Not until July of 1953 was an Armistice finally signed, and even then it created a frontier and a no-man’s-land which American soldiers are still obliged to guard.

  In the fall of 1953, life at Christiania took up pretty much where it had left off. But it was
a much-altered lot of male students that filled its classrooms. In some ways they were serious about making up for lost time and moving ahead with their lives, and in some ways all they wanted to do was have fun, fun which had been denied them for some three years. They wanted to lay the groundwork for a successful life, but they decidedly wanted to have a good time in the process.

  Dr. Harold Thorsheim passed away late that fall. An old chest injury of his was blamed for giving rise to complications from a cold that lingered for several weeks and then suddenly brought on the end. His death left an emptiness in Dr. Pearson’s soul that nothing else seemed quite able to fill.

  VI

  Throughout this trying period, Dr. Stephan Pearson clung to his hard-earned balance with the tenacity and integrity we might have expected of him. There was no reason why his convictions should be any less valid in wartime than they were in peacetime. He had never denied that the world is evil: he had merely affirmed that God is good and that He strengthens and vindicates His people in the face of evil. It was God’s business to do whatever He chose to do with man’s sincere and honest efforts to serve Him and his fellowmen. With this stalwart faith firmly implanted in his soul, he was able to find relief from the tensions of the world in his cozy office, in his ever-fertile mind, in his vocation as a teacher, and above all in Kay.