Читать книгу From the Dark Domain - Keith Potter - Страница 10

Church rescued me. I suppose I should say that Christ saved me. But before my sensitivities developed for God and the gospel, the church became true sanctuary.

First came the building. I know that I shouldn’t have an edifice complex. Surely God does not dwell in buildings made by human hands. All the world is God’s sanctuary. Still, those brown pews felt forever and friendly and the dark eyes of the bell tower uttered a quiet welcome as they danced with peals of a muscular but benevolent God.

The baseball park worked a similar grace. Manicured lawns of deep green in summer and yellow in winter stroked some barren part of my internal terrain, along with the urine smell of the dugouts and the strewn candy wrappers from the snack shack that reminded me that I traversed the world with others not immune from messes. This carpeted expanse felt homier than the living room of my childhood and even became that living room.

While the church was my family room. On the inside, the majestic pillars and stained glass melded me into a fairy tale of noble persuasions winning wars over evil. In that room, people spoke gently. Pastors preached themes of peaceful purpose. The organ rumbled my innards and the choir embodied a level of cooperation that defied the tensions and isolation of life in our home. The gentle blend of a brief choral introit ushered me into a space so removed from strain that I realized early how unlike any other child or teen I truly was—I loved to be in church.

Sunday school held less sway. While peers whimpered and waggled like puppies around female teachers, I felt annoyed by their disinterest and curious about the lessons. I preferred the adults and grownup worship, and while Dr. Everson’s sermons perplexed me at times, they did not bore me. So used to finding solitude and keeping my own counsel in order to avoid my raging mother, I found the quiet of worship familiar and the solicitations of the pastor welcome.

At thirteen, I began ushering amused and delighted parishioners. At fourteen, I joined my father in the choir, though still more alto than tenor. At seventeen, I became part-time custodian. The quiet hours dusting pews and cleaning bathrooms fostered healing from the strange manner of grieving that comes with the death of a parent who has not loved well. The loss is over a relationship that never was. The guilt over my sense of relief at her death made me feel monstrous.

Then father died.

Not out of grief for his wife, for he’d grieved the loss of Mother years before at the loss of his daughter. He died of a heart attack and liver issues, aided by years of smoking and heavy late-night drinking, when he’d anesthetize himself in an easy chair and wake up in the early hours, undress for a short, lonely sleep in a twin bed and then rise to the alarm and stagger to work again. For a man of letters and words, perhaps with artistic impulses and even books backed up like logs in a flume, his life must have felt desperate. Choir rehearsals and Sunday mornings seemed to be his only real pleasures.

And me. He did love me.

Those few years in the choir together were our best moments. He’d sober up, drink some mouthwash and wear the same clean shirt each Wednesday night.

“You ready to make a joyful noise?” he’d ask, as we climbed into our beat-up Rambler.

“Noise, anyway,” I’d say every time, and he’d laugh the way he laughed over and over at certain television commercials as if he were seeing them for the first time.

“You ready to be a bass?”

“Not even a baritone,” I’d say with adolescent shakiness.

“Well, you’re a pure and peerless tenor right now. You reach notes that the wishful tenors only dream and strain to attain.” There were almost always rhyming words in Father’s utterances, as if he were forever musing on drafts of an epic poem.

By the time we’d reach the church, more words would have been spoken than in any other course of our life. And on the trip home, we’d regale the refinements of anthem and benediction until the front door opened and our vocal cords shut tight. At least until Mother died. Then we’d eat and watch Mannix and Dad would drink and pass out because he had to.

Grieving Father’s passing elicited deeper sadness over simpler themes. My loss was pure because his love was unfettered. This curriculum lacked the complexity of Mother’s death and remains to this day, living without someone I’ve loved and who has loved me. Again, I felt relief, but for Father, whom God delivered from a life of regret, travail and addiction into everlasting freedom among the chorus of heaven. And as for the loss of his companionship, I found others to fill the void.

“Son,” said Dr. Everson, as I scrubbed the shelves in the medicine cabinet of his private bathroom with enough cleanser to float our heads in vapor. “Have you considered life in the ministry?”

Of course, I had. The church could be my domicile until kingdom come.

But I’d never been flooded by conviction or filled by the Spirit in any palpable way. The moral force of scripture made perfect sense in light of the things I’d seen and heard, but I hadn’t cried out to Jesus or even touched the hem of his garment, nor had I presented my body as a living sacrifice to the Father. The keeper of a safe religion can hardly be blamed if life has been so unsafe as to force him under the shelter of it.

But I lacked the divine unction; or as the Greek would say, the splankna; the guts.

“Yes,” I said. “I’d like that.”

“I believe,” said Dr. Everson, “that we could get you a scholarship to a Christian college, and then seminary.”

Flushed and swimming in pine cleaner, I almost embraced him.

“You’re a fine young man, Arthur;” said the pastor. “You’re a worthy investment. If you need help choosing a school, let me know.”

Of course, I needed the help. I needed to be re-parented. Dr. Everson accomplished some of this by proxy from his pedestal. But I needed so much more.

I looked at Whitworth and Whitman in Eastern Washington. Pacific Lutheran looked nice, but I wasn’t Lutheran. I saw Multnomah and George Fox, but settled on Northwest Christian College in Eugene, Oregon. This small, earnest community welcomed me more personally and afforded the chance to attend the University of Oregon at the same time.

I graduated from high school with perfect grades, moderate honors and little notice. Always an introvert and never an athlete beyond Little League baseball, I attracted a polite circle of friends in the Chemistry Club and considered a day without the annoyance of inconsiderate jocks to be a successful one.

Dr. Everson and the choir director attended the school commencement ceremonies and the church choir held a reception for me at rehearsal. They gave me practical gifts, including a manual typewriter, from which I type this manuscript, and a thick comforter quilted by the ladies.

And I left for my first real adventure slightly upriver.