But I dared not suggest to Joseph that he become my permanent assistant. For I didn’t know what burden he carried in his mind. And I didn’t know what plans either. I would not hurry him, and I would not make him feel an obligation. He must stay with me and assist me of his own free will.
Being with Joseph made me feel young again. As we walked in the woods and waded streams and raised a hymn in the glade, as we carried potatoes in our pockets to bake over an open fire for supper, and carried wood for our fire, his presence made the work more significant. His presence made the work seem like play. And the hours with Joseph went by so fast they seemed mere minutes. He was like a younger brother I must cheer up. When I knew him better I would ask what terrible secret he carried in his heart. But in the meantime I would befriend him and try not to pry.
I saw that he did not know the Scripture, and he knew only a few hymns. I would not pry, but I would teach him the Gospels and the Prophets. And I would teach him to sing harmonies with me. I would teach him to read Scripture, and to recite the Psalms and Proverbs aloud. His speech was surprisingly proper. I did not have many books, but I would teach him to read those I had. In the wilderness we would study together and memorize verses, and we would sing.
In those violent days I found no greater support and shield than music. Music soothed the hate and fear in the air. Sometimes every valley seemed heavy and torn with anger. Music seemed to calm and heal the air and the passing hours.
“Joseph, you will sing with me,” I said.
“I’ll be happy to sing,” he said, “though my voice is poor.”
“You have a fine soprano,” I said. “You might have sung in a boy’s choir.”
Watching Joseph study the Bible and the hymnbook, I saw that I could become a teacher also. I could someday build a larger house and take pupils. I could teach reading and writing and numbers, music and Latin. I could bring letters and history to that troubled wilderness.
Since a boy I had known my greatest weakness was an ugly temper. I had always been too quick to anger. When surprised by a cousin or school fellow I was one to lash out before thinking. I could be calm and attentive, considerate and helpful, until something surprised me, jolted me, and instantly I wanted to hit and hurt. In a second all my humility was gone.
In school a boy once seized my cap and threw it in the mud, and I hit him with my fist. I looked at his pig-blue eyes and wanted to drive his nose behind the eyes into his brain. I pushed him against a fence post and hit him as the other boys watched in astonishment. And later I was ashamed when I saw the blood on his face and dripping from his chin.
When the other boys teased me for being tall and thin, for studying the Bible, for loving song, I kept my own counsel and smiled at them. For I knew my strength was my cheer and goodwill. I would not be teased. I worked hard to stay calm when baited and laughed with my detractors. As long as I was not surprised I could pretend to be calm. I knew anger made me weak, and conquering my anger was not a choice but a necessity.
At college once a bully asked to borrow my Latin book. When I handed him the volume he opened it and spat a huge oyster between the pages. Then with a smirk he handed the book back to me. Before I knew it I shoved the corner of the book into his face. Fury rose like a flame through my bones and chest and I hit him repeatedly in the eye with the sharp corner of the book. I hit him until his cheek was cut and his eye wet. His nose bled and his ear bled. But once the fit had passed I was amazed at myself.
Nothing makes a minister look weaker than anger. Nothing makes a preacher look more foolish than an outburst of ill temper. One rage can destroy a testimony among a congregation. One tantrum can nullify your witness. When the message is of love and praise one lapse of fury can destroy faith and confidence. I had worked all my life to control my frustration, to anticipate adversity, to conceal my sudden anger.
But the pain of my burns on Bee Water Mountain undercut my will, erased my confidence. I saw that I was being punished for deceiving my congregations, for my secret marriage, for my many other failures. I was being tried, and I had been found wanting. And because of my weakness and pain I could not control my anger, even as Josie nursed me. I was ashamed of myself and ashamed for her to see me so churlish.
Before I was ordained I taught a Sunday school in the country outside Williamsburg. It was a group of boys and girls who met in the school house beside the little church. I read from the Bible and told them stories and we sang hymns. There was a redheaded boy in the class named Ethan, bigger than the other boys. Ethan was always teasing and pestering and bullying someone. He could not keep still, and he could not let the others alone.
I always said a short prayer with the class and had them recite the Lord’s Prayer. We stood and closed our eyes and repeated the words in unison. One Sunday we were reciting the prayer and the little school-house rang with their young voices. For some reason I opened my eye a squint and saw Ethan sliding the stool from behind a girl named Selma. Selma was good-natured but almost blind, and afflicted in her mind. She could barely speak plain enough to be understood. Without the stool she would fall on her backside when I told the class to sit.
Quick, before I knew what I was doing, I reached out to push Ethan away but hit him with my Bible. I’d only meant to stop him, I told myself. But the Bible was in my hand, and I hit him on the ear and cheek with the holy book. He looked at me with astonishment, and I was astonished at myself also.
I was so shaken and embarrassed I dismissed the class. As they left the schoolhouse I heard one boy say, “I never saw nobody hit with a Bible before.”
Another said, “He throwed the Good Book at poor Ethan.”
I expected to be dismissed from the Sunday school. I apologized to the minister of the church and all the congregation. And I promised myself I would be on guard against sudden anger.
Whatever virtues I had, my anger showed my human weakness. No matter that Jesus showed his anger in the temple by chasing the money changers and hypocrites away. And Peter had an all-too-human anger. In the garden of Gethsemane he cut off a man’s ear, and Jesus had to put the ear back on the man’s head.
Since nothing will damage a testimony and witness as quick as anger, I steeled myself against rage, and worked to calm and soothe myself. If I could cool my blood and quiet my breath enough to sing, then I could conquer the evil heat that rose in my blood and in my marrow. For anger is the devil’s fire roaring to consume the work of love and fellowship. I knew the evil in my own pulse and in my own hot words.
WHEN I FOUND JOSEPH had deceived me and was a girl with breasts under the rough shirt and coat I was stunned. For Joseph was my helper, dear to me and a blessing sent to me. In a daze, I was unable to understand what had happened. Anger rose like a shadow inside the light, something raw and bloody. I saw my ministry ruined from the most unexpected source. My witness had been compromised by the very blessing I’d rejoiced in. Joseph had ruined me just when I was most grateful for his help.
I wanted to slap his face and crush his neck between my hands. I wanted to reach out and break his face, blind him and crush his features. I saw why he had never answered a call of nature in my presence, why he had told me so little about his life before he appeared at Zion Hill. He had invaded and contaminated my mission. He had made me look wicked and foolish.
I wished I could erase Joseph from my house and from the past few weeks. I wished I could expunge him from my life and from the memory of my congregations. I reached back to strike him, but something stopped me. Perhaps it was his eyes, except they were her eyes, watching me in grief, as if begging me to punish, begging me to repay the deception.
It was the her-ness that stopped me. It was the awfulness of the femininity that had been so close, under my roof those several weeks. I stayed my hand and plunged toward the door. I had to get out of her presence and out of the cabin. I had to get beyond reach of her before I did violence to her or to myself.
Anger destroys our wit; fury makes us stupid. I
plunged into the cold woods stomping the ground in my rage and surprise. I was blinded by the tide of fury within me. I didn’t notice the northern lights above the trees and their display of heavenly glory. The sky did its dance of seven veils, but I stumbled foolishly through the brush and briars.
In a few seconds my ministry and my career had come to a halt. I would have revenge, but what revenge could be found? What relief, what compensation was possible? To hurt Josie, to murder Josie, would bring neither revenge nor comfort. I would have to become calm and cunning. But what could be cunning enough to save me from the scandal that would ensue? How could I be cunning in the face of such humiliation?
I stalked through the swamps and branches hardly noticing the limbs that slashed my face. I shoved my way through canebrakes in the dark, and tangled my feet in wild peavines. I lost all consciousness of direction. The river seemed to circle my head, going first one way and then another. I spat into my hands and rubbed spit on my face.
Wake up from your stupor, I said to myself. Wake up from the idiocy of rage. The times are dangerous and you are in danger. And you are a danger to yourself and to the Lord’s work in the wilderness. Wake up you fool. I saw I must not be merely my angry, failing self, but better than myself. I had to become what I should be. Be still and know, I said. Be still and listen.
I had to make my thoughts clear to myself. I was confused and troubled and the times were desperate, about to break open in some awful way. The world was changing and I didn’t know in what direction to go.
When studying Hebrew I had learned the word tohubohu, at the beginning of Genesis. The word means chaos, wildness, confusion. We were living in times of tohubohu. Everything was off kilter, and out of control. And I was off kilter and out of control.
The truth was Josie had startled me and disturbed me. From the moment she appeared at the prayer meeting at Zion Hill, I was struck by her sadness and honesty. And I was pleased when she stayed with me. I who had always worked alone was no longer alone. I was so glad of her company I felt guilty. I had been called to that region to minister and witness. In those harsh times and in that harsh place, my duty was to sing and pray, inspire and exhort. I had not been sent to enjoy myself or indulge myself in friendships and society.
I had always assumed I would work alone. I had been called to the ordinary work of the circuit, to be a wanderer and a pilgrim, and the wilderness was my home. But if I had been sent an assistant, it was my duty to accept and benefit from that blessing.
Besides my anger, I had always had to struggle with doubt and vanity. It was unseemly for a minister to admit such doubts, but as deeply as I felt called, as much as I felt chosen for worship and praise, I had moments of the blackest doubts. And my doubt was caused not only by the sadness and cruelty around me. Faith was challenged every day by the pain and hatefulness in the world. I wanted to know why Jesus permitted such suffering.
But my doubt came just as often from the quietness and coolness of the world. I looked at rocks and mountains and clouds and thought: The world just is. No explanation was needed, no plan of salvation. And most blasphemous of all, I thought: Nothing needs redemption. The natural world was just going on about its business by its own laws. It didn’t need any divine explanation or human explanation. I thought of the great ages of rocks and rivers, of the vast distances to the stars and between the stars. I thought of the depth of oceans and the sweep of tides, the power of thunderstorms. And I thought those things needed no explanation. They just were, frightening in their majesty. They were sublime.
That was my temptation and a source of my doubt. I loved natural history as much as Mr. Franklin and Governor Jefferson did. I loved the trees and plants, the rocks and streams. I loved clouds over the mountains and the endless chant of waterfalls. I loved the grays and browns of winter afternoons, and the rhythms of the days and nights and seasons.
And then I saw I had made the natural world an idol. I was in danger of becoming a mere pantheist, a worshiper of nature. And I saw the folly of loving something so indifferent to mankind. Nature had no interest in human suffering or in human joy. The natural world had no interest in individuals, in John or Josie, in William or Sarah. It was the Lord who numbered the hairs on our heads and noticed the fall of the sparrow. It was Jesus who loved us in our weakness and in spite of our foolishness and selfishness. It was Jesus who sacrificed himself for us.
People were so troubled and threatened in their hearts every day with violence they needed to be calmed and shown they were loved. They needed the joy and strength of fellowship. They needed to feel joined in a community of believers, inspired and strengthened. I thought I had done some good there west of the Catawba River. While the world was burning and crumbling, I had tried to put some of the pieces back together.
AFTER ANGER MY GREATEST weakness was vanity. Maybe that was why I had Josie read from Ecclesiastes so often. I needed to hear the preacher’s warning to myself.
My vanity was not so much of person and appearance, though I could be as vain as anyone in that sense. I wouldn’t have minded vestments if I could have afforded them and worn them on my travels through mud and river, briar and canebrake. But living in the wilderness discouraged vanity of appearance.
My vanity was more of talent, more of spoken word and sung note. From the time I attended school, I was the superior student, reading and reciting ahead of my fellow students. I took pride in being first in Latin, in leading, even in mathematics. I was vain of my learning in school, then in college. And I would have been punished by the other students had I not been tall and strong myself.
When I grew mature and knew the call to the ministry, I vowed to be humble and curb my pride and my ambition. I couldn’t preach humility while living myself in vanity and visions of superiority to those I served. But then I found I took pride in my goodness and humility, and that was the most dangerous pride of all. What an arrogance the feeling of humility could be. I urged myself to be humble and compassionate to all people and creatures, and yet I was prideful, puffed up with visions of my own splendor. My vanity remained.
Jesus says in Matthew that some may be as eunuchs in their service to the Lord. But then Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7:9 it is better to marry than to burn. I was a man like any man, and I told myself that some day I might marry. But I knew that for the moment I must remain single while I traveled to my scattered congregations. In those desperate times I must remain alone, for I had no adequate house and no sustenance to begin a family.
Josie seemed at first like my younger brother, willing to help, and then like my wicked and deceptive little sister. I couldn’t justify keeping her in my house, however much I wanted her to stay. I could not send her out into the wilderness alone, and I could not bear to be alone again myself. Yet I could not see how we could honorably stay together unless I married her. But if we married it would look as though she had been my mistress. And she would have the shame of having dressed as a boy and pretended to be a boy. Such a marriage could only threaten and weaken my ministry there where worship and piety were only beginning to take root.
I prayed about Josie and I thought about marriage. I considered sending her away for a season, to Charlotte or Gilbert Town, to return later as a girl. Or I could go away later and bring her back as my wife. But who would be fooled, for her dear features would be the same and her voice would be the same?
And I thought of making a public confession and trusting my future and hers to the loyalty and kindness of my flocks. But I doubted my ministry and my churches could survive the scandal. It was unlikely I could continue there as psalmodist and minister. I thought of leaving, of taking her to the mountains farther west where no one knew us, to South Carolina or Georgia. The settlements were spreading and the wilderness giving way even as the war raged. But I would have to leave my congregations. I could not leave the churches I had struggled three years to build. I would not leave those I was called to serve.
As I lay in pain from the burns, helpl
ess in my misery, I worked to curb my anger, and I thought on these things. And I knew I must expiate my guilt and conquer my weakness and my failure for the work I would do.
IT WAS SEVERAL WEEKS after the fire, as I was beginning to heal and could limp out into the yard and stoop in the sun a few minutes, when a member of my flock from Zion Hill came to visit. It was Sister Wensley who loved to testify that her baby daughter Rebecca had been sent as a blessing in her old age. I stooped in the yard and watched her climb the hill with her daughter in one arm and a small sack in the other. It was a fine late autumn day and the bright sun picked out gold leaves floating from the hickories.
“I’m plumb out of breath,” Sister Wensley said, and handed me the sack which I saw held potatoes. “Rebecca gets heavier every day.”
“Come in and sit,” I said.
It was dark in the cabin. I asked Josie to put on some water for coffee, and I brought a chair to the fireplace for Sister Wensley, whose first name was Rachel.
“I hated to hear you was burned,” she said.
I told her my burns were better, though I still couldn’t sit down.
“It’s a blessing you have Joseph to help you,” Sister Wensley said.
“Couldn’t manage without him.”
We drank coffee and little Rebecca played on the floor in front of the hearth. The baby found a pinecone and chewed on it, and when her mother took that away she found a spool of thread and pulled off several strands before Josie placed it on the mantel.
“There has been talk,” Sister Wensley said, and looked at me sideways, as if she was embarrassed. I thought she was embarrassed because Josie was there.
“What kind of talk?” I said. My pulse quickened and my breath got shorter. Had somebody found out the truth about Josie and was gossiping it around?
“You know how people will talk, minister,” Sister Wensley said.
“I do indeed.”
Sister Wensley looked at Josie as if she was reluctant to continue.
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