“I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel,” he said with the psalmist, “my heart teaches me, night after night. I have set the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not fall.”
He spoke the ancient words of the sheep farmer Amos: “Seek Him who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns deep darkness into the morning, and darkens the day into night; who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the surface of the earth: the Lord is His name!”
There it was, the smile he was seeking from his wife. And lo, not one but two, because Dooley was giving him a grin into the bargain.
“Dear friends in Christ, here in the presence of Almighty God, let us kneel in silence, and with patient and obedient hearts confess our sins, so that we may obtain forgiveness by His infinite goodness and mercy.”
Here it comes, thought Adele Hogan, who, astonishing herself, slid off the worn oak pew onto the kneeler.
Hope Winchester couldn’t do it; she was as frozen as a mullet, and felt her heart pounding like she’d drunk a gallon of coffee. Her mouth felt dry, too. Maybe she’d leave, who would notice anyway, with their heads bowed, but the thing was, there was always somebody who probably wasn’t keeping his eyes closed, and would see her dart away like a convict….
“Most merciful God,” Esther Bolick prayed aloud and in unison with the others from the Book of Common Prayer, “we confess that we have sinned against You in thought, word, and deed…”
She felt the words enter her aching bones like balm. “…by what we have done,” prayed Gene, “and by what we have left undone.”
“We have not loved You with our whole heart,” intoned Uncle Billy Watson, squinting through a magnifying glass to see the words in the prayer book, “we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.”
He found the words of the prayer beautiful. They made him feel hopeful and closer to the Lord, and maybe it was true that he hadn’t always done right by his neighbors, but he would try to do better, he would start before he hit the street this very night. He quickly offered a silent thanks that somebody would be driving them home afterward, since it was pitch-dark out there, and still hot as a depot stove into the bargain.
“We are truly sorry and we humbly repent,” prayed Pauline Barlowe, unable to keep the tears back, not wanting to look at the big, powerful man beside her. Though plainly reluctant to be there, he nonetheless held the hand of her daughter, who was sucking her thumb and gazing at the motion of the ceiling fans.
“For the sake of Your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us,” prayed Cynthia Kavanagh, amazed all over again at how she’d come to be kneeling in this place, and hoping that the stress she’d recently seen in her husband was past, and that this service would mark the beginning of renewal and refreshment.
“…that we may delight in Your will, and walk in Your ways,” prayed Sophia Burton, wishing with all her heart that she could do that very thing every day of her life, really do it and not just pray it—but then, maybe she could, she was beginning to feel like she could…maybe.
“…to the glory of Your Name!” prayed the rector, feeling his spirit moved toward all who had gathered in this place.
“Amen!” they said in unison.
Out to Canaan, Ch. 15
THE SOUND CAME through the open bedroom windows—a terrible screeching noise, a loud thud, the high-pitched yelping of a dog. Dooley was shouting.
He bolted to the front window and looked down on Wisteria Lane.
Good God! Barnabas lay in the street with Dooley bending over him.
He didn’t remember racing down the stairs, but seemed to be instantly in the street with Dooley, crouching over Barnabas, hearing the horrific sound that welled up from his own gut like a long moan.
Blood ran from his dog’s chest, staining the asphalt, and he reached out….
“Don’t touch ’im!” shouted Dooley. “He’ll bite. We got t’ muzzle ’im! Git Lace! Git Lace!”
The rector was on his feet and running for the house, calling, shouting. “And git me some towels!” yelled Dooley. “He’s got a flail chest, I got t’ have towels!”
His heart was pounding into his throat. Dear God, don’t take my dog, don’t take this good creature, have mercy!
Lace flew through the door. “Help Dooley!” he said, running toward the guest bathroom, where he picked up an armload of towels, then turned and sprinted up the hall and down the steps and into the street in a nightmarish eternity of slow motion.
“Give me that thing on your head,” Dooley told Lace, “and help me hold ’im! We got to muzzle ’im or he’ll bite, look, do it this way, hold ’im right here.”
Father Tim could hardly bear the look of his dog, suffering, whimpering, thrashing on the asphalt, as fresh blood poured from the wound in his chest.
Dooley tied the bandanna around the dog’s nose and mouth, and knotted it. “Okay,” he said, taking off his T-shirt. “Don’t look, you can see ’is lungs workin’ in there.” He pressed the balled-up shirt partially into the gaping wound; immediately, the dark stain of blood seeped into the white cotton.
“Give me a towel,” Dooley said, clenching his jaw. He took the towel and wrapped the heaving chest, making a bandage. “Another one,” said Dooley, working quickly. “And git me a blanket, we got t’ git ’im to Doc Owen. He could die.”
The rector ran into the house, praying, sweat streaming from him, and opened the storage closet in the hall. No blankets. The armoire! He could die.
Christ, have mercy. He dashed up the stairs and flung open the door of the armoire and grabbed two blankets and ran down again, breathless, swept out of himself with fear.
Cynthia, come home…he could die.
“Spread ’em down right there,” Dooley told the rector. “Help ’im,” he said to Lace.
They spread the blankets, one on top of the other, next to Barnabas, as a car slowed down and stopped. “Can we help?” someone called.
“You can pray!” shouted Lace, waving the car around them.
Together, they managed to move Barnabas onto the blankets. “Careful,” said Dooley, “careful. He’s in awful pain, and his leg’s broke, too, but they ain’t nothin’ I can do about it now, we got to hurry. Where’s Harley?”
“He walked t’ town,” said Lace, her face white.
“Git his keys, they’re hangin’ on th’ nail. Back ’is truck out here, we’ll put Barnabas in th’ back, an’ you’n me’ll ride with ’im.”
She raced to the house as Dooley, naked to the waist, crouched over Barnabas and put his hand on the dog’s head. “It’s OK, boy, it’s OK, you’re goin’ t’ be fine.”
“Thank You, Jesus, for Your presence in this,” the rector prayed. “Give us your healing hands….”
They heard Lace gun the truck motor and back out of the driveway. She hauled up beside them and screeched to a stop, the motor running.
“Let down th’ tailgate,” said Dooley. Lace jumped out of the truck and let it down.
“Grab this corner of th’ blanket with me,” he said to Lace. “Dad, you haul up that end. Take it easy. Easy!”
The dog’s weight seemed enormous as they lifted him into the truck bed. “OK, boy, we’re layin’ you down, now.”
Lace and Dooley climbed up with Barnabas and gently positioned the whimpering dog in the center of the bed. Then Dooley slammed the tailgate and looked at the rector.
“Hurry,” he said.
Out to Canaan, Ch. 17
BUCK WAS SHAKING as they went into the study. Though the rector knew it wasn’t from the cold, he asked him to sit by the fire.
There was a long silence as Buck waited for the trembling to pass; he sat with his head down, looking at the floor. The rector remembered the times of his own trembling, when his very teeth chattered as from ague.
“Does Pauline know you’re back in Mitford?”
“No. I came for…I came for this.” He looked up. “I didn’t want to come back.”
/> “I know.”
“It was sucking the life out of me all the way. I was driving into Huntsville when I knew I couldn’t keep going….”
He was shaking again, and closed his eyes. Father Tim could see a muscle flexing in his jaw.
“God a’mighty,” said Buck.
Father Tim looked at him, praying. The man who had controlled some of the biggest construction jobs in the Southeast and some of the most powerful machinery in the business couldn’t, at this moment, control the shaking.
“I pulled into an Arby’s parkin’ lot and sat in the car and tried to pray. The only thing that came was somethin’ I’d heard all those years in my granddaddy’s church.” Buck looked into the fire. “I said, Thy will be done.”
“That’s the prayer that never fails.”
The clock ticked.
“He can be for your life what the foundation is for a building.”
Buck met his gaze. “I want to do whatever it takes, Father.”
“In the beginning, it takes only a simple prayer. Some think it’s too simple, but if you pray it with your heart, it can change everything. Will you pray it with me?”
“I don’t know if I can live up to…whatever.”
“You can’t, of course. No one can be completely good. The point is to surrender it all to Him, all the garbage, all the possibilities. All.”
“What will happen when…I pray this prayer?”
“You mean what will happen now, tonight, in this room?”
“Yes.”
“Something extraordinary could happen. Or it could be so subtle, so gradual, you’ll never know the exact moment He comes in.”
“Right,” said Buck, whispering.
The rector held out his hand to a man he’d come to love, and they stood before the fire and bowed their heads.
“Thank You, God, for loving me…”
“Thank You, God…” Buck hesitated and went on, “for loving me.”
“…and for sending Your Son to die for my sins. I sincerely repent of my sins, and receive Christ as my personal savior.”
The superintendent repeated the words slowly, carefully.
“Now, as Your child, I turn my entire life over to You.”
“…as Your child,” said Buck, weeping quietly, “I turn my entire life over to You.”
“Amen.”
“Amen.”
He didn’t know how long they stood before the fire, embracing as brothers—two men from Mississippi; two men who had never known the kindness of earthly fathers; two men who had determined to put their lives into the hands of yet another Father, one believing—and one hoping—that He was kindness, Itself.
Out to Canaan, Ch. 21
HE LOVED CYNTHIA KAVANAGH; she’d become the very life of his heart, and no, he would never turn back from her laughter and tears and winsome ways. But tonight, looking at the chimneys against the glow of the streetlight, he mourned that time of utter freedom, when nobody expected him home or cared whether he arrived, when he could sit with a book in his lap, snoring in the wing chair, a fire turning to embers on the hearth….
He raised his hand to the rectory in a type of salute, and nodded to himself and closed his eyes, as the bells of Lord’s Chapel began their last peal of the day.
Bong…
“Lord,” he said aloud, as if He were there beneath the tree, “Your will be done in our lives.”
Bong…
“Guard me from self-righteousness, and from any looking to myself in this journey.”
Bong…
“I believe Whitecap is where You want us, and we know that You have riches for us there.”
Bong…
“Prepare our hearts for this parish, and theirs to receive us.”
Bong…
“Thank You for the blessing of my wife, and Dooley; for this place and this time, and yes, Lord, even for this change….”
Bong…
Bong…
The bells pealed twice before he acknowledged and named the fear in his heart.
“Forgive this fear in me which I haven’t confessed to You until now.”
Bong…
“You tell us that You do not give us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”
Bong…
“Gracious God…” He paused.
“I surrender myself to You completely…again.”
Bong…
He took a deep breath and held it, then let it out slowly, and realized he felt the peace, the peace that didn’t always come, but came now.
Bong…
A New Song, Ch. 3
HE LOVED IT at once.
St. John’s in the Grove sat on a hummock in a bosk of live oaks that cast a cool, impenetrable shade over the churchyard and dappled the green front doors.
The original St. John’s had been destroyed by fire during the Revolutionary War, and rebuilt in the late nineteenth century in Carpenter Gothic style. Sam Fieldwalker said the Love family purchased the contiguous property in the forties and gave it to St. John’s, so the small building sat on a tract of thirty-five acres of virgin maritime forest, bordered on the cemetery side by the Atlantic.
Father Tim stood at the foot of the steps inhaling the new smells of his new church, set like a gem into the heart of his new parish. St. John’s winsome charm and grace made him feel right at home, expectant as a child.
He crossed himself and prayed, aloud, spontaneous in his thanksgiving.
“Thank You, Lord! What a blessing…and what a challenge. Give me patience, Father, for all that lies ahead, and especially I ask for Your healing grace in the body of St. John’s.”
He walked up the steps and inserted the key into the lock. It turned smoothly, which was a credit to the junior warden. Then he put his hand on the knob and opened the door.
Though heavy, it swung open easily. He liked a well-oiled church door—no creaking and groaning for him, thank you.
The fragrance of St. John’s spoke to him at once. Old wood and lemon oil…the living breath of last Sunday’s flowers still sitting on the altar…years of incense and beeswax….
To his right, a flight of narrow, uncovered stairs to the choir loft and organ. To his left, an open registry on a stand with a ballpoint pen attached by a string. He turned to the first entry in the thick book, its pages rustling like dry leaves. Myra and Lewis Phillips, Bluefield, Kentucky, July 20, 1975…we love your little church!!
He looked above the stand to the framed sign, patiently hand-lettered and illumined with fading watercolors.
Let the peace of this place surround you as you sit or kneel quietly. Let the hurry and worry of your life fall away. You are God’s child. He loves you and cares for you, and is here with you now and always. Speak to Him thoughtfully, give yourself time for Him to bring things to mind.
A New Song, Ch. 5
HE LAY CURLED in the fetal position, his back to his wife and Jonathan, feeling a kind of numb pain he couldn’t explain or understand. Life was a roller coaster, that simple. Joy and healing here, desperation and demolition there.
With all his heart, he’d desired healing for Morris Love’s broken-ness, and who was he to think he might give a leg up to such a miracle? There were times when he didn’t like being a priest, always on the front line for justice and mercy and forgiveness and redemption; trying to figure out the mind of God; giving the Lord his personal agenda, then standing around waiting for it to be fulfilled. He didn’t have an agenda for Morris Love, anymore; he was giving up the entire self-seeking, willful notion. His desperate neighbor belonged to God; it was His responsibility to get the job done. He had schlepped in a paltry sack of victuals when what the man needed was the awesome, thunderstriking power of the Almighty to move in his heart and soul and spirit like a great and consuming fire….
He wiped his eyes on his pajama sleeve.
“So, Lord,” he whispered, “just do it.”
A New Song, Ch. 20
HE DIDN
’T WANT to see Mamie or anyone else this morning. He put his head down and walked quickly, focusing his mind and spirit entirely upon Morris Love and the look on Morris’s face as he was ordered from Nouvelle Chanson for what may have been the final time.
He would not exhort God this morning to heal, to bind up, or to transform. He would exhort Him only to bless.
He prayed silently.
Bless the gift You have given him, Lord, to be used to Your glory, bless his spirit which craves You and yet bids You not enter, bless the laughter that is surely there, laughter that has dwelled in him all these years, yearning to be released, longing to spring forth and be a blessing to others….
The laughter of Morris Love—that would be a miracle, he thought, and remembered how he had prayed to hear Dooley Barlowe laugh. That prayer had been answered; he smiled to think of Dooley’s riotous cackle.
Thank You for blessing Morris with a quick and lively mind, an inquisitive intellect, and a soul able to form majestic music which ardently glorifies the Giver. Thank You for blessing Morris with Mamie, who, out of all those offered the glad opportunity of loving him, was the only one who came forth to love and serve on Your behalf.
The tears were cold on his face.
Lord, bless him today as he sits at his keyboards, as he breaks bread with Mamie, as he looks out his window onto a world which betrayed him, and which he now betrays. As he lies down to sleep, bless him with Your holy peace. As he rises, bless him with hope. As he thinks, bless him with Your own high thoughts.
Now, Father, I bless You—and praise You and thank You for hearing my prayer, through Christ our Lord who was given to us that we might have new life, Amen.
He walked on.
A New Song, Ch. 21
SHE LOVED THE way he sat with her, not saying anything in particular, not probing, not pushing her, just sitting on her love seat. Perhaps what she liked best was that he always looked comfortable wherever he was, appearing glad to live within his skin and not always jumping out of it like some men, like James, her editor, who was everlastingly clever and eloquent and ablaze with wild ideas that succeeded greatly for him, while with Timothy the thing that succeeded was quietude, something rich and deep and…nourishing, a kind of spiritual chicken soup simmering in some far reach of the soul.