The List

by Robert Whitlow

  “This is nice,” Jo said.

  “There’s the lodge.” Renny pointed across the side of a steep slope to the left of the driveway.

  Three stories tall with cedar siding and a broad deck overlooking the orchard, the red tin-roofed Zion Hill Lodge commanded the surrounding area. They parked in a gravel lot to the side of the building. Jo took off her cap and brushed her hair.

  Renny knocked on the solid wooden front door, and a petite, gray-haired woman with large, observant eyes opened it.

  “Hello, I’m Renny Jacobson, and this is Jo Johnston.”

  “I’m Helen. Come inside and sit down. George is downstairs getting a jar of apple butter for Daisy. We didn’t want to forget it, so we’ll give it to you first thing.”

  South of Georgetown, two men walked slowly to the end of the weathered pier that stretched like a long finger through the surf into the deeper waters beyond the breaking waves. They passed a few fishermen, shirtless men baked such a deep bronze by the long South Carolina summer that the tattoos of mermaids and sea creatures on their forearms had almost disappeared.

  “What do you think of Jacobson?” the younger asked when they reached the end of the gray planked walkway.

  The older man leaned against the wooden rail, took a cigar from a pocket humidor, and stared out to sea. “Unrealized potential.”

  “Potential for what?”

  The first puff of cigar smoke disappeared as the afternoon breeze began to blow gently off the land. “You’ll see.”

  “Come on. Tell me.”

  “He’s a closed house waiting for a skillful hand to unlock the door.” “Closed house? Does he have more potential than me?” the younger asked.

  “Don’t be jealous. Each one to his assigned place. Trust me. I’ve not selected a successor—not yet.”

  16

  So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

  JOHN 3:8, NIV

  Renny and Jo entered a large great room with a cathedral ceiling and dominated by a massive stone fireplace and a magnificent view of the mountains. Two dark green leather couches and a pair of side chairs provided seating. Renny and Jo sat next to each other on one of the sofas.

  They could hear heavy footsteps coming up the wooden stairs from the basement, and in a moment George Manor came into the room and introduced himself. “Let me put these jars in the kitchen. One of them is for Daisy,” he said and disappeared through a door on the opposite side of the great room. When he reappeared, he took a seat in one of the chairs by the fireplace.

  A noble-looking man who could pass for a medieval baron, George Manor had a large head topped with a mane of brown hair mixed with gray, an oversized nose, full lips, bushy eyebrows, and a room-filling voice.

  “You have a beautiful place,” Jo said when everyone was seated. “I liked it as soon as we turned onto the property.”

  “Thanks,” George replied.

  “Mrs. Stokes said you moved here from Charlotte?” Jo asked.

  “Yes, I was a happy dentist. You know, pulling teeth and filling cavities. Then, in the 1960s, the Jesus Movement swept out of California and hit our home in Charlotte.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It all started as a small Bible study for teenagers in our living room, but quickly grew until all kinds of people—from drugged-out hippies to children of conservative Christian pastors—came to seek Jesus. Many were converted and went on to become leaders in Christian circles in Charlotte and beyond.”

  Helen picked up the story. “After that, we decided to move to the mountains and provide a place of healing for burned-out Christians and refreshing for anyone else. Right now we have a recently divorced minister staying in a cabin on the other ridge,” Helen said. “He’ll be here for a while and then will move on, opening up an opportunity for someone else to come.”

  “Mrs. Stokes told me the area around the lodge was a prayer mountain,” Jo said.

  “We try not to publicize that too much,” George said. “We only want the serious, not the curious. A woman traveling around the world and visiting places where people have experienced supernatural things in prayer came by a few weeks ago. She intends to write a book about her findings, but I asked her not to mention Zion Hill. As you can see, we don’t have facilities to handle a big crowd wanting to see a shrine or something.”

  “What is here that would cause that kind of reaction in people?” Renny asked. “You don’t have a piece of the true cross in a glass case or weeping statue of a saint in the foyer, do you?”

  George smiled and shook his head. “No, the basis for what happens began with the prayers of Moravian settlers who came to this area over two hundred years ago. They dedicated this land to God, and from what I’ve seen, he is still answering their prayers. Many people who visit find it easy to meet with God here. That’s the attraction.”

  Although sitting on a soft leather sofa, Renny felt uncomfortable and shifted uneasily in his place. Prayers uttered two hundred years ago by people long since dead still being answered today? Impossible to prove and unlikely to happen. He was irritated and sorry he’d wasted valuable time with Jo coming to this strange place. A suburban dentist turned Christian guru? An improbable vocational change. One geographic location better suited for prayer than another? The product of an overactive imagination.

  Most of the supernatural stuff Christians talked about was simply too hard for him to swallow, and he was more acutely aware than ever that he didn’t understand God, not the way these people did. But on the other hand, he didn’t know if he wanted to. What if he ended up as a religious fanatic out of touch with reality? In his inner confusion and frustration, he blurted out his next thought before he could trap it in his mind. “What is God really like?”

  George turned his big head like the turret on a tank, and in his deep voice fired an answer that exploded in Renny’s consciousness, “Renny, he is not like your father.”

  George Manor didn’t know whether Renny’s father was alive or dead. He didn’t know Renny’s background and the negativity and harshness that characterized his relationship with H. L. He didn’t know a single word that ever passed between them. He didn’t know if they went camping together or shared a bag of peanuts at a baseball game. He didn’t know the provisions of H. L.’s will. He didn’t know the sermon Renny had heard the previous week about the love of the father for the Prodigal Son. And he didn’t know Renny’s questions and doubts about the supernatural realm. But George’s brief statement needed no supporting validation or explanation; he spoke a truth that Renny needed to hear at that precise moment of his journey through life. Renny’s focus shifted from criticism of others to frank honesty about himself.

  Renny started to say, “You’re right,” or “Could you explain what you mean?” but the tongue that had betrayed his innermost thoughts seconds before now refused to utter a syllable. Unable to stay seated, he got up, opened a glass door, and went onto the deck that extended across the back of the house.

  Resting his hands on the railing, he stared sightlessly across the open expanse to the next ridge. A mountain breeze brushed past his face. He wasn’t emotional and didn’t feel like crying; he simply needed to let the significance of the few words he’d just heard find their proper place in his soul.

  Renny had never thought about the influence of his natural father on his understanding of God. Children with harsh fathers accept much of what is thrown their way as normal because they don’t have a frame of reference for anything else, and this twisted template unfortunately becomes the basis for their picture of the heavenly Father. Renny didn’t need an expert to tell him his relationship with his father had not been good, but he knew George Manor’s words revealed the main obstacle in Renny’s journey toward faith. Doubts about miracles and questions about the supernatural were pebbles, not stumbling blocks. Renny didn’t believe because he couldn’t trust. How could he trust a heavenly Father when the only example of a father he’d ever known had proven so untrustwort
hy?

  George Manor’s statement broke the back of Renny’s deep-rooted, unconscious misconceptions about God. “Renny, he is not like your father.” Though a negative statement, it was actually the first positive brushstroke on a blank canvas entitled “The True Nature and Character of God.” The old picture of fatherhood dominated by H. L.’s penetrating dark eyes and critical countenance began to fade. God was not like his father, and in the light of this truth, old perceptions no longer held absolute power over him. No lie can survive when exposed to the light of truth. The light had shone on Renny, and God could begin to paint his own portrait, a portrait only a divine artist could produce.

  A hungering curiosity welled up inside Renny. How can I really know what you are like?

  Before the thought had time to leave his mind, he heard the still, small Voice resound for the first time in his inner man, “Read my Word.”

  While Renny was having his epiphany on the deck, Jo and the Manors sat for a few moments in a circle of silence. Six eyes watched Renny walk to the railing of the deck and rest his hands against it.

  George spoke first, “That was quick, wasn’t it?”

  “Very quick,” Helen agreed.

  Jo looked at George and raised her eyebrows in an unspoken question.

  George responded, “Helen and I prayed after Daisy Stokes called this morning. We had the sense God was going to touch one or both of you in a powerful way today.”

  “Why did you say that about his father?” Jo asked. “Did Mrs. Stokes tell you anything about his background?”

  “No. Of course, what I said is true for all of us to some degree.”

  “But the effect on Renny…”

  George shrugged. “It was God’s key to unlock Renny’s heart to the possibility of a heavenly Father who loves him more than he can imagine.”

  Wondering about the next step in Renny’s pilgrimage, Jo asked, “What’s going to happen next?”

  The gun turret turned toward Jo. “He’s going to ask you to marry him.”

  Jo flushed. “We haven’t even known each other for a month.”

  “I’m not telling you to say yes,” George said, smiling. “That’s not my place. Just don’t be surprised if he asks you sometime soon. That way you can be ready and won’t be caught completely off guard.”

  “It would have done that.”

  “And it doesn’t mean he’s going to come in from the deck and pop the question, but it’s coming down the road and around the bend.”

  “What else should I ask you?” Jo asked somewhat apprehensively.

  “How about, ‘Can we stay for supper?’” George responded with a wave toward the kitchen.

  “And the answer to that question is yes,” Helen said. “You two might want to drive or walk over to the ridge behind the house. It’s only a couple of hundred yards to the top. There’s a gazebo where you can sit and talk and a short footpath along the crest.”

  “The view of the Blue Ridge Mountains is wonderful,” George said.

  “OK. But I’ll be a lot more nervous about sitting and talking with him than I would have been a few minutes ago.”

  “You’ll be fine.” Helen gave her a reassuring smile. “You have a listening heart and a gracious spirit. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have a few errands to run in town before starting supper. Make yourself at home.”

  Jo pretended to relax on the sofa—too much was happening too fast to truly relax, and she didn’t have time to assimilate it. Taking a deep breath, she asked for peace and received an immediate return of the shalom she’d felt that morning. Her heart slowed, her mind cleared, and her anxiety lifted. She closed her eyes until she heard the door open and Renny come in.

  “The Manors left to run some errands,” she said.

  Renny sat down beside her. “Whew, that statement George made about God not being like my father blew me away.”

  “What happened while you were out on the deck?”

  “I’m not sure about everything, but I realized that I shouldn’t superimpose my father and his ways on top of God.”

  “Good insight. Anything else?”

  Renny leaned forward. “There are people who would think I’m nuts to say this, but fortunately none of them are in this room, so I’ll go ahead. I was wondering how I could find out what God is like—it was more of a thought than a prayer. No sooner had I framed the idea than God spoke to me, not out loud, but as clear as I’m talking to you, and he said, ‘Read my Word.’”

  Jo’s eyes widened. “That sounds like God to me. Short and to the point.”

  “Like what happened to you in Mrs. Stokes’s prayer room?”

  “Exactly.”

  “The Word is the Bible, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want to read it. It sounds nuts, but I’m excited about reading the Bible.”

  Jo laughed. “Then as the commercial says, ‘Just do it.’”

  “In fact, I’d like to spend a little more time alone, if it’s OK with you,” Renny said.

  “Uh, sure. I’m going to walk over to the ridge behind the house. Helen said there is a gazebo and a path along the crest.”

  “I’ll come in a while.” Renny picked up a well-worn Bible from the coffee table. “Any advice on where to start?”

  Jo didn’t hesitate. “John. The Gospel of John.”

  Renny already had the Bible open by the time Jo reached the door and looked back. What a sight! She imprinted the scene in her mind as a picture never to be forgotten.

  Accompanied by Whitney, the Manors’ collie, Jo set an easy pace down a short, steep slope and up a steeper path to the gazebo. Pausing a moment to catch her breath, she continued to the top of the ridge along a well-worn trail. It was higher than the lodge and on one side she could see the lodge’s red roof. On the other side the rounded tops of the Blue Ridge Mountains formed a semicircle of bluish green. These were old mountains. Worn smooth by weather and time.

  The path led to a fire ring surrounded by several short logs, cut and placed upright for crude seating. Jo sat facing the mountains, stretched out her legs, and enjoyed the breeze that strengthened its force as it swept across the elevated spot. The dog sat beside her quietly, head resting on Jo’s knee.

  “This place is glorious,” she spoke to the wind. “Let your wind blow over Renny.” A shadow flashed across her, and she looked up to see an eagle gliding overhead on the currents rising from the valley below. As if delivering her prayer, the bird swooped low over the roof of the lodge and sailed back up on an updraft. “Thank you, Father,” she prayed.

  Following Jo’s suggestion, Renny opened the Bible and found the book of John. It was a red-letter edition, and he noticed that Chapter 17 was almost entirely in red. Starting at verse 1, he read through verse 3, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” He stopped. Eternal life is knowing God, not just believing some true things about him.

  He continued to the end of the chapter. Jesus concluded by praying, “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me… . I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

  George Manor believed Moravian prayers were still being answered. How much more the prayers of Jesus—even if it had been two thousand years ago? What did Jesus pray? The love of the Father for the Son—in him, and Jesus—in him. But how?

  Guided by a skillful Hand that had pointed the way for countless pilgrims down through the ages, Renny turned to John 3. “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

  Renny looked up from the page. Jo was right. The born-again idea did
not originate with Billy Graham or Jimmy Carter. It’s in the Bible. It’s Jesus’ explanation of a new birth by the Spirit. It’s something God does inside you. Renny’s thoughts, with precision and order, turned one way then another, like the dial of a massive safe. He remembered Jo’s question when they walked on the Pawley’s Island beach, “Has he ever called you?” That’s the wind blowing where it wills. Click. He remembered his mother’s letter and Grandfather Candler’s prayer. That’s the prayers of my family. Click. He remembered the sermon at St. Catherine’s on the love of the father for the Prodigal Son. That’s the heavenly Father waiting for me to come home. Click.

  Turning to John 1, he read down to verses 12 and 13: “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” The dial turned the last round, the tumblers fell in place, and Renny opened his heart to the Son of God. “I believe. I receive,” he spoke the words out loud, and heaven rejoiced.

  Sitting in the chair next to the fireplace, he leaned his head back and allowed himself to know, really know for the first time in his life, what it meant to have a personal relationship with God. Now he could understand why Jo’s eyes were so swollen when she had come from Mrs. Stokes’s prayer closet. Renny didn’t cry, but he understood. God loved him.

  Mama A stood next to her bed folding a load of clothes. Every few seconds she shouted, “Praise the Lord,” “Hallelujah,” or “Thank you, Jesus.” The day hadn’t started out on such a positive note. She hadn’t been feeling well that morning, canceled a trip to go out with a friend, and decided to stay around the house.

  At noon she felt a little better and, after eating a sandwich, lay down for a nap on the sofa in her living room. She dreamed. She saw Clarence, a sheet of paper in his hand, standing in a brightly lit room next to a simple wooden table. Tall windows, stretching from floor to ceiling, let in light from every direction. The room was bare except for the table and a ladder-back chair with a new cane seat. The door opened and Renny, dressed in a suit, came in. Mama A thought Renny looked like a preacher! He walked up to Clarence with a big smile and shook his hand. Clarence returned the smile, pulled back the chair, and motioned for Renny to sit down. Then, Clarence laid the sheet of paper on the table. Renny leaned over and spent several moments reading it carefully. When he finished, he looked up at Clarence and nodded his head. Clarence handed him a pen, and Renny signed the sheet. The two men disappeared as the room dissolved in light.