A New Dawn Over Devon

by Michael Phillips

  “Then he went on with his little spiritual lecture. Now that I think about it, I wonder if he realized that his words would come back and take root in me one day, so he just continued to teach me day after day, year after year, even though he knew I was paying no attention.”

  “No doubt he prayed that such would be the case,” said Timothy.

  “I wonder how much of my present change in outlook is due to his prayers for me through the years,” said Amanda sadly. “I owe him so much.”

  She glanced away and blinked back a rush of tears. Again Timothy waited.

  “In any event,” Amanda went on after a moment, “as I said, he continued to talk to me. It’s amazing that I was so uninterested, yet his every word comes back to me now as if it happened yesterday.”

  “What did he say?” asked Timothy.

  “‘Amanda,’ he said, ‘if something is worth doing, it is worth doing well. If God gives me a shelf to build, then that shelf deserves my best. Excellence isn’t something to strive for so that people will notice, but so that our lives will reflect God’s character. And as I have been sanding, I’ve thought how like this board I am myself—pretty good, a decently well-constructed board to all appearances . . . but with little scratches and blemishes and sins all through me that no one sees but God. Am I going to say that those little sins of attitude, those little imperfections of character, those little immaturities and selfish, un-Christlike ways of looking at things, don’t matter because people passing me on the street don’t see them? Of course not. You see, Amanda, I cannot be satisfied with scratches on my own character any more than I can the scratch on this board. There’s no fooling God. So as I have been sanding away on this board, I’ve been thinking of how I need to place my own self under God’s trusting hand, while he works away to remove the scratches and help me overcome my sins and make me the best man he can.’”

  Amanda paused, and again smiled.

  “That was my father, wasn’t it, Timothy?” she said. “He was always trying to help people work on their scratches so that they would reflect God’s nature.”

  Timothy did not reply. Amanda glanced to her side and saw that he was quietly weeping.

  “It is so moving to hear you speak of him,” Timothy said softly, his voice shaky. “Yes—what you say is true, that was your father. Listening to you—it is as if he is here with us. Such feelings welled up inside me as you were talking, I could hardly contain them. He is truly living on in you.”

  “I’m not sure what to even think about what you say,” replied Amanda. “Now that he is gone, I miss him so much. I saw him as critical and presumptuous back then. It seemed he was always unsatisfied, but actually he just wanted things to be as good as they could. He was forever talking about the meaning of this or the implications of that, or what we ought to do about something else. I especially hated that he wanted me better. But all the while he was subjecting his own board to the most careful sanding of all, wasn’t he?”

  “If you could have been with us during many of our talks,” replied Timothy, eyes glistening, “you would know how very true that is. I have seen him literally weep for some trivial lapse in himself, as he saw it, in love or patience or kindness toward someone who did not even realize what Charles had done. I have seen him cry out to God for forgiveness for a sin no greater than allowing a brief flirtation with some worldly ambition to take hold in him. Things that most men would consider utterly insignificant would drive him to his knees begging God to strip from him every trace of worldly values. He had no interest in mediocrity. Christlikeness was his constant prayer.”

  They continued to walk along in silence for two or three minutes, during which both were lost in poignant reminiscences of the man who had drawn their lives together.

  12

  What Might God Do vs. What Won’t He Do

  Amanda looked up to see her mother and Betsy approaching hand in hand.

  In that moment her heart swelled with love for the woman who had given her life. In the flash of an instant she saw deep into her mother’s soul and perceived in a new way the reservoirs of love that dwelt there, saw that she was now pouring out that love to a little stranger girl who was opening herself to it more than she herself ever had at the same age.

  A stab now went through Amanda’s heart. She had been given the best mother in the world, and yet had left home and rejected the very affection her mother had lavished on her. Little Betsy, without a mother at all, was able to receive in just two short weeks what she could have been drinking of every day of so many wasted years—a true mother’s heart.

  They approached. Amanda’s eyes flooded with tears. She walked to Jocelyn and embraced her. They held one another for several long seconds.

  “I am so sorry, Mother,” she whispered. “You were so good to me. I am sorry I did not have eyes to see it. I love you.”

  Catharine reappeared from somewhere almost the same moment, and gradually they all returned to the blankets and lunch and began gathering together their things. Soon they were walking back to the car.

  With Jocelyn driving and returning the way they had come half an hour later, Timothy was the first to break a long, contented silence. “Being with you all is such a tonic to my spirit,” he said. “I feel so much better.”

  “Better . . . better than what?” said Catharine. “Have you been ill?”

  “No, dear, just fatigue from my job.”

  “When you telephoned last week,” Jocelyn now said, “you sounded so unlike yourself. What did you mean when you called yourself battle weary?”

  “I cannot slip anything past you, can I?” laughed Timothy. “I’ve just been a little discouraged lately. Occupational hazard at times, I suppose.”

  “From what, Timothy?” asked Catharine.

  Timothy glanced back to where she sat with Amanda and Betsy in the rear seat and smiled. “A long story, Catharine. Suffice it to say that some in my congregation do not find my views to their liking. A few of them have raised objections to the denomination.”

  “Not—” began Jocelyn.

  “Not your sister or brother-in-law,” added Timothy quickly. “Hugh and Edlyn have been attending with some regularity and have been entirely delightful. No, the objections come from other quarters. That the complaints have been endured, say the reports, for some years without a single individual once coming to talk to me about them is as painful to me as that the letters to denominational headquarters occurred behind my back. Without my having so much as an inkling anything was amiss, suddenly I find myself in the sort of church imbroglio I never thought I would face.”

  “Timothy, I am sorry,” said Jocelyn. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “I didn’t want to add to your troubles by complaining about my own.”

  “You have helped us all so many times, prayed with us and wept with us in our trials, you must know how willing we would be to share yours with you.”

  Amanda heard the words and they stung her afresh. She said nothing, quietly knowing she herself was the origin of many of those trials of which her mother spoke.

  “You are always so considerate of our needs,” Jocelyn went on. “I have never seen you take a thought for yourself. Won’t you give us the chance to listen to you for a change?”

  “You’ll have to forgive me,” replied Timothy to her request. “To be honest, at first I thought it was much ado about nothing. I was certain it would blow over quickly. But as it has escalated, to be truthful, I find myself embarrassed. I never dreamed I would be at the center of such a controversy. I suppose I am more comfortable sharing the burdens of other people’s problems than letting them share mine. Perhaps that is one of the things the Lord is trying to teach me.”

  “What could anyone possibly object to?” now asked Amanda, trying to put her thoughts of herself out of her mind and enter into the conversation. “Do they object to you, your ideas, what? I cannot imagine . . .”

  “You would be surprised, Amanda dear,” replied Timo
thy. “Believe it or not, when a man’s theology is suspect in people’s minds, they will willingly believe almost anything of him. It seems they want to think the worst of him because of it. Though it pains me to say it, there have been rumors circulating that I have been secretly involved in politics, even that I have—” His voice broke and he stared ahead at the road.

  “Timothy, what is it?” said Jocelyn. “You can tell us.”

  With difficulty he struggled to continue.

  “Of course, I know that. I just didn’t want you to have to know.”

  “Know what, Timothy?’

  “My frequent trips out of London,” he said softly, “my visits to my dear Devonshire friends—I am sorry, my dear,” he added, glancing toward Jocelyn, “I had no intention of ever bringing this up . . . but there have been rumors that the reason for my trips is an affair . . . and some people are only too willing to believe it.”

  “Good heavens!” exclaimed Jocelyn.

  “That’s nonsense!” added Catharine.

  “Timothy, I am so sorry,” Jocelyn went on. “Who could possibly believe such a thing about you? You are one of the most upright men I have ever met. Don’t they know you, know your heart?”

  “Apparently not,” he sighed.

  “I just can’t believe it,” huffed Catharine angrily.

  “When people of a certain sort get it into their heads that a man is unorthodox by their narrow definition of doctrinal purity,” Timothy said, pausing to exhale sadly, “they begin to see boogiemen in everything he says. They are all too eager to assume that his suspect theology has led to ethical wreckage as well. They delight in believing such things, for it proves that the theology they so dislike must be intrinsically evil.”

  “But what theology?” persisted Catharine.

  “Besides the purported moral case against me,” replied Timothy, “the charge to my denominational leaders is that I am a liberal, as if that were tantamount to being the devil himself. Not that I consider anything so evil in liberality. Yet I am so far from being what they call a liberal as I can imagine.”

  “I still do not understand their complaint,” said Amanda. “Or are they like I was, completely irrational in their response to things?”

  Timothy laughed lightly.

  “I will make no comment about you, my dear,” he replied, “except to say that it delights me that you are responding to the Lord now, and that fact erases all past irrationalities from my thoughts. But to answer your question in a nutshell about the people in question, I suppose I am not rigid and narrow enough to suit them. I like to think of what great possibilities might exist in the divine plan of God. Many are uncomfortable with such an approach to theology. They prefer to think of all the things God won’t do, rather than to imagine what wonderfully large things he might do. They want the lines of their doctrine drawn tightly around both themselves and God. All the while, of course, they say the God they worship is infinite and almighty, when those are the very last terms any logical man or woman would ascribe to the crimped being whom they say must never move outside their narrow boxes. They insist that God conform to their small definitions, but see no incumbency upon themselves to enlarge their own spiritual mentalities to consider what almighty truly means. They say ‘almighty,’ but contradict themselves immediately by adding that God cannot—”

  Suddenly he stopped and gave an embarrassed chuckle.

  “Forgive me,” he added. “I don’t mean to rant. In the midst of the pain this dispute causes me, the foolish things these so-called guardians of doctrinal purity say of God also anger me.”

  “I still can’t imagine why they would object to a large view of what God might do,” said Catharine.

  “I’m not sure I can help you, Catharine,” replied Timothy. “I don’t understand it either. They do not want an imaginative God, a creative God, a large God, or an infinitely redeeming God.”

  “What kind of God do they want?” asked Catharine.

  “In a word,” replied Timothy, “—a comfortable God. A God they can control, a God who will make no demands either on their intellects or their hearts . . . especially on their obedience.”

  “That is ridiculous,” rejoined Catharine. “It is that aspect of God’s nature that draws me.”

  “Exactly as it was for your father,” added Jocelyn. “If you had not portrayed God in such a large and wonderful way, Timothy,” she added, “we might not know him now. Charles would never have been drawn by a tight and narrow kind of Christianity. He became a Christian in the first place because it offered answers consistent with his reason and his intellect, which were expansive to say the least.”

  “That is exactly the point I have been trying to make to my denominational inquisitors,” sighed Timothy with frustration, “that a large God, the God of the Scriptures, the God who was the Father of Jesus Christ, is precisely what the world is hungry for. This narrow mentality flatters itself that only its particular brand of fundamentalism can be truly evangelistic, when in fact I think the world would respond far more enthusiastically to a—excuse my use of the word—a more liberal and less confining and restrictive gospel. By that I only mean the gospel of Jesus Christ himself that accepts all men where they are, then says to them, ‘You have a good Father in heaven who loves you. Seek him and obey him, and you will know life indeed.’”

  “What do they say to such things?” asked Amanda.

  “They would rather send people to hell than enlarge their concept of God. I will give you an example of the kind of mentality I find myself up against. Several months ago, during a Sunday evening sermon, I chanced to make a remark about animals and the afterlife. It was an innocent conjecture on my part that greatly upset two of the individuals involved and brought matters to a head.”

  “What did you say?” asked Jocelyn.

  “Actually, I wasn’t talking about animals going to heaven at all,” answered Timothy. “I had never thought much about it before. My text was, ‘Love is eternal.’ I was talking about the love we feel for one another in this life and that it will continue into the next. As I was speaking, the thought suddenly occurred to me, and I voiced it, that if we also love, say, a special horse or a pet dog or cat, is that love also eternal? If so, might the animals also have some manner of soul, different from man’s, of course, but still capable of living beyond death? Then I added, ‘I don’t know whether there will be animals in heaven. But isn’t it a wonderful possibility to contemplate? Just how large might eternity be, and how vast God’s miraculously reconciling work!’ I remember the words exactly because I have said them over and over to myself many times since, trying to think what could possibly be so scandalous in them. And now, because of a chance mention of animals possibly going to heaven, I find my ministry in jeopardy.”

  “That is preposterous!” exclaimed Catharine, breaking into laughter. “What could possibly be upsetting in that?”

  “I honestly do not know,” replied Timothy, shaking his head. “I confess myself utterly bewildered by the narrowness that is threatened by a too-large God. Speaking for myself, I choose to believe that the God I worship and serve and strive to obey truly is infinite and almighty, and that no possibility is too great for him. That does not mean that he will do everything, only that he can do anything and everything it is his will to do.”

  “Amen!” added Jocelyn.

  13

  The Most Difficult Forgiveness

  Listening to Timothy share his woes reminded Amanda again that hurtful talk about others always has widening consequences, and of the pain she had herself inflicted upon someone much closer to them all than Timothy’s parishioners.

  “Did the letter I wrote and the things I said about him affect my father like the pain this is causing you?” she asked at length.

  Timothy glanced back toward Amanda and smiled. It was a sad smile, yet one which sent the ministry of compassion ahead of his words for what he was compelled to say.

  “Yes,” he replied. “I would no
t be honest with you, Amanda, if I said they did not hurt him deeply. What you did broke his heart. But for love of you, not concern for himself. He didn’t worry so much about his own reputation, or his own hurt, but mostly—for I think he foresaw this day—the pain you would feel one day from knowing what you had done. Of course, he always anticipated being there to share your sorrow with you, and to help ease your suffering with the tender father-arms of his own forgiveness.”

  Amanda began to weep. Catharine put her arm around her sister.

  “Oh, it is so dreadful that I can never ask his forgiveness!” she said.

  “One chooses to extend forgiveness whether he is asked for it or not,” rejoined Timothy.

  The words seemed momentarily to register only confusion on Amanda’s face.

  “I don’t see what you mean,” she said, pulling out her handkerchief and wiping her nose and eyes.

  “When Jesus was on the cross,” Timothy continued, “he forgave those who crucified him. Yet those very scribes and Pharisees and priests and Roman soldiers never asked him for forgiveness. They did not repent of their wrong, but he forgave them regardless.”

  Timothy paused and glanced back at Amanda, trying to convey with his eyes the love he felt for her at this moment.

  “What I am saying,” he went on, “is that forgiveness need not wait for such a repentance. It acts immediately. I need to forgive those in my church spreading these tales about me whether the tales are true or not. I need to forgive the loose tongues that have allowed these lies to circulate. I need to forgive those whose thoughtlessness even hurts you dear ones and clouds the memory of your dear Charles. What they have done makes me angry. But I know the only path before me is not to defend myself, not even to try to combat the charges, but to forgive . . . whether they ask my forgiveness or not.”

  “What does all this have to do with my father?” asked Amanda.