City of Tranquil Light

by Bo Caldwell

  My life is colored by unexpected moments of grace, small awarenesses of God’s presence that speak to me of who He is as much as any mountaintop experience. The huge old red roses that bloom on the grounds here tell me of His deep and passionate love, and the heavy slate-gray storm clouds on a winter’s day speak of His strength. The painstaking construction of a snail and its beautiful slow progress tell me of God’s attention to the smallest details of my life, and the leaves falling crazily from the sycamore tree remind me that He is a Mystery I cannot fully comprehend. At night when I look up into the heavens and see the same stars I saw in China’s skies so many years ago, it is as if they have been my companions all these years and witnesses to my life in China. They tell me of God’s constancy and of a love that will not let me go.

  A strange sort of arithmetic is at work in my life. While the calendar tells me that Katherine and I spent twenty-seven years in China, that thirty-three years have passed since we left, and that I have been without her for nearly twenty years, these numbers do not ring true. I feel instead like a man who lived nearly all his life in China, with a few of his later years in America, and a few of those without his companion. Also, the longer I am away from Kuang P’ing Ch’eng, the more my mind dwells there. My room here is on the west side of the building, the one closest to China, something that perhaps sounds foolish but that nevertheless pleases me. Each morning when I begin my daily walk, I start out by heading west, toward China. At times my life there seems almost imagined; bandits and soldiers and magistrates, floods and droughts and famines and war, seem as distant as the moon. On other days it is the present that feels imagined and Kuang P’ing Ch’eng that seems more real than the poached egg and toast I eat for breakfast. Certain smells make China instantly real to me: anything cooked with garlic, freshly cut wood, antiseptic, the crispness of the air on the first autumn day. These scents stop me in my tracks.

  I follow the news of what is happening in that country intently. Edward and Naomi’s older son, Paul, was forced to leave mainland China in 1951 with many other missionaries, but he has his father’s ardor and he continues to serve in Taiwan. I know that Kuang P’ing Ch’eng was occupied by the Japanese and fell to the Communists in the late 1940s. I have read that mission compounds were looted and ransacked during these tumultuous years; one report described a worship hall being used as a gambling den. The establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949 changed the Christian church in China permanently and dramatically, and while the new government allowed churches to meet under certain conditions, authorities soon took control of church property, and the church has suffered. These reports tear at my heart.

  But if I were younger I would go back, for while I am thankful for the care I receive here, with Katherine gone this comfortable life is uncomfortable, and this continent feels more foreign every year. I believe I could still be of use, despite my age and decreasing stamina, and I envision the trip—the days at sea followed by the days overland—and imagine what I would take with me. I would not require much, only some bedding, a few pots and pans, a little cash. I would not take many clothes, for I would prefer Chinese clothes again. Then I remember how greatly changed everything must be. People travel to China by air now, not by sea, and the cities in the interior are linked to Peking and the port cities not by carts and wagons but by modern trains and planes. In Kuang P’ing Ch’eng, what once were footpaths must be wide paved roads, what once were fields are no doubt factories, and what was my beloved old city must be a busy urban center. At present it is not even possible to go to mainland China. I know in my heart I will not return, and I do not nurture these thin hopes.

  When I wake in the early morning, I get down on my stiff old knees to thank my Lord for another day. My mother taught me to place my shoes under the bed at night so that I would have to kneel in the morning to get them, for when we thus humble ourselves He cannot deny us. It is a habit I still practice, and with my head bowed, I give thanks for my sweet Katherine and for our Lily, and for my parents and Edward and Naomi. I pray for Paul and John and Madeleine and their children, for my congregation in Los Angeles, and for the people I loved in China: Chung Hao, Mo Yun, Hsiao Lao, the magistrate and his wife, and the members of our church. Then I pray for Kuang P’ing Ch’eng and the country itself, and I feel a familiar homesickness. The Mandarin word for homesick is hsiang chia. Hsiang is to think or want, and chia is family or home, and the combination of these words describes my feeling well: I think and want family and home. As I’ve aged, this feeling of longing has intensified and become my companion. I have come to see it as a gift; being homesick feels right, a reminder that this earth is not my home. My ties to this world become more tenuous with each passing year, and the more deeply I feel this, the closer I feel to Christ.

  Lastly I pray that throughout the day God’s will, not mine, be done, whatever that may mean. When I was younger, I thought it meant traveling a road that was straight and confining and predictable, something to be done correctly, like finding my way through a maze where only one path is right. I thought following that path would always feel true and safe and virtuous and that it would give me a surefooted, foolproof sense about life. This narrow thinking was mine, not His; I no longer believe it. When I am in God’s will, sometimes I do feel comfortable and at ease, but I just as often feel anxious and unsettled, for He often leads me into unfamiliar waters. I do not let these feelings guide me. Nor do I heed what the world must think of me, for I know that in its view my life would seem a failure. Some would look at me and see a childless widower, living alone, his life’s work in question. But I think of myself as extraordinarily blessed, rich beyond measure, the unlikely recipient of the great honor of serving my Lord in a faraway land, and I am amazed at my great good fortune.

  Over time I have come to believe that God’s will is a mystery, fluid and surprising. Following it is like stepping out into something I cannot see, and I am frequently unsure about whether I am doing God’s will until after the fact. But I have learned that while I don’t always know when I’m doing something right, I always know when I’m doing something wrong, and I rely on this as I go forward, trusting that He will use my mistakes as well as my triumphs and knowing that He does not ask me to be perfect, or even good. He simply asks me to be His, which to me is the heart of His Good News: that I am deeply and passionately loved exactly as I am, despite the faults that grieve me most, by a God who delights in me more than I can know—a God who created me so He could love me. With the gift of that renewed certainty when I awake each morning, I rise to meet the day and to praise my dear Lord, and to finish my course with joy.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  City of Tranquil Light is based on the lives of my maternal grandparents, Peter and Anna Schmidt Kiehn, who were Mennonite and later Nazarene missionaries in China and Taiwan from 1906 to 1961. Late in his life, my grandfather wrote a memoir, The Legacy of Peter and Anna, which was privately published, so that his grandchildren would know of his work. Those pages gave me a start for the novel; I then read the biographies of other missionaries who served in China. The characters of Naomi and Edward Geisler were based on my grandmother’s older sister, Nellie, and her husband, Henry Bartel, who served in China for most of their lives; their biography, This Mountain Is Mine by Margaret Epp, was invaluable in terms of inspiration and information, as was the biography of their son, Paul, and his wife, Ina: Giants Walked Among Us: The Story of Paul and Ina Bartel by Anthony G. Bollback. The biographies of the following missionaries also moved me and added greatly to the novel: Edward Bliss Sr. (Beyond the Stone Arches by Edward Bliss Jr.), Gladys Aylward (The Small Woman by Alan Burgess), Thomas and Eva Moseley (Moh Ta-Iu, Man of Great Plans by Eva M. Moseley), and Reuben and Janet Torrey (Ambassador to Three Cultures: The Life of R. A. Torrey Jr. by Clare Torrey Johnson). The autobiography of Ruth Hemenway (A Memoir of Revolutionary China, 1924–1941 by Ruth V. Hemenway, M.D.), who served as a medical missionary, was also informative and inspiring.


  A note on the romanization of Chinese names and phrases: I have used the Wade-Giles system, which was in use from the nineteenth century until 1958, when the People’s Republic of China introduced pinyin, the current system of romanization.

  I received many gifts during the writing of the novel. My mother, Hester Caldwell, gave me the idea for it by telling me for many years that the story of her parents’ lives would make a wonderful book. She shared her memories about her childhood in China and about my grandparents, and she gave me photographs from their years in China. She also read the novel in several versions over several years and cheered me on, as she always has.

  For their steady encouragement and emotional support, I’m grateful to Nita Willis and Bill Riney. I’m indebted to my longtime friend Tony Lee for his help with Chinese culture and traditions, and to my brother, Dan Caldwell, for his valuable contributions to my research in the form of old files, rare books, and tapes of interviews he recorded with our grandfather a few years before his death. My aunt, Helen DeSimone, patiently answered my questions, generously shared memories of her childhood in China, and read early drafts of the novel. I’m also grateful to other early readers: Heather Washam; Fr. Tenny Wright, S.J.; and Paul Capobianco. My agent, Paul Cirone of The Friedrich Agency, encouraged me greatly and offered astute comments on the novel’s early drafts, and my editor, Helen Atsma at Henry Holt, pared the manuscript down and worked wonders in the way of polishing and focusing. For its financial support early on, I’m grateful to the National Endowment for the Arts.

  From my husband, Ron Hansen, always my first reader, I received all these gifts and more. He paid the bills, read and reread chapters, listened to my woes, and offered wise criticism, calm perspective, and hope.

  Thank you, all. I’m grateful to you, and thankful for you.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Bo Caldwell grew up in Los Angeles and attended Stanford University, where she also held a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Creative Writing and a Jones Lectureship in Creative Writing. She has received a fellowship in literature from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Joseph Henry Jackson Award from the San Francisco Foundation, among other awards. Her personal essays have appeared in O: The Oprah Magazine, the Washington Post Magazine, and America Magazine, and her short stories have been included in Story, Ploughshares, Epoch, and other literary journals. Her first novel, The Distant Land of My Father, was a national bestseller. She lives in northern California with her husband, novelist Ron Hansen.