“I see. Alderton’s version of the British caste system.” Rand was thoughtful for a moment. “Someone is always trying to obstruct the progress of social change.” His gray-blue eyes suddenly swung to me. “So, what do you think about this, Julie?”
I found myself coming alive. “I don’t think the class system belongs in the Church. We should not only accept these Lowlands people into membership, we should seek them out. I don’t want to be a part of the Church if it isn’t open to everybody.”
Bryan laughed. “You’d have a hard time selling that to my father.”
Spencer Meloy seemed reluctant to close the discussion. Finally, when he arose to give directions for the cleanup of food leftovers, Margo and Bryan followed him. Rand turned to me.
“There’s fire in you, Julie. I can see you out there in the street, carrying a banner for all the underprivileged people of the world.”
“I’m not a crusader, Rand.”
“That wasn’t meant to be disparaging.” His eyes turned to Spencer. “Where’s your pastor’s wife?”
The question caught me off guard. “Spencer’s not married.”
Rand’s smile crinkled around his eyes. “I see.”
By midafternoon the house was beginning to take shape. The partitions were down and the missing sides of the building had been boarded up. Carpentry work had begun to extend the kitchen and build the bathroom. The upstairs rooms had been cleaned out and scrubbed and were ready for repairs. Graham Gillin arrived and to my surprise, brought half the ball team with him.
I saw Rand drive away. Just then another car pulled up and a small man in a natty brown suit got out. Vincent Piley.
Mr. Piley strode over to where Meloy was standing, not bothering with pleasantries. “How much money is the church spending for this project?” he asked bluntly.
I saw Spencer’s face tighten. “Oh, somewhere between $125 and $150,” he answered.
Seeing that several in the yard had stopped work to stare at him, Mr. Piley lowered his voice. “And who authorized the spending of this money for the church?”
“The project was cleared with Tom McKeever. Since this house belongs to the Yoder Steel Company, he agreed to let it be used for a Community Center if we would repair the flood damage.”
Vincent Piley looked somewhat discomfited. “The Board of Trustees should have been consulted.”
“Let me explain, Vincent.” Spencer’s voice was controlled. “The church has allotted me $200 for use in local mission work this year and I chose to use the money this way.”
Mr. Piley shook his head. “There’s much more involved here than a little mission work, Spencer. This establishes a precedent, and frankly, it bothers me. I think we should call a special meeting of the trustees to thrash this out.”
Meloy’s voice suddenly tensed. “You have every right to call a trustee meeting, Vincent. But as pastor of this church, I have an obligation to lead our congregation in spiritual matters. If I had to wait to get the approval of the businessmen of our church to do this kind of Christian work, nothing would get done. Furthermore, since the building being repaired is not church property, I don’t believe it comes under the jurisdiction of the trustees.”
“I don’t agree with you.” Mr. Piley turned on his heel, climbed into his car and drove off.
Sunday morning the Editor was too ill to go to church. “Your father just needs a day of rest,” Mother reported at breakfast.
After getting ready for church, I looked in on Dad. He appeared so wan, lying in bed propped up by several pillows, that I wanted to cry. What had caused this setback? The encounter with Old Man McKeever in the Vulcania?
The rest of us walked to Baker Memorial and heard Spencer Meloy give an enthusiastic report of the work party held the day before. He used as a text the passage in Luke 10:1-16 where Jesus commissions and sends out the seventy for service and compared our group of workers to the early disciples.
A look at the faces of Mr. Piley and the McKeevers, huddling in the back of the sanctuary after the service, told me that they were not happy with the sermon. Spencer had obviously received a mixed response from his congregation.
When I arrived at the Sentinel office Monday afternoon, I was surprised to discover that the Editor still had not appeared. He had come down to breakfast, and though he was somewhat pale and shaky, I had assumed he was going to work. Obviously not.
Dean Fleming was sitting on the floor by the Goss press, its parts spread all around him. Emily Cruley had taken the day off to visit a sick aunt. I went to my desk, hoping to create some verse for the Poetry Corner now that Miss Cruley was not around to look over my shoulder. But Dean wanted to talk.
“I heard Spencer preach yesterday,” he began.
“You did? I didn’t see you there.”
“Came late. Sat in the back row. Left during the final hymn so I could pick up Hazel at our church.”
I waited, knowing Dean had something on his mind. “Spencer’s going to have a big problem with his congregation if he’s not careful.”
“Why, Dean?”
“Because he’s pushing the Lowlands people on them.”
“What’s wrong with that? I believe the church should be open to everyone.”
“So do I.” Dean wiped the sweat off his bald head and moved his bad leg into a better position so that he could bolt two of the press parts together. “Trouble is, Spencer is pushing too hard.” I sighed, somehow nettled with Dean, yet aware that I had felt the same way after the service.
“Why don’t you tell him that, Dean?”
“I would if I felt it would do any good. Spencer and I have talked some already. We go somewhat different directions when it comes to theology.”
That surprised me and I must have shown it, for Dean began chuckling. “Don’t read me wrong, Julie. I’m all for Spencer. He’s sincere, idealistic, and a good preacher. I just don’t believe that social action is the main business of the Church.”
“Then what is?”
“Salvation.”
I was sickened. “What do you think we should do? Go around the Lowlands asking people, ‘Are you saved?’”
Dean put in the final bolt on the flatbed cylinder and used a chair to pull himself to his feet. “There’s a right way and a wrong way to preach salvation. Big John knew how to do it.”
“I heard some of those sin-and-damnation preachers back in Timmeton. They’re out to scare people.”
“You wouldn’t have felt that way about Big John.”
“Perhaps not. But I prefer Spencer’s approach.”
“Then you’re the one who should warn him. He’ll pay attention to you.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s obvious. He likes young people. Better remind him that most of the people in his church are over thirty. If you don’t, he’ll end up in the same pickle your father was in at Timmeton.”
“I sure hope not,” a voice said behind us.
Dean and I whirled around to see the Editor standing there, listening. He had come in so quietly we hadn’t even heard him.
“I didn’t hear Meloy’s sermon yesterday,” my father continued. “But it’s hard to believe that a church here in western Pennsylvania could be as prejudiced as the one in Timmeton.”
Dean shrugged. “People are much the same wherever you go. They don’t like to worship with people who’re different.” Then, changing the subject, “You’ll be glad to know, Ken, that the press has been tuned up for this week’s run.”
My father nodded, intent on getting caught up with his work. Dean began tinkering with the job press and I returned to my desk. The three of us must have worked an hour or more, the only interruption being several telephone calls, which the Editor took in his office. I finished my proofs, then began daydreaming.
Rand and Spencer were so different. I could still see them sitting side by side: Rand so casual, Spencer so intense, Rand with all that fancy food, Spencer with his two peanut-butter sandwiches,
Rand’s clothes so neat, Spencer dirt-covered from the top of his hair to the soles of his heavy work shoes.
Why had the Englishman come? He did not seem interested in our church project. And he, like Bryan, did not understand why we would not go out and hire laborers to fix up the house. “Plenty of people out of work,” he had commented. I loved Spencer’s answer—that we were down there as a gift of love to these people.
But how do you love people who are so different? By what you do to help them? Perhaps that was it. I had not known how to love that poor Lowlands woman, Sonja Balaz; we lived in different worlds. But if I could help fix up a place where she could come and sew and talk with other Lowlands wives, then I was showing her love.
Again I asked myself, why had Rand come? To be with me? That was a nice thought, but he could pick a dozen more interesting places to see me, if that was his desire. Then I sighed and admitted the reason for my dissatisfaction. Rand had come off as a bit of a snob. Westphalian ham! That food from the Club was just too much.
Dean had gone into the Editor’s office to talk while I sat at Miss Cruley’s desk to answer the telephone. When I returned to my own desk, I did not pay attention to their voices at first, until Dad’s rose. “I tell you, Dean, that statement I made to the McKeevers in the Vulcania literally made me sick.”
“Why, Ken?”
“Because it was so wishy-washy. I had a chance to take a stand against them and I caved in. My weak-kneed reply makes me cringe: ‘I believe that you’re sincere. I accept your sincerity.’ My God, Attila the Hun was probably sincere. So was that megalomaniac Napoleon. So what!”
“So you’ve gotten real down on yourself again, Ken. What will that accomplish?”
“I don’t know, but I’m discouraged. I felt in good shape before that Vulcania visit. Ready to tackle anything. Now I’m unsure of myself again, wondering how I’ll cope with the future. All I see ahead are confrontations between me and powerful forces. Pressure to bow to their desires. Temptations to go against what I think is right.”
There was a long moment of silence. “Ken, we’ve talked before about the Scripture that can help you here. It says that our Father in heaven won’t let life deal us more than He’ll give us the ability to handle.”
“I know that, Dean. But when I look back over my life, I see a string of bucklings under pressure, a tendency to hunt escape routes for myself instead of standing and fighting. I don’t trust myself not to fold the next time too.”
“You will fold if you’re just trusting yourself,” Dean observed. “To be blunt, Ken, I don’t think you trust God for anything.”
There was silence. Anger at Dean rose in me, then concern for my father. After a long silence, Dad finally replied softly, “The truth is that God isn’t that real to me. So how can I trust Him?”
“Which leads to the next question,” Dean pushed on. “Why did you enter the ministry in the first place?”
My father’s answer went back to the time when he was seven and his father died, then to what it was like to be reared in an all-female household, including a possessive mother and two ambitious older sisters, and he admitted that he chose Haverford College in eastern Pennsylvania to get away from them.
While reading George Fox’s writings in one of his courses, my father had come across this earthshaking fact: that God will break through to any given person who approaches Him with an open, hungry heart. This thought planted a powerful seed in Dad.
“I decided right then that I meant business about living the Christian life,” the Editor chuckled. “So I began a course of self-improvement. I moved away from my close friends into a single dormitory room in a tower up under the belfry. I stopped drinking and smoking, went regularly to church, studied the Bible, prayed each morning and night, and read religious books.”
“I can guess what happened,” Dean said.
“From my solitary room in the tower, I would look down with contempt on my friends strolling the quadrangle,” the Editor resumed. “There they were, going to the dogs while I was cleaning up my life; they dissipated while I was on the way to being a model person. But the harder I tried, the more impossible I found it to live up to even the simplest ethic of the Sermon on the Mount. I was a self-righteous, obnoxious failure.”
Dean exploded with laughter. “Go on, Ken.”
“I don’t know what crazy thing I would have done next if some Christian missionaries from the China Inland Mission hadn’t visited our campus. They had been through the raids and persecution by guerrilla bands that ravaged China after the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. They excited me with their verve and sparkle, which seemed all the more incredible after the harrowing experiences they had lived through. They talked in a personal way about their Lord. Their love for one another stabbed me. They described an inner light as that still, small voice within, which time after time warned them of imminent danger, and which gave them directions, guidance and supply. That Saturday night, I asked God for what these men had.
“The next day all the world looked new. Sunlight sparkled on the ivy leaves. Each blade of grass shimmered with a vibrant life of its own—as though I were seeing the world on the first morning after the dawn of creation. Not only that, I felt a new vitality inside me. It was then I decided that the ministry was for me.”
“And your mother and sisters—were they happy about this?”
“Not at all. They thought my decision immature and foolish, that I was being carried away on a tide of emotionalism. Mother always had ambitions for me in the business field,” Dad recalled. “Yet the more they resisted my going into the ministry, the more determined I became. Of course, that resistance only proved that I was still fleeing their domination. So staring me in the face now is the question, was my call to the ministry authentic?”
“What about seminary?” Dean asked. “What happened there?”
“Another disaster. I ran into a highly charged intellectual atmosphere for which I was not prepared.”
“How come?” Dean interjected. “From what I know of Haverford College, it’s very intellectual. It should have prepared you for seminary.”
“Perhaps so, but applying intellectualism to history or literature or economics is different from applying it to a man’s faith. The seminary professors taught a liberal, neo-orthodox doctrine which viewed all miracles as myth and explained away any supernatural element in the Bible. Jesus’s resurrection was solely a spiritual one. We were taught to accept only what can be explained factually or psychologically.”
“Isn’t that what you get in most seminaries, Ken?”
“I guess so. I should say that, by and large, those professors were some of the finest men imaginable—kind, likable, wanting to serve their fellow men—and most were intellectually brilliant. But I ended up in a state of confusion and terrible conflict.”
“When did you marry Louise?”
“Just before my last year in seminary. Louise never had the conflicts I did. She’s the strong one. And practical. Spends most of her time propping me up. It all came to a head one day shortly before my graduation. I remember burying my head in my arms on the kitchen table, and with sobs wrenching me, crying out, ‘God, I don’t know what I believe about You anymore.’”
The two men were silent for a while, as I struggled with a new set of emotions concerning my father.
“Louise and I worked through it,” Dad continued. “We became followers of Harry Emerson Fosdick and decided that we would do the best we could to bring comfort and help to the people we served. This worked rather well during the five years we spent at the Bucyrus, Ohio, church. And also during the early years at Timmeton. The problem was that I’d arrived at a philosophy of don’t rock the boat. I felt that a steady but gentle influence was the most effective way of changing men’s hearts. Wasn’t that the way Jesus did it? Gentle, turning the other cheek—all that?”
“On the contrary,” Dean said, “Jesus had biting words for church officials like the Pharisees. He was anyth
ing but an ecclesiastical politician.”
I heard the Editor sigh. “Well, trying to be a politician did me no good at all. It didn’t leave me feeling like a man. Any time I’d start to take an unpopular stand about anything, a gorge of fear would rise up inside me.”
“Fear of what, Ken?”
“Fear of rejection. Losing face with the congregation. Losing my job.”
“And Louise picked that up?”
“Yes. She couldn’t understand what I was feeling. I guess she thought she’d married a strong man. But I was weak inside. So the tension between us built and built. And my philosophy could not deal with the issues in the Timmeton church. Then I just came apart.”
“And now you’re being put back together,” answered Dean. He paused and I heard him move about in his chair. “There comes a right moment in the life of each person. Scripture has a beautiful phrase for it—‘the fullness of time.’ The fullness of time has arrived for you, Ken. Right now. You’ve spent years trying to be a strong man on your own efforts. It hasn’t worked. Now you’re ready for the better way.”
That night while lying in bed, unable to sleep, I struggled with a new set of thoughts. Pouring out his heart to Dean Fleming was good for my father. Already I could see more strength in him. And those long hours spent with Dean and his friends had been good for him too. One conclusion was inescapable: those two words burned on the handle of the ax in Dean’s cabin, “The Preparers,” were the key to my father’s recovery.
I just had to find out more about them.
High school graduation day turned out to be an unforgettable experience—but not for the reason I expected.
On Saturday morning, June 22, the sixty-five graduates of our class gathered in the high school gymnasium to receive our diplomas. Since girls had to wear white dresses, Mother and I had found just what I wanted—a simple white crepe, expensive at $11 but something I could wear all summer.
The high moment for me came when our principal arose to give a special citation to “two members of the graduating class for leadership in community affairs.” He read off two names: Margo Palmer and Julie Wallace! An exciting moment! And a complete surprise.