A New Beginning

by Michael Phillips

  “But you see, Braxton—I’m sorry . . . Christopher—I couldn’t ignore your words, for one very simple reason.

  “I had been nearly knocked off my feet the week before in listening to your personal story. As I listened the second week, therefore, and in the weeks which followed, I could not ignore what you were saying, because in you I saw so much of myself. In you I saw what I might have been . . . perhaps what I should have been.”

  As Christopher heard the words, he scarcely could think what Mr. Royce might mean.

  “Listening to you,” the banker went on, “was like standing in front of a mirror, hearing a voice out of my own past, speaking to me about what kind of person I could have been . . . and what still might be. I was compelled to listen.

  “I would like to tell you both why—that is, if you do not mind.”

  “Please,” said Christopher, glancing over momentarily at Pa, “proceed.”

  Pa nodded his head earnestly.

  Chapter 33

  Mr. Royce’s Story

  “Your personal story,” Mr. Royce went on, “is so remarkably similar to mine that the possibility of mere coincidence seems to me impossible.

  “Your father was a farmer, mine was a wealthy investment banker. Like you, I was born late in my father’s life to his second wife. My mother died, like yours, when I was fourteen years old. You did not mention how much longer your own father lived. Mine died three years after my mother, and I was left alone in the world to fend for myself.

  “I went from relative to relative looking for help, looking for compassion, hoping to find someone who would care whether I lived or died. But everywhere I was turned away. I too lived with aunts and uncles, all wealthy in their bank accounts but impoverished when it came to demonstrating human emotion.

  “You described the feelings of worthlessness, of thinking you would never amount to anything. As you spoke I was certain no one else in that church could have known you as I did. I knew you . . . because I had been there myself. You might just as well have been describing me. Your very words struck such bitter memories in my heart.

  “You spoke of your desire to go to college and to learn, and the offer your brother made you. It was a time of decision for you.

  “Such a time came for me too. I was given an opportunity by one of my relatives to go to college, or I could continue in the investment firm of which my father had been a partner and hope to work my way up one day into the upper echelons myself.

  “In the end, I too arrived at a decision. I stood at a crossroads, just like you. But what different choices we made!

  “You had suffered and been hurt, you had faced disappointment and doubts about whether you were a person worthy of life at all. You chose in the end to turn that inner grief into good. You chose to find what no human could give you, from God himself. You dedicated yourself to him and to your fellowman. You chose to help people. You chose the occupation of the ministry. You chose the road, as you put it, of serving your fellowman. Because of that decision, you are now who you are today.

  “Facing the same griefs and disappointments and self-doubts, I chose a different road. I determined that I would get even with all who had turned their backs on me. I would show the world that Franklin Royce would be worth more than they ever dreamed of. I determined that I would become rich and powerful no matter who I had to hurt to achieve it. I would follow in my father’s footsteps, but I would become even more powerful than he. Never again would anyone laugh at me or look down on me.

  “Listening to you tell your tale, Christopher, made me realize so many things. I realized that, though the circumstances of every man’s life vary, at the root all still face the same two basic choices—will they live for themselves as independent beings striving to get all they can, or, as you explained it, will they yield themselves to God so that they can live as his sons. It is the simple difference between trying to do good for yourself or for others . . . trying to accumulate or give away . . . trying to be first or last . . . trying to exalt yourself or your neighbor.

  “You made the right choice. I see now that I made the wrong one all those years ago. It is not that one of the paths—college or investments—was right and one of them wrong. It was my motives which were wrong. I chose the career I did just so that I could become rich and powerful and lord it over my fellowman. I went down the road of self, and this is where it has brought me—rich . . . but empty. Do you see what I am saying? I now realize that actually—in spite of appearance—my life is one of poverty in the things that really count.”

  He stopped, looked away for a moment, smiled a melancholy smile, then continued.

  “I learned something else, however, from my friend here,” Mr. Royce added, glancing over at Pa. “From what I know of your past, Drummond, there was a time you were on the wrong road too.”

  “That’s right, Franklin,” said Pa. “For more years than I like to remember.”

  “That is exactly my point,” Mr. Royce went on. “Because of you, I see that it is possible for a man to change roads. Even though he may have made wrong choices when he was young, perhaps many wrong choices, it is never too late. The way to that right road, the road both of you are on now, is never closed off, no matter what a man may have done.”

  He paused and looked seriously first at Pa, then to Christopher.

  “Am I correct in making that statement,” he asked, “—that it is never to late to change?”

  Pa and Christopher nodded their heads together.

  “You are absolutely right,” answered Christopher.

  “I’m the living proof, all right,” said Pa. “I don’t like to admit it, but I was past forty by the time I got myself over onto God’s road instead of my own.”

  “All right then,” said Mr. Royce, “we’re finally to the question I came here to ask the two of you, once I got the business of my apologies to Drum out of the way. You said in your sermon, Christopher, that you were going to challenge the people of Miracle Springs, and that if we weren’t comfortable being challenged to make something better of ourselves, then you weren’t the man for us. Do you remember saying that?”

  Christopher nodded.

  “Well, I don’t know about anyone else, and I cannot say I was comfortable with it, but I’m one man of your congregation that does want to make something better of myself. So I’m going to take you up on your challenge.”

  Chapter 34

  A Most Wonderful Question

  The next words out of Mr. Royce’s mouth were so simple, yet so profoundly humble, that Christopher could hardly sit calmly as he listened to them.

  “So I’m going to take you up on your challenge,” Mr. Royce had said. “And my question is this: How does a man start over? How do you go back and undo all those years of walking down the road of self? How do you get onto God’s road?

  “You see, as strange as it sounds to be coming from my mouth, I guess the plain fact of the matter is that I’ve had enough of Franklin Royce. If God is a Father like you say he is . . . well, I’m ready to be his son, that is, if he’ll have me, and to live like you talked about last Sunday.”

  I could hardly believe my ears as Christopher recounted Mr. Royce’s words!

  Pa looked over at Christopher in amazement. Mr. Royce looked at them both. “So,” he said, “what do I do now?”

  “I knew from the look on your father’s face,” Christopher said, “that he didn’t have any idea what to say. Yet I was reluctant myself to take the lead. I felt that your father had been the primary influence in Franklin’s life, even though it had been listening to what I said that finally prompted him to come and face your father and make the confession he had. I felt like your father ought to be the one to talk to him, to answer his question. It would mean more coming from someone he had known such a long time. But I knew your father hadn’t been in many situations like that—”

  “Not a one I can think of,” I said.

  “That’s the point. I didn’t want to just
get up and walk out and leave them both embarrassed and wondering what to do.”

  “So what did you do?” I asked.

  “I tried to get the conversation moving in the right direction, telling him some of the same things I told Alkali Jones.”

  Christopher then recounted the rest of the conversation.

  “Do you recall what I said last Sunday, Franklin?” Christopher said to him. “When a man or woman, a boy or girl, no matter how young or old, wants to become God’s son or daughter, the process is always the same. Whether it’s starting down the road for the first time or changing roads later on, as you put it . . . whether it’s someone who’s been going to church for years or has never set foot inside a church in his life—they all still have to do the same thing.”

  “That’s my question,” repeated Mr. Royce. “What is that thing they must do?”

  “It’s simply a matter of giving yourself over to your Father. Do you remember—I said that means hands, feet, brain, heart, thoughts and feelings and attitudes and behavior—everything. You’re saying to him, Here, Father . . . here is my life. I give it to you. You take charge of it now. I want you to be my Father, and I will be your good and obedient little son. That’s all there is to it.”

  “That’s all?”

  “You asked how to start over?”

  Mr. Royce nodded.

  “Well then, that is how to do it. That’s how to make a start. But then you asked if that was all. And in answer to that I would say—no, it’s only the beginning. Once you’ve done that, you’ve gotten onto the right road. Now you have to walk down that road. Now it becomes a matter of growing, as I also spoke of. It becomes a matter of living and behaving and thinking like the good and obedient little son you told your Father you wanted to be. So you have to find out what your Father wants you to do. It usually means unlearning many old habits and patterns and learning new ones in their place.”

  “How will I find out all these things?”

  “He will show you. The Gospels are the beginning, as I also explained. That’s where we find out how children of the Father are to live and behave.”

  “What if something I need to know isn’t in the Bible?”

  “He will show you.”

  “How?”

  “I cannot say. He uses different means with all of us. But if you ask for your Father’s help, he will give it. Ask him all your questions. Ask him what he wants you to do. When we ask, he always answers.

  “By this time,” Christopher told me, “he was so broken, with all his defenses down, that he was sitting there like a little child who didn’t know what to do next. It was quite wonderful.

  “‘Do you want to tell the Father that you want to be his son, Franklin?’ I asked.

  “‘Yes . . . yes, of course I do,’ he answered.

  “‘Then I’m going to leave the two of you alone,’ I said. Even as I said it, I saw your father look over at me with his eyes wide open. I knew he was thinking, Don’t leave me now, Christopher! But I knew he could lead Franklin through what he needed to do just as well as I could, and that he would grow himself from the experience.

  “‘Drum, would you pray with Franklin?’ I said. ‘Show him that there’s nothing frightful about talking with our Father just as naturally as we’ve been sitting here talking with one another. The two of you brothers can just have a talk with your Father.’

  “‘Franklin,’ I said, ‘I want you to know that you may come see me anytime, day or night, with any questions you may have. Once you tell the Father you want to be part of his family, that instantly makes you and me brothers, in just the same way Drum and I are brothers. We’re kinfolk! And you can call on this brother of yours anytime, about anything.’

  “Then I got up, left, and went over to the main house.”

  Chapter 35

  Living Epistles

  Christopher and I were in the house with the rest of the family when we heard Mr. Royce’s buggy leave. A minute later Pa walked into the house.

  The expression on his face was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. It was a dazed look—bewilderment, disbelief, and a sort of half smile all in one. He was just shaking his head, like he was trying to wake himself up, wondering if what had just gone on had actually been real.

  We all watched him come in, waiting for him to say something, but he didn’t seem to be able to get a single word out. He sat down in his favorite chair, still staring straight ahead and shaking his head back and forth.

  “I just don’t believe it,” he finally said. His voice was soft, like he was speaking to himself. “You can never tell who’s paying attention to what you’re doing, or what folks are thinking.”

  We all waited again.

  “I might have expected it with Alkali,” he went on, his voice still soft, “—but Franklin Royce? Never would I have figured he’d have wanted anything to do with the likes of us . . . and here all the time he’s looking . . . almost envious, I reckon you’d say. How can you figure a thing like that?”

  Christopher had told us a little of what had gone on before Pa had returned, though there hadn’t been time to tell us every detail.

  “Of all people, you shouldn’t be surprised, Drummond,” said Almeda. “It’s the very thing you spoke about in church that evening in March.”

  “I know,” sighed Pa, still shaking his head. “But there’s a difference in believing something is true and seeing it happen right before your eyes.”

  “What happened after I left?” Christopher now asked Pa.

  “Well, we did like you said, we prayed together. It was kinda awkward there at first, couple of grown men like we were fumbling for how to say things. Praying’s not exactly the sort of thing men do too much together. The last thing I ever figured I’d be doing on this earth is praying out loud with Franklin Royce!”

  The rest of us smiled. We could hardly believe what God had done.

  “Anyhow, I told him that praying wasn’t no different than talking regular, and that you just had to think of God as right there with you. Then I kind of started out and prayed a little myself so he’d see there wasn’t nothing to be afraid of. Then I stopped and told him to go on ahead and just tell God whatever was on his mind.”

  “Did he?” I asked Pa.

  “Yeah, he did. He told God he was sorry for all the stuff he’d done and for the kind of man he’d been. He asked him to forgive him and said he hoped the people of the town would forgive him too, and asked God to help him be a better person. Then he stopped and said it again, but this time he said, ‘Help me become a more Christlike person.’”

  “Hallelujah!” shouted Almeda, able to contain herself no longer. “God bless the man!”

  “Then he said he wanted to be a child of God and go down God’s road and be part of God’s family. He asked God to help him and to show him how to be a good son. Then he stopped again and added, ‘the son you want me to be.’ Then that was about it. I prayed again and said amen finally. We both stood up and stretched our legs, then shook hands, and he went back to town.”

  “That’s absolutely wonderful, Drum!” said Christopher. “You did just as well as I could have done myself. It will mean more to Franklin that you were the one to pray with him.”

  “Praise the Lord!” added Almeda. “What wonderful things God is constantly doing in people’s lives—things that we have no idea of!”

  “All these years everybody thinking Franklin Royce was a skunk, and just look at what was really going on inside him,” said Pa.

  “I can’t help but feel bad,” I said. “I have to admit I have had some not-so-nice thoughts about him through the years.”

  “So have we all,” said Almeda. “But that’s over it seems. He’s one of the family now!”

  “I’m reminded of Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians,” said Christopher, “where he speaks of Christians as living epistles that people read and see what Christ can do in a human life. All these years Franklin Royce was reading each of you, e
specially you, Drum, all the time being drawn closer and closer to God his Father without his even knowing it.”

  Pa was gazing down at the floor and shaking his head back and forth again.

  “You just never know who’s watching, and what you might be telling them,” he said, softly again. The incident had obviously gone very deep into him.

  All the rest of us were quiet now too, thinking to ourselves about the people we encountered all the time without hardly giving them a second thought, wondering what they might be reading from the living epistle that was being written with each one of our lives.

  Chapter 36

  Franklin Royce Surprises the Whole Town

  It was sometime in mid-July when the rumors started flying about Mr. Royce’s bank.

  At first we just began to hear about a few people who said they were renegotiating their loans. But then it started to seem like everyone we saw was talking about something to do with the bank. At first I didn’t pay too much attention. But then Christopher brought it up, wondering if maybe the people of the community were experiencing some kind of financial problems. Yet we hadn’t heard of anything. As far as we knew, crops this summer were growing as well as usual, and there’d been no great downturn in the price of beef or mutton. Business at the freight company seemed normal.

  “I’ll ask around,” said Pa one evening when we were all together after supper and had gotten to talking about it.

  The next day both Pa and Christopher came home with the same news, which they’d got from talking to two different people, and it explained in a second why everyone was talking: Mr. Royce had put up a notice in his bank that all new loans would be written for a whole percentage point lower than the existing interest rate, and that this would also apply to any existing loans the bank presently held for any who wanted to redraw the terms of their agreements.