Loving Luther

by Allison Pittman

  And now, something completely new. The Freedom of a Christian. I ran my fingers over the creases on the page, bracing myself for the words to follow.

  Christian faith has appeared to many an easy thing. . . .

  Easy thing, indeed. The sleeplessness, the silence, the cold floors and sparse meals and endless scrutiny. This was the very first line, and I found myself not simply reading the page, but conversing with the author.

  For it is not possible for any man to write well about it . . .

  And yet he did.

  . . . or to understand well what is rightly written. . . .

  As I read, I felt a connection to the man who wrote the words. I’d form a question, and he’d answer it in the next line. At times, I had to furrow my brow and beg him to repeat his logic, so he did in the rereading of a sentence. Or two. Other times, his point would be so strong and perfectly clear, I needed to look away from the text and stare out the window at the square frame of blue sky while the new truth took root.

  According to his own text, these were the words of a poor man, vexed by temptations, yet with the assurance to write about matters of faith. He wrote with elegance and solidity and a proclaimed desire to serve the ignorant. And who could possibly be more ignorant than I?

  Then, the final lines on the page:

  A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one.

  Here was something to ponder, and I read it again. And thrice, bringing the paper closer to my face, as if to make the words clearer, before remembering that to do so would put the paper in full view of any other sister choosing to spend her hours of unassigned time in the chapel. A furtive glance revealed five within my eyesight, and I dared not attract attention by turning my head to see who had come in behind.

  Most free of all.

  The irony caught me unaware, and a bit of a laugh tried to escape before I captured it and tamed it into a more acceptable outburst.

  This single sentence presented itself as a puzzle with contradictory interlocking truth. How could one be, simultaneously, in servitude and free? Subject to none, and to all?

  It was maddening, this bit of logic. Or illogic. For the first time, with all my heart I wished I could turn my head and ask this Luther himself, “What do you mean?” But God had given me a mind of my own, and few enough opportunities to challenge it.

  Free. Free from the bondage of sin. Free from condemnation, through repentance and confession. But subject to none? Only to Christ, and the pope, and the bishops, and the priests, and the abbess, and Therese, who carried with her always the threat of discovery.

  Most dutiful servant. To Christ, to the Church, and therefore, I supposed, to all. Carrying their prayers, creating this haven of worship.

  Unsettled by the paradox, I took one last sweeping glance at the paper, folded it, and returned it to my sleeve. Moving as silently as possible, I slid out from the pew and kept my head bowed in contemplation as I traversed the courtyard and entered the sisters’ sleeping quarters. Open doors revealed nuns kneeling at their bedside in prayer or stretched on their mattresses in sleep. I quickened my pace, turned the corner, and slipped into the narrow hallway, casting a glance to ensure I hadn’t been followed.

  It was an unusual time to try to visit with Sister Gerda. I knew I was to ask permission, but this could not wait. I went straight to the door and knocked quietly, not knowing if the sound would travel through the thick wood. I peered through the window. The cell was dark, making the small, misshapen woman appear like a specter floating out of the shadows.

  “I know this visit must come as a surprise,” I whispered, pressing my face into the latticework so that my words would land only within the close, dark walls, “but will you speak to me?”

  Sister Gerda shook her head, a motion so quick I questioned the response.

  “Only for a moment?”

  Followed by a more convincing dismissal.

  “But I-I have questions. And there’s no one here that I—” I stopped myself short of saying trust. I trusted Girt, and Therese to an extent. But they wouldn’t understand any more than I did. Sister Gerda’s years of silence had surely nurtured a wisdom more pure than anything outside of this dark place.

  I pleaded again. “Will you, then, listen? Just for a moment? I only need—”

  This interruption came with the sight of Sister Gerda’s hand, so white as it emerged from the black sleeve, it seemed disembodied, yet strong enough to halt the wall of words. Behind her splayed fingers, a stern expression discouraged any further sound. I leaned my head against the door, realizing the true reason I trusted this woman.

  Silence keeps secrets.

  I turned my back to the door, rested against it, and slid down until I was sitting on the floor. Taking the page from my sleeve, I opened it, found an angle that afforded the most light, and began to read as loud as I dared. I knew she listened on the other side. Her distinct footfall sounded until she stopped, and I imagined her good ear pressed against an open knot in the wood.

  Never had I felt such power as in speaking these words aloud, and I fought to keep my whisper intact. To think, a man had penned them, but I could read them. I could speak them. And yet I had no power to make them my own truth.

  When I got to the end, I went back to the top and read the page again. Pausing at the end of each sentence, letting the ideas seep through my lips, through the door. But when I began to read it a third time, a sharp rap came from the other side.

  Stop.

  I obeyed, midsentence.

  “Will you keep this for me?” I asked, pressing the paper against the door. “I can’t be found with it, but I–I can’t destroy it. Please?”

  No sound, no protest. I began to slide it under the door but knew I needed to keep a remnant with me. Carefully, I folded a crease just above the confounding last line. Lifting it to my mouth, I gave it a quick swipe along my tongue before tearing it carefully—imagining each woven strand of paper dislodging—until I’d separated it from the larger page. A single narrow strip. Easily concealed. Swallowed, if necessary. I stood, folded the larger page, and dangled it through the lattice.

  “I need to know,” I said, speaking blindly into the wood, “and you can answer me whenever you can. However you can. But I need to know. What does this mean?”

  I would have opened my fingers, allowed the words to drift to the floor of the cell, never to know if they’d fall under the gaze of another soul. But then I felt it—a tug as small as the slip itself.

  CHAPTER 10

  “Did you read it?” Girt asked as her breath rippled across the spoonful of soup. It was a ruse, of course. Rarely was the soup hot enough to need to be cooled, but the gesture masked speech, and the accompanying rattle of cutlery swallowed the sound.

  I nodded but did not look up. I balled my hand into a fist and rested it on the table between us, an indication to stop. Then I laid my hand flat and left it there, soft, to let them know I wasn’t angry, just insistent.

  Later.

  At the after-supper service we sang hymns, praising God for the creation of the earth and all within it. A song of spring and life. I stood squarely in the midst of my sisters, freely craning my neck to the left and the right and behind. Some sang with their faces lifted toward heaven, joy shining in their eyes. Others stared resolutely at Sister Benedikta, looking for clues to lyric and tempo. Some met my gaze and offered an encouraging one in return, communicating the glory of God across the notes.

  When the last note of the hymn died away, Margarete took her place behind the pulpit, something she obviously relished during those services for which no priest could be bothered.

  “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost—” the sisters crossed themselves with her—“the fifty-fourth psalm. ‘Save me, O God, by thy name, and judge me by thy strength.’”

  The sisters repeated. Save me, O God, by thy name, and
judge me by thy strength.

  “Hear my prayer, O God; give ear to the words of my mouth.”

  For strangers are risen up against me, and oppressors seek after my soul: they have not set God before them. Selah.

  My mind wandered from the sacred text. Luther was a stranger, wasn’t he?

  “Behold, God is mine helper: the Lord is with them that uphold my soul.”

  I will freely sacrifice unto thee: I will praise thy name, O Lord; for it is good.

  There was a final verse to the psalm. I heard Margarete’s sonorous voice, and the sweet echo of my sisters, but I chose instead to repeat, “I will freely sacrifice unto thee.”

  And again, “I will freely sacrifice unto thee.”

  A chorus of amen, followed by silence, into which my lone voice spoke again, “I will freely sacrifice unto thee.”

  A shuffle of soft leather and white robes all around, and I stood still in its midst, my eyes focused on the figure of Christ on the cross hanging above the altar.

  “I will freely sacrifice unto thee.”

  “Kat!” Therese tugged on my sleeve.

  “I’m staying here,” I said, my gaze never wavering. “In the chapel. You all go; I’ll meet you later.”

  Girt leaned close. “But what about—?”

  “Later!” I couldn’t remember the last time anything so harsh had come from my mouth. I only knew that something had happened, something deep inside a part of my spirit I never knew existed. Something that took me to the freedom of a woman. Back to Eve, when a serpent told her she had a choice. Eat? Not eat? She was free, and utterly incapable of knowing the dire consequences of that freedom.

  I knew I was the object of suspicion as the pews emptied around me.

  “Are you quite all right, Sister Katharina?” Though we were family, Margarete addressed me with the formality of a stranger.

  “I am fine, Mother. I simply want to pray here. Alone, if I may.”

  Margarete descended slowly, her veil motionless as she walked. “Are you ejecting us from the sanctuary?”

  I refused to acknowledge the humor, sensing the bite behind it. “Stay or go as you please.” I bowed my head, obscuring my face with my veil in an attempt to show humility.

  Margarete remained unconvinced. “You’re to be in your room within the hour.”

  “I don’t want to go to my room, and I don’t know if I’ll want to go later.” Margarete drew a sharp breath at my defiance, and a soft press against my shoulder inspired an equally softened tone. “Please, may I stay? This once. I want—I need to be in prayer. And sometimes, when there are others in the room, even though we’re supposed to be silent . . .”

  Margarete exhaled, acquiescing. “Very well. You may stay until the eleven o’clock service. I’ll leave word that you’re not to be disturbed.”

  “Thank you, cousin.”

  My eyes following her steps, I remained frozen in my place, not falling to my knees until I knew I was alone. But not at the altar. I couldn’t walk that far. I dropped in place, folding my arms on the seat of the bench and resting my head upon them. Even with my eyes open, I saw nothing but darkness, but I closed them anyway, remembering a trick from childhood. If I closed my eyes, closed them tight, I could see my thoughts. Spelled out as clearly as words on a page. And when I did, I saw only one word, written over and over.

  Freedom. Freedom. Freedom.

  Silently, I appealed to the Holy Father God to forgive my sin. Not the silly, inconsequential confessions I relayed to the priests in order to fulfill an obligation, but the deeper sin of disbelief so newly revealed. Not until this moment had I understood the sacrifice of Christ on the cross to be the source of forgiveness. Not the words priests told me to say, not memorized prayers—identical from one penitent to another. But Jesus Christ, the Son of God himself, with nothing to stand between his pierced side and my broken heart.

  My belief cleansed me.

  Freedom.

  My confession, here, silent and alone, flew to heaven.

  Freedom.

  And I felt it, as clear and sharp as the first ball of snow dropped down my neck when we played as children. As heavy as the veil first placed upon my head. I had pledged my faith to Christ—alone. Not to the Church, or to the pope, or to any man or woman who would stake a claim on my allegiance. I was subject to God, and to no one else.

  All this was fine, here, alone, where I could stay until eleven o’clock. And then . . .

  “Oh, my Father in heaven.” My breath returned, sweet from the wood. “What have I done?”

  CHAPTER 11

  SINCE MY INSISTENCE on a solitary prayer vigil in the chapel, the abbess had been especially watchful, instructing other sisters to separate our trio at meals and services. Therese had been removed from garden duty and brought in to help tutor the village children who came to practice their catechism. Girt was brought into the sewing room, where, according to the grumbling of the other nuns, she ripped out as many stitches as she made. Margarete did not, however, make any attempt to change our cell assignment, perhaps trusting that our need for rest would trump any desire for mischief. Both Girt and Therese seemed to have sensed my change in spirit, for even when we were given moments of hidden time, neither pressed me for information. Therese, no doubt, because she opposed all of the implications of disobedience accompanying these missives. Girt, though, knew—or seemed to know—the import. While she offered the occasional inquisitive invitation, she showed compassion and backed away at my gentle rebuffs.

  In the first hours after Easter Sunday, once we were newly deposited in our cell after the three o’clock service, I lay on my cot, eyes trained on a strip of moonlight on the ceiling. The hall outside had been silenced of footsteps for a count of five hundred, giving reasonable assurance that each of the sisters was similarly tucked away to embrace the few hours of sleep that waited. Girt sat on the floor, her head sharing my pillow, speaking in a particular form of whisper we had mastered as children, where the vowels all but disappeared, leaving little more than breath between popping consonants. Thus, any eavesdropper might think it only the rustle of straw when Girt drew close to my ear and said, “Hans wants me to come away.”

  Then there was a rustle of straw as Therese came from her bed to huddle on the floor next to Girt.

  “What did you say?”

  “Hans. I spoke with him last week. And he wants me to leave with him. To marry him.”

  “How can you . . . ?” Therese crossed herself without finishing her question. “Jesus, protect us from this sin.”

  “I haven’t sinned,” Girt said. “I think I just—” she shrugged her shoulders, at a temporary loss—“love him.”

  I turned my head, sensing rather than seeing my friend’s wide, pretty face in the darkness. “Does he love you?”

  “He says he does.”

  “Stop this.” Therese emphasized her command with a fist slammed into the ticking. “Do you hear yourselves? Have you forgotten who you are?”

  “I haven’t forgotten anything,” Girt said. “But I don’t think this is what I want to be for the rest of my life.”

  I knew it. Therese communicated the sentiment with a single click of her tongue. “All of this sneaking. Notes and messages.”

  Girt’s soft hand touched my shoulder. “Can you tell me, now? What it said?”

  I closed my eyes, remembering the words on the page. Not the paradoxical statement that lived as a solitary strip in the ticking of my mattress, but the last complete sentence before the passage was interrupted by the tearing of the page. “Love is by its own nature dutiful and obedient to the beloved object.”

  Girt let out a squeal, then buried her face in the ticking to muffle it. When she lifted her head, I obeyed her plea to repeat.

  “He is my beloved object,” Girt said, rapturously.

  “Christ is our beloved,” Therese insisted. “You’ve taken a vow to be obedient to him.”

  “That was before.”

  “Exa
ctly my point. Our vows are holy. Sacred. And they take precedence over everything. You shouldn’t even be talking to this boy.”

  “He’s not a boy,” Girt said, her voice dangerously close to a true whisper. “And I was just a girl when I took the veil. If I’d known him, I might not—”

  “You cannot compare some fleeting romance to a commitment to Christ. Not to mention the Church.”

  I listened to the exchange, adding to it a third dimension of my own. What if there weren’t a promise of love and marriage on the other side of the convent wall? What if one wanted to leave simply because . . . one wanted to leave? To pursue a life free of dictated worship and punitive absolution? To pursue a life of freedom?

  “Luther,” I interjected at the next opportunity, “says that to be a true Christian is to be subject to both no one and everyone. As our Apostle Paul writes in the book of Romans, Owe no man any thing, but to love one another. That is the duty we have. We are subjected to love one another, so that means you two must stop bickering.”

  “But we owe everything to the Church,” Therese said, calmer. “At least I do. The sisters took me in. They cared for me, fed me.”

  “As they should.” I shifted to my side, bringing all of our faces so close we would have blurred in the vision of full light. “Out of obedience to the command to love one another. It should be enough to love a child and care for her without expecting all of . . . this.”

  “Exactly,” Girt said, though I figured my friend embraced the idea for its support of her desire, rather than for her own philosophical conclusion.

  “You are taking the word of a man who has been excommunicated from the Church,” Therese said. She spoke truth, as the news had been delivered from the bishop last fall, with an air of triumph. “We should only listen to the Word of God and what we read in the Holy Scriptures.”