Land of the Brave and the Free

by Michael Phillips

  “You sound . . . hmm—I don’t know . . . I reckon a little cynical.”

  I could not help laughing, and I don’t suppose I disguised the irony in my voice any too well.

  “You’re a very perceptive young lady, Corrie Hollister,” I said. “I can see just what you said about yourself, that you are always looking underneath the surface of people, hunting for a story they can tell you. And you’re exactly right. In retrospect I now see all too clearly that they wanted me for reasons I could not see then, would not have dared to admit.”

  “What kind of reasons?”

  “It’s humiliating even to suggest it,” I answered, “but now I see that it wasn’t for what life and truth they hoped I could bring them, but rather because—this is the difficult part to say!—I was a strong, able-bodied young man, whom they perhaps perceived as dynamic to a degree, and who would ‘look good’ in their pulpit and give their church a good name.”

  “Do churches really choose ministers that way?”

  “Oh yes—all the time!”

  “But you didn’t see it?”

  “No. I was unbelievably naive. I was dynamic in a way, I suppose—full of enthusiasm and ideas and, as I said, such an openhearted desire to do good for people—spiritual good, to preach the truth and to talk about the Lord Jesus and to encourage my congregation to know him better and do more of what he said and to live as he told us to live.”

  “Why do you call that naive?”

  “Because I assumed all Christians felt the same. I assumed that since they had heard me and investigated me, and had then called me, they wanted everything I had to offer. I assumed they were as hungry to grow and find the truth and live by it as I was.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I jumped in with both feet!”

  I couldn’t help laughing. It all seemed so long ago now. “Oh, I was naive! I preached and visited with enthusiasm, and taught them what so burned in my heart about God’s Fatherhood. And for a while I even flattered myself that my teaching and preaching was, what is called in religious circles, well-received. All the people were full of smiles and well-meaning comments and handshakes from Sunday to Sunday, and the church even began to grow somewhat. To say I wasn’t aware would not be truthful. But I innocently concluded that it was the warm and inviting message of God’s love that people were responding to, and that it was this message that was swelling the congregation from Sunday to Sunday.”

  “You don’t think it was?”

  “Among some few faithful and hungry souls, to be sure. But in general, no, it wasn’t the message at all.”

  “What was it, then?”

  “I am ashamed to have to say it, but your questions keep probing right to the center of the whole episode in my life.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry.”

  “Please, don’t apologize. It actually feels good to tell somebody. I never have told anyone the whole thing.”

  “I hope you will be able to tell me it all.”

  I looked away. Neither of us had eaten another bite since beginning to talk. A cold breeze hit me in the face, and I was reminded of my patient’s condition.

  “Are you not too cold?” I asked, looking back upon her with concern. “Perhaps we should—”

  “I am as cozy as a body could likely be under these blankets,” Corrie answered without even giving me a chance to finish. “And I want to hear why your church was growing.”

  “Because of me,” I said, almost blurting the words out. It already felt good to tell somebody. “I came to see that I was the attraction, not the gospel message I was trying to proclaim. I even learned later that—God help me, this is so mortifying to have to admit!—I learned that there were certain prominent men in the community who were bringing their daughters to my services because word had spread that the minister cut a dashing figure and there was scarce a better match to be found in the city. All the time I was in the pulpit preaching from my heart, there they were in the congregation trying to scheme their way into making a husband of me, while the rest were relishing in the church’s growing ‘reputation’!”

  I sighed deeply at the painful memory and looked away again. I could not keep a tear or two from rising in my eye. A moment later I felt a gentle hand on my arm. I turned, and Corrie slowly pulled her hand away.

  “Do you have any idea what a bitter blow it was to my spirit to realize all that?” I said quietly. “To feel that I was standing in the way, between my people and the message of God?”

  She said nothing, just continued to look at me with eyes of compassion and, yes, understanding. I knew she did understand!

  “It wasn’t until later that everything began to dawn upon me. Things went so well at first that I was blinded to the truth. The church grew and the people were enthusiastic and I received invitations into many homes, hardly noticing that most were from the top rungs of society and most had eligible daughters in their early twenties. Where the poor and the downcast were—the kind of men and women Jesus had to do with—I did not stop at the beginning to inquire about. And thus it continued for two years.”

  “What happened then?”

  “What else . . . the war came. For the country and for me.”

  “The war . . .” Corrie repeated softly, and immediately I could see a faraway gaze come into her eyes. Somehow we had not really spoken together of the war before that moment, and the mere mention of the word seemed to jar her brain into some new region of bewildered struggle to remember. I let her go, and said nothing, giving her time to reflect. Then slowly she seemed to come awake again to my presence.

  “You were going to tell me what happened in your church when . . . when the war came,” she said at length, though from the way she spoke I could tell there was still a haze floating about her consciousness.

  “Yes,” I said, “the war. Suddenly everything was about the war. No longer did people care about things of the spirit. Even the interest in finding a wife for me seemed to wane. Everything in the country was turned upside down. Yet I felt an obligation to continue to speak and preach and teach what I considered the truth without regard to political and national affiliation. Again, my naivete was profound! I was still, even after two years, undergirded by the assumption that the men and women of my congregation shared my vision and my hunger for truth and saw things as I saw them. I assumed we all had a similar desire to grow in all ways connected with the spiritual life. But I could not have been more wrong.”

  “What happened?”

  “I discovered the bitter truth that most of the people I had thought were so with me were Southerners first, Republicans or Democrats second, and Christians last. I had somehow assumed their Christianity would take top position in their attitudes, not last.”

  “How did you discover that?”

  “I made the mistake of beginning to preach openly from the pulpit against attitudes of judgment and rancor and criticism. A few cast skeptical eyes on me, but they kept mostly quiet at first. But then when my words about loyalty and submission hinted at opposition toward those over us, the criticism against me began to grow vocal and began to mount. Yet still the scales were not fully removed from my eyes. Still the naive assumption that most of the congregation wanted to hear such truth persisted. I deluded myself that it was only a small, discontented minority that was speaking out. And therefore I continued to take stronger and stronger stands concerning our sacred duty as God’s people to raise forth a banner of truth and righteousness against the terrible divisiveness that was tearing the nation apart. I even was so bold as to declare that there could be only one nation, and that it was our scriptural duty as Christians to stand up and be heard.

  “The final moment came late in 1861 when I preached a sermon denouncing slavery itself, speaking boldly about the equality of races according to the Bible, and declaring it our urgent calling to not let ourselves be swept into the political fray, that we had to remain firmly committed to the truths of Scripture. I called for
us to stand up in unity with our brothers and sisters and fellow children of God in the North—to stand firmly without allying ourselves with the churches and church leaders who were finding spiritual justification for supporting the Confederacy.”

  “Did you say that your church ought to support the North?”

  “No. I thought I was saying that we had to be God’s people, above being Northerners or Southerners—that we could not try to justify a political position as Christians. But what they heard me say, and what was reported the next day in the newspapers throughout the city, was quite another matter. It was with swift and sickening realization that it finally dawned on me that my presence in the pulpit had had nothing to do with truth or the spiritual content of my words at all. I had been there merely to occupy a role which the church leaders perceived was fitting with the image they wanted for their church in the community. When my presence began to tarnish that image, everything changed with such suddenness that I still have not altogether recovered from it.”

  “What happened?”

  “I never preached from that pulpit again. On the Tuesday following the sermon I spoke of, I was presented with a letter calling for my resignation. I would comply, I was told in no uncertain terms, before the following Sunday, or criminal charges of treason against the Confederacy would be filed against me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “What choice did I have? What is a pulpit if no one is listening? That was not the ministry I had prepared and prayed for.”

  “So you did resign?”

  “In absolute shock, I signed the paper they thrust before me. Overnight I was without a church. The men left in silence, and I laid my head down on my desk and wept bitterly for half an hour.”

  Again I turned away and fought back the tears that tried to recur every time I thought of the painful day.

  “I know many men suffer the loss of something they have held dear. But the calling I felt was such a lofty one, and the descent so sudden and unexpected, I was absolutely devastated. The following days and weeks were of such anguish and a sense of loss, I can scarcely remember anything of them. Perhaps it makes me sensitive to your present plight. My brain and heart were singed as with a scorching fire, and there suddenly seemed nothing left to live for. Everything I had cared about had been swept away as by a hot desert wind—leaving nothing but the dry sands of the Sahara in its place. I felt worse than empty—emptier than empty. I felt a void . . . a nothingness . . . a hot parching thirst but with no water to drink, no water anywhere.”

  “Did you lose your faith?”

  “No, the void and emptiness weren’t from that. It was that suddenly my faith had nowhere to lay its head, no place to rest, no place to exist within my being. The faith was still there, but I had nowhere to put it—if that makes the least bit of sense.”

  “Of course it makes sense,” she replied earnestly. “What did you do? Did you look for another church?”

  “Oh no, I was far too shipwrecked and desolate of soul for that. Nor do I think I would have been able to find one. The episode made most of the large southern papers. I was a traitor. Probably I might have sought my fortunes in the North, but my experience seriously wounded my desire to serve in the ministry. I still do not know whether such is a direction I will pursue ever again in the future. I have been wrestling it through ever since.”

  “But without an answer?”

  “With many answers, but without an answer. There is no single direction I have for my future, if that is what you mean. And for every bit of light I think I receive about it, another dozen questions crop up to plague my spirit.”

  “So what have you done since?”

  “Well, that was three years ago—a little more, actually. Once I left the pulpit, I thought I would be drafted into the army. I could never have fought, of course. I would not have carried a gun had they thrust it into my hands. They could have put me in prison or hanged or shot me for treason, but I would never pick up a gun. It is a vow I made when I was sixteen, and it has served me faithfully ever since, and I will never go back on it.”

  “But you weren’t drafted?”

  “In a way, I suppose, my ouster from the church kept me out of the army. When conscription was passed in April of 1862, had I still occupied such a visible position right there in Richmond, I have no doubt I’d have been wearing the Confederate gray within two months, perhaps as a medic or a chaplain. As it was, I had faded out of public view, and somehow I became one of those few able-bodied young white men who slipped through the planks. I was never summoned, and I never volunteered. I kept to myself, and not long afterward found this place here with Mrs. Timms. Her husband died just before the war began, so I have seen to the farm for her in exchange for my room and board. The war has been close many times—very close these last six months. When soldiers are in need, I do what I can. I have fed and patched together men with far worse wounds than yours, I can tell you that! But never have I felt a compulsion to join them. I do not believe in war and fighting under any circumstances, and to belong to the army, even as a chaplain, would be to go against everything I am as a man. I have been called a coward and a traitor. I have been spat upon by the very men whose lives I have saved when they discover I have remained a neutral civilian. But I have no choice but to put up with their insults. It is a matter of principle to me. I would be no true man were I not courageous enough to take such a stand. I do not feel altogether courageous. And many times I do not feel that I am much of a man. But I have done what I have done, and here I yet remain with the war—hopefully at last!—drawing to a close.”

  A long silence followed. As I told Corrie, I had never confided such things to anyone before. Mrs. Timms, although grateful for my presence, was, I think, always a bit uncertain about me and never asked. Now I had opened a door into myself that had been shut rather tightly for years. Corrie, too, seemed aware of the significance of all I had said, and reflected on it for several minutes. Neither of us spoke again for some time.

  “I’m more curious about the inside part of you,” Corrie said at length. “If you’d wanted to be a minister all those years, and worked so hard, it seems like it’d be a mite hard to just give up on it without maybe . . . I don’t know exactly what I’m trying to say, but it seems like if you believed in it, that maybe you ought to fight for it more—whatever those people in that church thought of you. They might all have been wrong. You shouldn’t quit just because they didn’t like a sermon or two.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you spoke from personal experience,” I said with a smile.

  “I don’t know if I get your meaning,” Corrie replied with a puzzled look.

  “Oh, nothing really,” I said. “It’s just that you sound very convincing, as if you’ve had to go through something like that too—fighting to hang on to a dream you believe in even when it’s not easy to do.”

  “Hmm . . . I don’t know. What I said just kind of popped out.”

  “Well, there is a great deal of wisdom in what you say, Corrie. And perhaps the time will come when I will enter that so-called ‘fight’ and go back and pursue the ministry again. But now is not the time. I have to find out what I really believe and what God really wants of me first.”

  “I thought you said it didn’t make you doubt.”

  “Doubt? That is a very complex word. Did I say I hadn’t doubted? If so, I didn’t speak truthfully. I haven’t lost faith in God, if that’s what you mean. But doubt—my life has been one of constant doubt ever since that fateful day when I was presented with my resignation paper to sign!”

  “I always thought of doubt as the same thing as not believing.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever believed so strongly as during this three-year period of doubt. I suppose for many the word doubt implies doubt about God himself and his existence and his goodness. But I never doubt him. When I speak of doubt, I speak of struggling to understand him more deeply, understand his ways, understand myself in relati
on to him, understand his truths. You see, for so long I now realize I took a great deal for granted about God and faith. With everything swept out from under me, I found I had to go back to the bedrock of God himself, not what I had been taught or had previously thought about him, and discover anew what I really believed. The doubt, so to speak, was not a doubt that took me away from God but which drove me all the deeper and more intimately into his presence. Where else could I go with my doubts and my questions and my hurts and my tears but to him? I had no one else. I could no longer even trust myself! My Father was the only possible solid rock in the midst of all my mental and emotional floundering. He was the one Presence I did not doubt, could never doubt.”

  “So explain to me what you mean by doubt. I still don’t think I quite get what you’re saying.”

  “That’s as big a question as the one you asked before.”

  “Which one?”

  “About what put in me the desire to help people.”

  “But you won’t make me wait for this one . . . will you?”

  “No,” I laughed. “I’ve already told you more about myself than probably any other human being knows. I don’t suppose there’s any reason to stop now.”

  “Good,” said Corrie. “I’m enjoying this fresh air more than I can tell you. I feel stronger than any day since . . . since I woke up with you sitting there on the side of the bed. So I want you to tell me, no matter how long it takes.”

  I let out a long breath. It felt so good to have such an honest interchange with one whose hungers seemed to point in the same direction as my own. Yet such things were not easy to relive!

  “You’re asking a difficult thing from me.”

  “I’m sorry, Christopher. If you don’t want—”

  “No, it’s all right. I want to tell you about it. I’m only confessing that scratching a rake across the innermost ground of my soul, where there are still raw places exposed, is not an easy, or even a pleasant, thing. But I think it is a good thing. Good does not always mean pleasant or enjoyable.”