Home to Harmony

by Philip Gulley

  Paint they can talk about. It’s personal confession that throws them for a loop.

  That was when Dale Hinshaw, in a valiant effort to keep the focus off his own spirituality, began talking about his nephew’s vasectomy and thin eyelids.

  But Miriam held to the agenda and moved to the next item, my vacation. Dale Hinshaw began recalling vacations he’d taken. He told about when he was little and his father would drive them to the lake. He recalled reading the old Burma-Shave shaving cream signs posted along the road. There, that was something they could talk about—Burma-Shave signs. That was safe ground. Asa Peacock and Dale began recalling their favorites:

  The whale put Jonah down the hatch

  but coughed him up because he scratched.

  Burma-Shave

  The monkey took one look at Jim

  and threw the peanuts back at him.

  Burma-Shave

  It would be more fun to go by air

  but we can’t put these signs up there.

  Burma-Shave

  Dale Hinshaw especially liked this one:

  In this world of toil and sin

  your head goes bald but not your chin.

  Burma-Shave

  It took thirty minutes for Miriam to get them back to the next agenda item, church growth. Our numbers were down, and had been for thirty years. Miriam had drawn up a graph tracing our attendance. If it had been snow, we could have sledded down it.

  Dale Hinshaw thought maybe it was time to hold another revival. Maybe have two revivals a year. He talked about a church in Florida that had a revival every week. Maybe we could do that. Harvey Muldock suggested putting a lottery ticket in each bulletin. Miriam suggested we become sensitive to the Spirit’s leading and begin inviting people to worship with us. They decided to go with the lottery idea.

  Next Monday, the phone rang. It was Miriam.

  “We’ve got problems,” she said. “I’ll be by to pick you up.” I sat on the porch, waiting and worried. Five minutes later, Miriam pulled her truck to the curb in front of my house. We drove west of town, then turned around and headed back toward Harmony.

  There they were. Signs. Just like Burma-Shave used to use. The first one was on the edge of town, just before the Welcome to Harmony sign:

  If you cheat and drink and lie

  turn to God before you die.

  Harmony Friends Meeting

  Miriam asked if I knew who put the signs up. I had my suspicions.

  We drove east of town. Turned back. More signs.

  The gate is narrow, the path is straight.

  Follow Jesus. Don’t be late.

  Harmony Friends Meeting

  “Dale Hinshaw,” I told Miriam. “This has Dale Hinshaw written all over it.”

  We drove toward the meetinghouse. More signs. This time in front of Harvey Muldock’s car dealership.

  Go to church and learn to pray

  or when you die there’s Hell to pay.

  Harmony Friends Meeting

  Dale Hinshaw was pounding in the last sign as we pulled up to the meetinghouse curb. It read, Tired of sin? Come on in! Dale smiled and said, “Catchy, isn’t it? I think it’ll take care of our church growth problem.”

  He told how the Lord had spoken to him in a dream. He dreamt he was a boy again, riding in the backseat toward the lake and reading the Burma-Shave signs. Then he woke up and went to his kitchen table and the Lord gave him those gospel messages. Just like that.

  He turned to Miriam. “I have you to thank. If you hadn’t encouraged us to follow the Spirit’s leading, this never would have happened.”

  Miriam paled. This wasn’t what she’d had in mind.

  All week long, people called, wanting me to take down the signs. I told them to talk with Dale.

  On Thursday morning I walked to the meetinghouse, past the Tired of sin? Come on in! sign. Someone had written underneath it, If not, call 555-9658. That was my phone number. All week long my phone rang. Apparently, people in this town weren’t tired of sin.

  Then Sunday came, and the meetinghouse was packed. People who hadn’t come for years were washed and starched and sitting with their hands folded in prayer.

  They were there for the lottery tickets, but Dale didn’t know that. He thought it was the signs. He was deeply pleased. He talked about making more signs, of putting them up all over town. Maybe even go statewide. “We could do our own TV show,” he went on, “just like that Robert Schula fella with that church you can see through.”

  There would be no stopping him now.

  It’s a dangerous thing to ask the Spirit to lead you. You never know what might happen. But it doesn’t mean we should stop asking. Even though we get our wires crossed, we need to keep at it. Because someday someone might grow tired of sin and walk right in. And when they do, we need to be here for them.

  Turn toward home. We’ll be here.

  God is gracious. Don’t you fear.

  Nine

  The Birds and the Bees

  The day before Billy Bundle, the World’s Shortest Evangelist, came to preach our revival, it occurred to me I needed a secretary. Back in April, the elders had put me in charge of calling Bob Miles Jr. at the Herald to arrange publicity, which I forgot to do even though I had written it on my to-do list: Call B.M. regarding B.B. I spent the next two months trying to decipher my own note, and by the time I figured it out, Billy Bundle was on his way.

  At first I thought I was supposed to call Bea Majors about the Bible Bonanza, when we donated Bibles to the Choctaw Indians, but when I called to remind her she said the Bible Bonanza wasn’t for another eight months. Then I thought it meant I was supposed to call Bill Muldock about buying new baseball bats for our men’s softball team, not that it would help. In fifteen years, our men’s softball team had won only one game. We beat the Friendly Women’s Circle, who rallied in the last inning when my grandmother hit a home run. We squeaked out a one-run victory, just barely.

  It wasn’t until Dale Hinshaw phoned to ask why our revival ad wasn’t in the Herald that I figured out that Call B.M. regarding B.B. meant “Call Bob Miles regarding Billy Bundle.” I explained to Dale what had happened, then suggested that if I had a secretary these mistakes could be avoided.

  The reason I didn’t have a secretary was because every time I mentioned needing one, Dale shot it down. He had read somewhere, though he couldn’t remember where, that 26 percent of church pastors ran off with their secretaries. Because it was in print, Dale believed it. Plus, his brother-in-law’s pastor had run off with his secretary, which meant, of course, that if I had a secretary I would do the same.

  “Lead us not into temptation,” Dale intoned whenever I raised the subject of hiring a secretary.

  For as long as I had known Dale, he had taken his vacation the first week of July. Every year Dale and his wife went to the same place, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, where they rented a cabin and fished. Dale had two bumper stickers on his car. One read, Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers…” and the other read, Work is for people who don’t know how to fish.

  With Dale in Fond du Lac, July was the one month we got things done in the church. We saved all our important business for the July elders’ meeting, which was when I brought up the subject of Harmony Friends Meeting hiring a secretary to help me write the newsletter, print the bulletins, and answer the phone.

  Even with Dale gone, it was a spirited discussion. Asa Peacock mentioned that we’d never had a secretary before. Why start now?

  Miriam Hodge asked if he’d had indoor plumbing growing up. Asa shook his head no.

  She said, “Well, Asa, since you’d never had it, why did you bother getting it?” In one fell swoop, Miriam Hodge killed the venerable we’ve-never-done-it-this-way-before argument. It was a thing of beauty to behold.

  Then Harvey Muldock waded in with the time-honored we-can’t-afford-it argument, to which Miriam replied, “It seems a waste of money to pay Sam to do secretarial work when we c
ould hire it done cheaper.”

  With all the arguments exhausted, they formed a hiring committee, and since Dale Hinshaw was gone, they appointed him to chair it.

  I was the one who had to tell him. I scribbled on my to-do list, Talk with Dale Hinshaw about sec. I’d learned my lesson and used his full name.

  Dale took it better than I thought.

  He said, “I can see how having a secretary could be a help. I guess we can trust you to behave yourself.”

  The next week he hired a seventy-year-old secretary. His name was Frank. Frank was a widower. His wife had just died, and Dale thought making Frank our secretary would boost his spirits.

  I was leery at first, but in fairness to Frank, it’s worked out better than I anticipated. Frank was a bookkeeper during the Korean War, where he developed a knack for organization. Each morning he tells me my schedule. He keeps my pencils sharpened and arranges my books alphabetically. If I have a church meeting, Frank attends and takes notes. His only drawback is that he is farsighted, so he can’t see well. He blames it on the war.

  “It was all that squinting. But what with people getting shot at, I didn’t think I should complain about not being able to see.”

  Some men gave their lives for freedom. Frank gave his 20/20 eyesight. He wears thick glasses that slip down his nose. He spends a lot of time looking at people over his glasses.

  It has been said that patience comes with age. Whoever said that never met Frank. He does not entertain fools gladly. When Fern Hampton called to complain about our worship service, Frank listened for one minute, then hung up the phone.

  Complaining about the service was a weekly ritual for Fern, a deep joy, almost a sacrament. During worship she would sit in the sixth row and scribble furiously. At first I thought she was taking notes, but what she was doing was gathering evidence. She’d phone the office every Monday morning and complain for ten minutes. She’d start with the prelude and work her way through to the benediction. I used to listen to her entire harangue. After a while I learned to set the phone down, do my paperwork, then pick up the phone ten minutes later just as she was winding down.

  She complains about the hymns and the sermon and about people sneaking in church announcements during prayer time. Bill Muldock is notorious for that. He stands during prayer time, bows his head, and intones, “Lord, we just ask Your blessings on our men’s softball practice this Tuesday night at seven o’clock at the park.” Fern glares at him from across the meeting room.

  Then one Monday I wasn’t at the church office, and Frank answered the phone. He listened to Fern for one minute, then hung up the phone, and she hasn’t called back since.

  It’s like Frank told me, “Once you’ve been to war, you learn what’s important. A good war would do wonders for Fern.”

  Frank has a sign over his desk that reads:

  I can only make one person happy each day.

  Today is not your day.

  Tomorrow doesn’t look good, either.

  I suspect Dale hired Frank to spite me. He thought Frank would be a burden, but that hasn’t happened. People are so afraid to call the office on the off chance Frank will answer—my workload has dropped considerably.

  People call and ask me to visit someone in the hospital. Frank asks them, “Why can’t you go? Are your legs broken? Why do you want Pastor Sam to do your Christian work for you?”

  Dale Hinshaw was the worst offender. Fearing I might have a spare moment, he would phone me daily with suggestions of things I could do. Frank put up with this for one week, then said, “Dale, if you spent as much time doing the work of the Lord as you do fishing, we’d all be better off.”

  Frank’s greatest contribution to date came during the August meeting of elders. Miriam Hodge opened with prayer, read through the old business, then asked if I had anything to say.

  I turned to Frank and asked him to read my to-do list. Frank squinted at the list through his thick glasses.

  “It says here you need to talk with Dale Hinshaw about sex,” he said.

  The room grew quiet. The elders raised their eyes and looked down the table at Dale, wondering why Dale needed to be talked to about sex. What had he done? Was there something they needed to know?

  I asked Frank to hand me the to-do list.

  “No, Frank, it says for me to talk with Dale about a secretary. I abbreviated the word secretary. That’s s-e-c, not s-e-x. I needed to talk with Dale about a secretary.”

  Dale looked vastly relieved.

  Frank said, “Maybe you ought to talk with Dale about sex just the same. Everyone’s talking about sex these days, except for the church. Maybe that’s why we’re so messed up about sex. The people who should be teaching about it, aren’t. Maybe we ought to teach about sex.”

  Then he paused and said, “Golly, I sure miss sex. I miss the holding part.”

  Dale reddened and Miriam blushed. I was relatively certain that in our hundred and seventy years of existence, sex had never been the focus of an elders’ meeting at Harmony Friends Meeting.

  Dale sat bolt upright and said, “I think Frank is right. Someone needs to talk about sex to our teenagers. Just the other day I saw two of our kids kissing in the church parking lot. Pastor, why don’t you talk with those kids?”

  Frank said, “Dale, how come you want Pastor Sam to do everything? Why can’t you talk with the teenagers?”

  So that’s how Dale Hinshaw came to talk with the youth of Harmony Friends Meeting about the birds and the bees.

  The next Sunday, Dale and his wife came to church armed with pictures of flowers, of pistils and stamens. He spoke at length about pollination. Then he asked if there were any questions. There weren’t.

  Dale reported back to the September meeting of elders. He said, “Well, I got them squared around. We won’t be having any sex problems in this church. You can bet on that.”

  Frank asked him what he had talked about, specifically. He wanted details.

  Dale said, “Pistils and stamens. They got the message.”

  Frank asked, “Did you tell them about the holding part? How the holding part is the best. How it’s sweeter over the years. How they need to wait until they’re married. That when love and commitment aren’t in it, it’ll leave you feeling empty and cheap. Did you tell them that?”

  Dale said he implied it.

  Frank erupted, “Good golly, man, you got to put the hay down where the goats can get it.”

  That’s when Frank volunteered to talk with the youth of Harmony Friends Meeting about the birds and the bees.

  I went with him. He didn’t bring any pictures of flowers or pistils and stamens. Mostly, he just talked. He talked about his wife Martha, and how they met, and how tempted they had been, and how they waited. He spoke of how he missed her during the war, how he kept her picture in his shirt pocket, next to his heart. He hung his head and wiped his eyes and told how much he missed her now. Then he told them sex was a gift of love from God and that’s what made it sacred. And how it’s our job not to cheapen it.

  Then he asked if the kids had any questions.

  One boy raised his hand and asked if it was all right to pick flowers from a neighbor’s garden.

  Frank asked him what that had to do with sex. The boy wasn’t sure, but that’s what Dale had told him—not to pick flowers from your neighbor’s garden.

  Well, that’s how things get done in this place. We put things off and put things off until someone like Frank gets fed up and wades in and gets the job done. And if that doesn’t work, we wait until Dale Hinshaw goes fishing, and then we do it.

  But there are some things that shouldn’t wait, things we need to talk about right now. Making sure our children know right from wrong and good from bad is one of them. I wrote it on my to-do list: Talk with your sons about sex.

  Dale lent me his pistil and stamen pictures. Frank said if I had any questions, he’d be happy to help.

  By golly, Dale Hinshaw was right. If you hire a church secretar
y, sex is never far behind.

  Ten

  This Callous Pride

  Of all the things I like about summer, what I like most is that we don’t hold Sunday school. It wasn’t my idea—it’s been that way as long as I can remember.

  The Sunday before Memorial Day we hold a Sunday school picnic after meeting. Each class does a recitation. It’s the same every year. The children sing “Jesus Loves Me,” though in watching them you certainly couldn’t fault Jesus if He found some of them easier to love than others. The ladies of the Mary and Martha Sunday school class recite a poem, and Bob Miles Sr., who teaches the Live Free or Die class, leads everyone in the Pledge of Allegiance. He stands on a picnic table, leads the pledge, then advises the rest of us where the food line starts, even though we’ve been lining up the same way since 1964 and could do it in our sleep.

  The picnic tables are set up behind the meetinghouse, underneath the trees, alongside the parking lot. The line forms at the basketball goal, which Dale Hinshaw wants to take down so the teenagers will hang out somewhere else. The women of the Mary and Martha class are first in line, then the men of the Live Free or Die class, then the families with children, then the teenagers—who eat fast, then shoot Horse at the basketball goal.

  It requires no special skill to stand in line, so no one listens to Bob Sr., which infuriates him. He wants the church to buy a bullhorn so he can be heard. He brings it up every May when we’re planning the Sunday school picnic. Says the same thing every year.

  “It’s not just for the picnic. We could use it for other things. If there was civil disorder and we had to crack down, a bullhorn would come in handy.”

  Bob Sr. is intrigued with the idea of the town falling into chaos and the townspeople begging him to restore order.

  We tell him if he wants a bullhorn, he’ll have to buy it with his own money. He says, “You’ll be sorry. One day this town will erupt. It happened in Los Angeles. There’s no reason it couldn’t happen here. Trust me, this town is a powder keg. And when it blows, you’ll wish you had a bullhorn.”