“Don’t you want to go?” I said.
“I don’t know nobody here,” Hank said. “And we may be leaving here anyway.”
“That’s the way to get to know people,” I said. But it sounded strange to hear myself talk to Hank that way. Because he had always been the sociable one. He was twice as sociable as me. He loved to go to church, and he loved to sing in church. It was the fact that he had lost his job, and was worried about the baby coming and the loss of his money, and embarrassed by the way he had acted in the flood, that made him standoffish. I had to help him out. The night of the flood had took away his confidence.
“We can go one time,” I said. “And if people ain’t friendly we don’t have to go back.”
THE NEXT DAY was cold and clear. The ground was spewed up in places with ice and crumbs of dirt stood on hairs of ice on the banks of the road. There is a feeling about the morning of New Year’s Day. It appears like the slate has been scrubbed clean. In cities they celebrate New Year’s at twelve o’clock at night. But New Year’s always seemed to me to start at sunrise, in the new light of morning. The early light on New Year’s Day looks different and the air feels different. I always imagine I can smell fresh lumber and fresh pine needles. I fixed hot coffee and grits and eggs to go with the molasses. I knowed I had to go to church. It was the first day of the new week, and the first day of the new century.
“We’ll take the buggy,” Hank said. I’d been afraid I might have to walk by myself down the valley, but he must have been studying overnight about going and changed his mind. I heated some bricks in the fireplace to put on the floor of the buggy to keep our feet warm. And I wrapped myself in my overcoat and put a scarf around my head. It felt like a ceremony we was taking part in, getting ready to go to church, driving down the rough road to the forks where the church was. Hank had to drive real slow because of all the ruts and washouts. Our breaths smoked in the biting air.
I hadn’t been to the little church-house on Gap Creek since Mr. Pendergast’s funeral. It was really no bigger than a chapel, made of clapboards that had been whitewashed. There was big old boys standing outside smoking their pipes, like there always is before a church service. Everybody nodded or tipped their hat as we went in.
It felt like everybody in the church turned to look at us as we stepped through the door. I knowed Hank wouldn’t want to set in the choir on the left with most of the older women. And I didn’t figure we would set up front on the right in the Amen Corner. We walked up the aisle between the benches, and Hank stopped halfway up toward the pulpit and we set down on the right side. I don’t guess there was more than twelve benches on either side anyway.
It had been so long since we had gone to a service I felt tense, like I didn’t know what to expect. I thought, How silly to be worried, for it was just a worship service on New Year’s Day. But it felt like something important was about to happen. I touched my stomach and hoped I didn’t get sick.
A man with curly gray hair and red garters on his sleeves stood up. He held a song book and he turned to the woman that set at the organ. “Number two hundred and forty-three, ‘Let the Lower Lights Be Burning,’” he called out. I opened the hymnal that laid on the bench and the organist begun to play. I was pretty sure her name was Linda Jarvis. I hadn’t heard any music for months, except what I tried to sing with Hank on Christmas Eve. The organ notes filled the little church like they was coming from deep in the ground. The deep notes was like air blowing out of caves, and the higher notes was like birds singing in the sky.
What a wonderful thing music is, I thought. I had forgot how good music is in a public place. It was just a little organ, but it gathered and pushed the air in the sweetest breath. There was such color in the notes. I seen purples and blues and greens in the air. The organ music was living breath.
And when the song leader started to sing and we joined in, I seen I had forgot how voices joined together. One voice may be beautiful, and some voices not so beautiful by theirselves. But when they all joined in the church it was something different. All the voices blended and helped each other make a fuller kind of harmony. All together the voices seemed to raise the air. They made the church-house feel like it was lifting off the ground.
I seen how I had missed singing. I had missed singing with other people and I had missed the praise of singing. Hank sung beside me.
When the song was over the preacher prayed. “Lord, make us thankful for the privilege of being alive to see this new day and new year and this new century,” he said. “Make us grateful for the honor of being alive, for the honor of your presence and blessing. Make us thankful for your love, which is showered without condition on our unworthiness. Help us to grow in wisdom in this new year and new hundred years. Help us to see your face and your love in the faces around us, and wherever we look in the world. For there is no place where your love has not already gone before us.”
It was the best prayer I’d ever heard. It was the kind of prayer I would have liked to make myself, if I was able to. It was a prayer meant especially for me. If Preacher Gibbs had been able to read my mind and look into my heart he could not have spoke to me any better.
“We will sing another hymn,” Preacher Gibbs said, and the song leader stood up again. “‘We Are Going Down the Valley,’” he announced.
We are going down the valley one by one,
With our faces toward the setting of the sun.
Down the valley where the mournful cypress grows,
Where the stream of death in silence onward flows.
We are going down the valley, going down the valley,
Going toward the setting of the sun.
We are going down the valley, going down the valley,
Going down the valley one by one.
When the song was over Preacher Gibbs stood up behind the pulpit. It was made of ordinary planks with old varnish, small enough for him to lean over. “I will read two short texts today,” he said. “One is from Matthew and one is from Revelation. ‘Go therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and, lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world.’”
The preacher turned his Bible to the very last pages.
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.’”
The preacher read in a slow, deliberate voice. As he read he made every word sparkle, like it was a living thing he held up to the light. I had heard those words before, but I’d never heard such force in them.
“These are the words I want you to think about this New Year’s Day,” Preacher Gibbs said. “These are the words of the great promise of Immanuel, and the Great Commission. ‘For, lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world.’ And that is what I want to say to you today, that he is with us. He is with us right here on Gap Creek in the state of South Carolina. He is with us in the air of this church, and he is with us in the sunlight of New Year’s Day.
“The Lord is with us as we go about our work. He is with us when we milk the cow or chop wood. He is with us while we sleep, and when we are sick. He is with us in the still small hours, and he is with us at the hour of our death. He will hold our hand in our moment of grief, and he is present in our greatest joy. He is with the mother who nurses her child, and he is with the mother who loses her child.
“The Lord is in eternity, but he is with us in time also. His is present in each hour and each minute and second. The blessing of his presence is in each moment and the thought of each moment. The Lord is in the fullness of memory, and the fullness of hope for the future. The Lord is in the promise of tomorrow. And in the last words of Revelation, in the last words of the Bible, in the last words the Savior spoke before the Second Coming, he tells us that salvation is for whoever will accept it. Salvation is not just for the chos
en people, or the best people, or good people. Salvation is for the sinners, and for those afraid and those persecuted. Salvation is for those afflicted and those crippled and those troubled in their minds. Salvation is for the liar and the adulterer, for the blasphemer. Salvation is for whoever is athirst and will take the water of life freely.”
What Preacher Gibbs said explained something I had always wondered about. Why would the Lord exclude so many people from heaven if he loved everybody, the way most preachers said. If only good people could get to heaven then there wouldn’t hardly be anybody there.
“Salvation is not something you have to search mightily for,” Preacher Gibbs said. “Salvation is here now for anybody who will accept it. Salvation is free as the air and the sunlight and the water in the spring. Salvation is close as the dust under our feet and fertile as a newground in April. Salvation is here, now. It is not in some vague future. All you have to do is accept it.”
Preacher Gibbs was the best preacher I’d ever heard. He spoke calm like he was thinking about everything he said. He spoke almost quiet. There was no shouting and pounding the pulpit, no ranting about hellfire like a lot of preachers did. He spoke like he was talking to you from the heart, and like he respected you. He talked like he was talking to equals, and he talked like he was speaking directly to you. He spoke like he already understood your worries. And he talked like he believed in you, and wanted to cheer you up, not make you more afraid. The way he talked you could feel his respect for other people. He was trying his best to tell the truth and make people feel at home with theirselves.
“Now if anybody here would like to come forward and dedicate their life to Jesus on this New Year’s Day, I will pray with them, and I will rejoice with them,” Preacher Gibbs said. “The only thing we have to be ashamed of is not accepting his love. We are here in the fellowship of the Spirit, and in the spirit of welcome.”
The song leader stood up and the organist started playing “Just As I Am.” There was a hush in the church. The air was charged so tight it wanted to bust into flame. I seen it was time I rededicated myself. It was time I made a new profession of faith. Even though I had been baptized and was a member of the church on the mountain, I seen it was time I humbled myself like a little child and confessed my need for a new covenant with the Spirit.
“If the Spirit moves you, come forward,” the preacher said. “Begin a new life with the New Year. We are entering a century of the telephone, of steam and speed. Are you ready to face it?” I stepped out toward the aisle. I felt like I was gliding and couldn’t hardly feel my feet moving. I think Hank reached out to hold me back, but then let his hand slide off my elbow. As I stepped forward I could feel all eyes pressing on me. I was pushed by their attention. It had been a long time since I had been looked at by so many people. But I was doing what I had to do. I walked slow to the front of the church and knelt down at the altar in front of the pulpit.
“We will pray with this our sister,” Preacher Gibbs said. I put my hands on the varnished wood of the altar, like I was holding on to a railing. The air was warmed by the woodstove on the left, in front of the choir. The air was warm and smelled of burning oak.
I have always wondered what people mean when they say they are converted or sanctified. The Pentecostals talk about the baptism of fire. Some people, like Paul in the Bible, talk of seeing a blinding light, and preachers talk about being washed in the blood. I have heard of women that fainted, and I’ve heard of women that danced and shouted and spoke in tongues like Ginny Powell on Green River. But I didn’t know what to expect. Something was moving me, but I could do whatever I wanted to. I was free to do what I chose, and what I wanted was to rededicate my life.
“Lord, we are here to pledge our lives to you,” Preacher Gibbs said. “We are imperfect and sometimes confused. But we know there is no safety and no comfort except in your will and in your love. Give us peace and give us the patience to know peace and to accept your love.”
As the preacher spoke I seen how it was such a little thing to be humble and to accept the gift of life, to face the future, to look at the future calmly. It was different from speaking in tongues, and it was different from the kind of frenzy and rapture you hear about. It was the still, small voice I wanted to hear. I didn’t want to be wrenched apart by feeling. I wanted to be calm and open and wise as the light on New Year’s morning.
While they sung another verse of the hymn in quieter voices behind me, I prayed myself. Lord, I said, make me worthy to have a baby and raise it. Life with Hank is going to be hard, as everybody’s life is hard. Give me the strength to face the pain, and to eat the pain like bread. And give me the sense to know joy and to accept joy. For I know I’m weak and can’t sustain myself alone. Teach me to accept what is give to me.
When the singing stopped Preacher Gibbs reached down and took me by the hand and helped me stand. “Sister Julie,” he said, “do you accept Jesus as your personal savior?”
“I do,” I said. It sounded like a marriage ceremony.
“Do you dedicate your life to his will and glory and his work?” the preacher said.
“I do.”
“Do you wish to join the fellowship of this congregation?”
“I do,” I said. I hadn’t thought about joining the church. I had only thought about rededicating my life to the Lord. But I seen it was the thing to do. Since I was living on Gap Creek I should belong to the Gap Creek church. Our fellowship could only be with those around us.
What I felt as I looked out into the faces of the congregation was not any sweeping whirlwind or flash of light. The joy I felt was steady as music you hear behind you, sustaining and clear. The faces looking at me was not of saints, but ordinary people. And that was the congregation I wanted to be a part of, just ordinary people like myself. I didn’t need to be part of any special group. I was just a sinner that had accepted grace, and I needed the fellowship of other sinners.
“Shall we open the doors of the church?” the preacher called out. There was nods and several of the deacons said yes. “All opposed?” the preacher shouted. Nobody spoke up.
“Do you come to us on profession of faith?” Preacher Gibbs said.
“I do,” I said.
“Let’s all come forward and give Sister Julie the right hand of fellowship,” Preacher Gibbs said.
I stood there beside the preacher while the organist played “By Jordan’s Stormy Banks.” And one by one the people in the room come forward. The women in the choir come first, and some shook hands with both hands and looked me in the eye. And some only shook with one hand and didn’t look me in the eye. Some of the older women hugged me, and some of the younger women had tears in their eyes. I looked into their faces as each one come up. I didn’t usually look people I didn’t know right in the face. But I wanted to stand closer to them and be close to them. I wanted to be near people. There was young boys that come up, so young you wouldn’t hardly think they was members of the church, and they wouldn’t look at me. They shook hands with faces turned aside and hurried on. And some big old boys that had outgrowed their clothes so the pants come up to their ankles grinned and looked like they would like to kiss me if they dared. And older men wearing overalls and flannel shirts, and blushing because they was not used to shaking hands with a young woman, come forward and took my hand for a second. The only grown person left standing in the church that didn’t come forward was Hank. He stood by hisself and looked down at the bench in front of him.
The last people to come forward was the elders, the deacons on the right side of the church. Some of them was very old, and stumbled up to the front of the church with their canes. Some had long white beards stained around the mouth with tobacco juice, and some had not shaved in a week and looked grizzled. Some was clean shaved and their faces was weathered like shoe leather. Some of the old men’s eyes sparkled, like they was young boys looking out of their wrinkles at a pretty girl. And some had cloudy eyes, like they didn’t see too well and wasn�
�t even trying to see.
As I shook all the hands I had a sweet, calm feeling. In front of everybody, I didn’t feel exposed. I felt the warmth of their attention and acceptance of me. The church was a warm and welcoming place. In the cold January day the warmest place was in the fellowship of the congregation. It was the place of music, the music of fellowship and communion.
After I went back to my place beside Hank, he didn’t look at me. He looked straight ahead like he didn’t even know I was there. But I wasn’t sure why. After all, he was a member of the church at Painter Mountain, and he had been baptized and he liked to sing hymns and lead in prayer. He looked off into the dark corner of the church like he didn’t hardly care, or was still thinking of the night of the flood.
• • •
AFTER I JOINED the church I felt better about living on Gap Creek. We didn’t have no money, and we didn’t have a cow, and Hank didn’t have a job. But there was a fellowship at Preacher Gibbs’s church that made you feel connected. In the worst times there is, you can get through with the support of other people. In fact, you can only get through with the help of other people. When I lived at home I had always been helped out by Mama and my sisters. I had never really been left to the mercy of myself before.
Every time I went to church after New Year’s, to a prayer meeting or a preaching service, to a singing, I felt better. And when one of the women from the church, Mrs. Gibbs or Elizabeth Rankin or Joanne Johnson, come to visit and set with me in the kitchen or by the fireplace talking, I felt like a human being again. A woman has to have a woman friend to talk to.
“I didn’t think you wanted to join the church down here,” Hank said. “Does that mean you think we’re going to stay here?”
“They are mighty friendly people here,” I said.
“If they are so friendly why ain’t they helped us find Mr. Pendergast’s heirs?” he said.
Sometimes Hank acted like he didn’t care what happened, but his worry always circled back to the house and finding out who owned it. We couldn’t afford to move nowhere, unless he got a new job, and we could only stay in the house until the real owners showed up. The uncertainty of it wore Hank down, that and the worry about the baby coming. It was like a man to show his worry but never talk much about what was making him angry.
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