Читать книгу Earning Innocence - Andrew Taylor-Troutman - Страница 8

Bonnie has gone to bed, but I must record the events of today.

Today was our twenty-eighth wedding anniversary.

A remarkable sentence. Married at the age of nineteen, my head full of hair, empty of knowledge. Married with Bonnie’s pregnancy clearly showing, full of promise.

We toasted each other last night from that bottle of relatively expensive champagne. On this bright morning, I paused to kiss my beloved at the front door before heading to church like I always do. As I turned to walk away, she gave me a playful squeeze through the seat of my dress pants. I had a spring in my step as I traveled the short distance down the gravel road to the sanctuary.

During August here in eastern Pennsylvania, even the songbirds are drained from the heat, their morning hymns weary and listless. Yet I knew Bonnie would skip into our kitchen, her smile still radiant. Leaving the dirty dishes from last night in the sink, she would sashay toward the pantry, fetching the organic flour, and then open the fridge, collecting farm fresh milk, eggs, butter. While wives of preachers across the country would adorn choir robes or chase kids around the nursery or fix yet another pot of decaf coffee, Bonnie Wheeler would cook for herself and for herself alone. Of course, she has done all of those duties and many more over the years. But today, on our twenty-eighth wedding anniversary, she would whip up crepes Suzette. Not only would she add Grand Marnier liqueur to the batter, she would take extra sips from the bottle. Whisk flour, eggs, and extra sugar together. Stir in milk and vanilla with fresh orange zest. Miles Davis on the stereo, her absolute favorite sacred artist. Pausing in the middle of the quiet tree-lined road on my way to work, I could hear the music in my head. I could envision her pajama-bottomed behind swaying in time with the down beat.

I have always resisted the metaphor of ordination as marriage to the church. Perhaps the Bard was correct: he doth protest too much. I had no intentions of any ministry when I met Bonnie. I had no idea of much of anything—except that she fascinated me. That much has not changed over the years. As my waistline has expanded and my hairline receded, I have felt a tug toward writing an account of my life here at this desk before this open window. Tonight, the fireflies flicker their love songs above the stalks of corn. What light might I share?

The good people of Talmage Moravian Church were aware of the significance of this day in my life. Many smiled and offered congratulations as we mingled in the sanctuary before the start of the service. There have been receptions after worship, which I always found a bit embarrassing. I suppose I am an unusual pulpiteer in this regard, but I have never cared for the spotlight. Now that Bonnie takes this Sunday off from church and our sons have left home, I am grateful for the lack of personal attention in more ways than one. It affords the opportunity to remind these Moravians of a much older anniversary.

The thirteenth of August marks one of the two chief festival days unique to our denomination. We share high holy days, like Easter and Pentecost, with the rest of the Christian world. But we also recall the story of refugees, fleeing religious persecution, who were invited to settle on the estate of Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. My boys have referred to him as the Z-man since they were in middle school. A sign of disrespect? I confess I rather like that nickname, perhaps because I started attending church when I was a teenager.

Born into a wealthy noble family, the Z-man was by all accounts a precocious child and the legends surrounding his youth are numerous and dramatic, if not apocryphal. My favorite is that he allegedly wrote detailed love letters to Christ at the age of six, for my sons used to scribble letters to Jesus on the back of their Sunday morning bulletins when they were about that age. I have kept a few. Philip once scrawled his self-portrait alongside a tall, bearded man whom he labeled as My Bestest Pal. In slightly smaller font underneath, he included the subscript Not my brother. Let the record show.

As for that older brother, Nathaniel had a habit of writing to Jesus with his Christmas wish list—an understandable mistake in this consumer crazy culture. But he pledged in ink that, if Jesus would give him a hundred dollars, he would then tithe to the poor. The boy drew up a rudimentary contract and left the signed document in the offering plate.

In the early decades of the eighteenth century, Moravian refugees were granted land on the Zinzendorf Estate in which to establish a town they christened Herrnhut, which means The Lord’s Watch. This name asserts unity and common purpose. Only five years later, the community threatened to divide. A carpenter by the name Christian David turned fiery preacher and built unrest with his end-of-times predictions. I am reminded of the so-called prophets predicting doom over something known as Y2K. If the sad history of religious power struggles within the church and surrounding culture teaches us anything, it is to be wary of those calling themselves “Christian” and acting completely otherwise.

By contrast, we would do well to learn from the Z-man’s example. He had already retired from civic duties in order to immerse himself in Bible study and theology. He then devoted his time toward healing the fractured community, traveling to each family’s home to pray together and stress the love of Christ for all. As the fruit of such tireless efforts, the whole community gathered on the thirteenth of August in the year of Our Lord 1727 for a special Wednesday service of Holy Communion. According to several eye witness accounts, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those in attendance.

Known by historians as the Moravian Pentecost, the title sounds a little pompous to me. I think of Mother Mary and how she was “overshadowed” by the Spirit like a cloud passing over the land. The most mystical revelations are described by quite ordinary words. Grand titles are bestowed only later. The Z-man wrote of the experience as a sense of the nearness of Christ and added: We had hardly known whether we’d been on earth or in heaven.

Bonnie thinks that last statement is rather erotic. I failed to mention this from the pulpit this morning.

Every congregation in our denomination tells the story of the thirteenth of August and celebrates Communion on the Sunday closest to the date. As part of this remembrance, we hear the Scripture about the bread that was broken and the cup that was poured. Grafted onto the vine of Israel and the Church Universal, we proclaim God’s gracious redemption with thanksgiving, recalling love meals where no one should ever be forgotten. More Christians should believe that we are what we eat. Body and spirit are as inseparable in a breathing soul as the ingredients in a loaf of baked bread or crepes Suzette. This is white magic, as Bonnie used to say to our boys.

I have stood at the Lord’s Table here at Talmage Moravian Church for nineteen years now. Though I am a short man whose glasses only adequately compensate for severe near-sightedness, I still have the best views.

Earlier today, in the year of Our Lord 2000, I invited all baptized adults and confirmed members to partake together. Like most congregations, we ask seekers to participate in a period of religious education before receiving the sacrament so that the meaning of the ritual is deepened. Typically, youth begin confirmation class at twelve years, going on thirteen. But who are we to prevent someone from receiving the gifts of God? I happened to see a toddler named Jacob remove the lollipop from his mouth with one hand and nibble an unleavened wafer in the other, before returning the rest to his grandmother with sticky fingers and bright eyes. Behind them, an elderly couple chewed together. I knew that even Ralph Jibsen’s jaws had been weakened from the cancer treatments. Sharing bread of the same body, I prayed silently for them as Ralph eased an emaciated arm across the healthy shoulders of his beloved of forty years.

My gaze wandered to a youth sitting directly above their heads in the balcony, a twelve-year-old boy who is the only student in this year’s confirmation class. Charlie was holding the hand of a girl about his age. Even as I write this memory, I am smiling at their innocence. I have never seen her before, but have known Charlie since the day he was born two months premature and resembled a tiny spider monkey.

After we had eaten as one, the trays bearing cups of salvation were likewise distributed to the people in the pews. Everyone sang hymns of praise and petition. Marjorie Stemlich skillfully played the treble line with one hand, accepted the juice with the other, and rested the tiny cup on top of the piano, never missing a note. Frank Powers sat in the pew closest to her. He shakily removed his little plastic cup from the silver serving tray and gripped this small vessel of grace with both trembling hands—determined to hold on to his dignity, even as Parkinson’s grabs more of him.

Patsy Miller worshipped in the first pew, exact center of the sanctuary. She is stone-faced throughout every Sunday service. She recently confided that she still senses her husband’s presence next to her in the pew. It has been five years. In moments of painful absence, she thinks of the readings at Brother Stanley’s funeral, which promised a day when there will be no more hunger or thirst or pain or suffering or grief or death ever again. No, not ever again, I thought, and lifted my cup to my lips in unison with Sister Patsy and the rest of the believers both seen and unseen.

Glancing along the back wall, I was just in time to spot a mischievous nine-year-old point his bony elbow at his seven-year-old brother’s ribs and launch a surprise attack, swiftly jabbing at the exact moment his victim had intended to swallow. Poor brother spat the blood of forgiveness across his lap. Ben and Michael are good boys, joyfully wild in that not-entirely-restrained way afforded by trusting parents. Steve and Betsy had waited a long, long time for those boys, enduring several miscarriages.

Miscarriages. Lord have mercy.

I made sure to tell Bonnie that Betsy had been in worship. The Lewis family attends sporadically, which has put more distance between Steve and me. But our wives have remained close. They have shared tea together every month since Bonnie discerned Betsy’s infertility troubles from a friend of a friend’s insensitive comment in the church parking lot. Often the cup we share is one of sorrow. But there is a red hymnal in their pew marked with an even redder streak across a portion of the Communion liturgy, the telltale stain of horseplay when my boys were about that age, fidgety and mischievous in the exact same pew. Indeed, there is mercy.

Both of my sons are hanging out between semesters, working a little, and mostly doing God-only-knows-what since they do not tell their father. Though away for the summer, they are remembered by many of the faithful sprinkled throughout the sanctuary on Sunday mornings. These witnesses likewise recall that Communion service long ago when a homeless man received the elements with the rest of us and then shuffled slowly down the aisle, departing without a word. He was never seen again, though I think of him often. That was the first time I ever presided alone at the Lord’s Table. And the keepers of this church’s memory preserve the saga of the gold-plated cross gracing the Lord’s Table, which once went missing for months on end and was presumed lost forever until finally discovered in a small cave less than a mile away by a group of children playing Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. No questions were asked, which might represent the difference between mercy and grace.

I happened to notice Jacob’s grandmother offer the remains of her cup to the same sticky fingers. About a year ago, I baptized this little boy in this very sanctuary. How he had cried! More than a few people have reminded me of this fact with a quiet hand on my shoulder and the hint of a hint of a smile. Jacob accepted the drink with quiet reverence during today’s sacrament. But then he declared in his high-pitched voice, “Yes, yes, yes, yes!”

Yes, indeed. I felt a sense of the nearness of Christ.

When I returned home, I found Bonnie wrapped up in her favorite blanket on the living room couch with about a third of the bottle of liqueur. She was poring through one of our oldest family photo albums. I made a pot of tea and joined her, my entrance perfectly timed to appreciate her soft sigh of wonder at one of our favorite images of all time. It is of Nathaniel, our first baby boy, asleep on my chest on another Sunday afternoon. His scrunched up newborn face is slack with utter contentment, his drool pools on my freshly starched shirt. In unison, we quote the doctor’s first words when Nathaniel James Wheeler came into this world.

“What a handsome boy!”

We flipped the page and there he is again, sitting on top of his first bicycle, the one with a yellow seat shaped like a banana. And there he is at his high school graduation, wearing that funny-looking square hat, a noticeable redness on his neck from that morning’s razor burn. Nathaniel paused on stage after receiving his diploma and turned to face the audience. He refrained from show-boating unlike some of the other graduates who made outlandish gestures for shock effect or applause. I admire the way my son savored the moment.

Having zoomed through his life, I fetched the twin album that bore the images of our second child. Bonnie in the hospital bed, smiling wearily. We heard that the second one was easier, but she labored twice as long. From the day he was born, Philip has had a full head of dark hair like his mother. Her green eyes, too. In the next picture, our new baby lies on the couch beside his brother and Nathaniel’s mouth hangs open wide as if in amazement. Yet another of both boys, each wearing a Pirates baseball cap. Pittsburgh has always been our team. Squinting at this fading photo, I can barely distinguish a white blur suspended between Nathaniel’s empty hand and Philip’s outstretched glove. They were five and three because that was our first spring at Talmage Moravian. The sanctuary is visible behind them, which was true for most of their lives.

Now that both are in college, Philip no longer attends church and Nathaniel volunteers with a ministry for high school students. I believe my sons share many of the same ideological commitments; yet they have increasingly crossed swords, clashing during heated dinner conversations and angry phone calls. Sometimes I tell Bonnie this is just another phase, which they will grow out of soon enough like bed-wetting or smoking marijuana. Sometimes I even believe myself.

I do not believe I have been helpful in these matters of dispute. I am prone to defend Nathaniel’s position, which is often in defense of the church, specifically, and the way they were raised, implicitly.

It helps to remember one late summer evening when the boys were in high school and the three of us were fishing in the little pond behind the church. There are no pictures, but I can clearly remember how the weather was unusually cool, not the least bit humid, and how the reds and oranges and pinks of the setting sun were like streaks of paint across the surface of the water’s canvas. But the language of both boys was like ugly graffiti scrawled across a moral landscape. I forget what they were arguing about. I only know that my offspring ignored my plea for peace and quiet, completely impervious to my stated desire. This only made me madder, naturally. But Philip suddenly let out a whoop of excitement. His pole was being pulled out of his hands.

Part of me hoped the catch would turn out to be an old boot or something—a mirage instead of miracle. Despite myself, I shared their excitement as Philip reeled and pulled, fighting whatever it was for all it was worth. As much as we fished, we rarely caught anything. Both boys followed in their father’s footsteps in this regard. Philip finally reeled the fish over to where we were standing on the bank. With a dramatic tug, he pulled it up and out of the water. I watched the squiggly silver projectile sail through the air and land with a thump on the bank, right in the middle of all three of us.

“Wow! Look at that! Amazing!”

They had forgotten their age and how nothing was supposed to impress them. And I had to admit this catch was worthy of exclamation. This is no fisherman’s tale: it weighed at least eight, maybe ten pounds and upon closer inspection was covered in bright colors cascading down both its sides. As it flipped and flopped on the green grass, the fish blurred bright like a kaleidoscope. For a few moments, we all watched in silence.

“Let’s throw it back,” Nathaniel declared. For once, Philip nodded in agreement. Both of them bent down together, working in concert, as Philip held the fish still while Nathaniel eased the hook from its mouth, careful to minimize the damage. He nodded at his brother. Four hands lifted the catch and lowered it back into the pond.

Bonnie would have appreciated that memory. But slightly buzzed and full of her crepes Suzette, she had drifted off to sleep on the couch. After gently transferring her head from my shoulder to a pillow, I decided to drive to the Pleasant Shade Senior Living Community and offer Communion to those who could not attend this morning’s service. Sunday is Sunday, anniversary or not.

Entering the lobby, I noticed an elderly resident slumped in a wingback chair. I assumed he was asleep, his eyes hidden underneath his American flag ball cap, until he jerked his cane toward my Communion set.

“Son, what the hell you got in there?”

I showed him, opening the dark red box emblazoned with a silver cross.

“You let me get some for myself!”

I smiled through gritted teeth. There are a number of Moravians living at Pleasant Shade, and I was in a hurry to serve all of them and return home. But who was I to refuse anyone Communion, even a rude old man? I pulled up a chair next to him. Handing him an unleavened wafer the size and shape of a coin, I had intoned the ancient words do this in remembrance of me when he interrupted.

“I was in the shit! The shit, I tell ya!”

I am accustomed to parishioners taking the offering and slipping it wordlessly into their mouths, bowing their heads in solemn mastication. This strange old man kept cursing. He had another story to remember.

Before shipping off to war, his high school sweetheart had given him a Saint Christopher necklace. “They was having carnal relations,” as his mother of now blessed memory had once put it to her nosy neighbor while her only son was still within earshot. This sweetheart was, shall we say, superstitious. She knew all about many different saints but, in particular, this Christopher—a broad-shouldered, hulking bear of a man who had been poised to cross a swiftly moving river, when a small child begged pitifully to be carried to the other side. Obligingly, Christopher put the child on his shoulders and discovered, much to his surprise, that this little boy was incredibly heavy, so unbelievably burdensome because he bore the sins of the whole world. Christopher became a saint by carrying the Christ.

The old man told me how he had teased his girlfriend.

“You sure that’s not just some of the Pope’s mumbo-jumbo?”

Undaunted and undeterred, she had insisted upon placing the necklace with its medal into his palm, closing his other hand over top, pressing the cold metal to his flesh with whispered conviction.

“He’s the saint of all travelers.”

In the lobby of Pleasant Shade, he yanked off his hat and insisted he had not been religious at all—the Lord as his witness! By God, he wanted me to understand that! He was young and strong. He was brave and brash. He showed no damn weakness. He sure as hell didn’t need a savior, much less anyone’s mumbo-jumbo. But what did he have to lose?

He wore the metal around his neck every goddamn day of his time in the shit, including the day when a bomb burst out of nowhere, instantly killing his two best friends and knocking him to the hard ground. Even before opening his eyes, his trembling hands felt all over his body for wounds. Fearing the worst, he dared to look.

“And there it was. The blessed thing was lying in the mud right in front of me. I scooped it up and ran.”

He then reached under his shirt and pulled out an old piece of metal attached to a tarnished silver chain.

“Alright, Father, don’t just sit there with your mouth agape like a damn fish. Go ahead and serve the blessed wine.”

I managed to stammer something about being addressed as “Pastor” because I was not Catholic, but Moravian.

“Mormon? What the hell?”

I assured him that Moravians were, in fact, Protestants and added that, actually, I had grape juice. I gave the plastic bottle a little shake to swirl the good old Welch’s around.

“Ya damn Protestants,” he sighed. “No wine and no saints.”

When I came home for the second time on this my twenty-eighth anniversary, I found Bonnie talking to Philip on the phone. With a stern look, she handed me the receiver and mouthed be nice. She meant that she most certainly did not want me to pester him with a barrage of anxious questions concerning his specific behaviors over the past weekend. His twenty-first birthday is this Friday and Philip is coming home—provided that I do not jeopardize this precious opportunity ahead of time.

So I was very nice. In fact, I eagerly told Philip about the raw litany of the shit and Saint Christopher and so-called Mormons. The story prompted my youngest son’s trademark laugh, a small chuckle so quiet it was barely audible over the phone. I knew, however, that his shoulders would have been shaking with mirth. There is a secret to quiet laughter, Abraham Lincoln once wrote. Picturing Philip, I reflected upon my son’s life and what I know of his carnal relations and what I would give to protect him throughout his journey far from home. But I kept such thoughts to myself.

Philip wanted to know about Frank Powers, our old family friend who had recently moved to Pleasant Shade.

“Dad, you tell Mister Powers that I said I’m rooting for him, okay?”

I must try to remember, not only his words, but the sweetness of my son’s voice as spoke.

If they know Moravians are not Mormons, most outsiders will think of us for our Lovefeasts at Christmas. Perhaps they are familiar with our sugar cakes and thin ginger cookies. We are most known for our baking, which I suppose is better than half-baked theology. But to be Moravian is to value a story. The story is the candlewick—common, ordinary, and hardly worth anything at all; yet the candlewick carries the light. This is cause for gratitude before bed. I will also offer prayers for traveling mercies.