Jan Karon's Mitford Years

by Jan Karon

  “No way!” said J.C. “People in Mitford don’t get pets at a pet shop. They wait ’til somethin’ shows up at their back door. Idn’t that right?” he asked Father Tim, who, after all, should know.

  “‘O Lord, You are my portion and my cup…,’” he recited in unison with Cynthia and the other congregants at St. Paul’s in Wesley.

  “‘It is You who uphold my lot. My boundaries enclose a pleasant land; indeed, I have a goodly heritage. I will bless the Lord Who gives me counsel; my heart teaches me, night after night. I have set the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand I shall not fall.’”

  Cynthia slipped her arm around him as they shared the Psalter. “‘My heart, therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices; my body also shall rest in hope. For You will not abandon me to the grave, nor let Your holy one see the Pit.’

  “‘You will show me the path of life; in Your presence there is fullness of joy, and in Your right hand are pleasures for evermore.’”

  His heart felt warmed by the familiar words, words he had memorized—when? How long ago? Had he been ten years old, or twelve?

  He looked upon his wife and was moved by a great tenderness in his breast. The boy who had recited those words before a hushed Sunday School class in Holly Springs, Mississippi—what a miracle that he was standing now in this place in Wesley, North Carolina, more than half a century later, feeling the arm of his wife about his waist and knowing a fullness of joy he’d never believed he might experience.

  Stuart Cullen didn’t appear to be a venerable and much-esteemed bishop. Indeed, at the age of seventy-one, he looked like a man who had just come in from tossing around a football on a back lot.

  Father Tim felt oddly proud that his bishop and best friend from seminary looked young and vigorous and entirely without airs; it was a sight to make a man puff out his chest, hold in his stomach, and step smartly into the room where Stuart looked up from the antique walnut desk and smiled.

  “My friend!” Stuart exclaimed.

  They met in the middle of the room and embraced, the bishop feeling fond of his longtime favorite priest, the priest feeling glad he’d never had the ambition to rise to the top, though he knew perfectly well that’s where the cream resided in the jug. In truth, he was glad someone else was willing to shoulder the staggering weight of higher church life and leave him in peace.

  “You look terrific!” said Father Tim, meaning it.

  “And old,” Stuart said.

  “Old? What is old? Old is a matter of—”

  Stuart chuckled. “Now, Timothy, don’t preach me a sermon. Have a seat.”

  He had one, amused to see that he and Stuart were dressed almost identically, both of them wearing khakis, a sport shirt, and a collar. “Gold Dust twins,” he said, indicating their gear.

  “Except you’re not old, Timothy.”

  “What is this business about being old? I’m creaking in the joints like a hay wagon.”

  “I always liked your rustic imagery,” said Stuart.

  “Too much Wordsworth at an early age,” replied Father Tim.

  “Speaking of rustic, did you drop your moles off in the country?”

  “A failed mission,” he admitted. “We never caught any to drop off.”

  “I despise moles. Or is it voles? And what’s the difference, anyway?”

  “You don’t need to know,” said Father Tim. “Now tell me what’s up. You’re looking quizzical. Or perhaps philosophical.”

  Stuart sat in a leather wing chair opposite his retired priest and gazed out the window to the garden that his wife cultivated and he puttered in. A pink dogwood in early bloom trembled in a gusting wind. He turned his gaze on his visitor.

  “I want to build a cathedral.”

  “Ahhh.” Father Tim reflected a moment on this striking pronouncement. “Building cathedrals isn’t a job for the aged.”

  “Thinking about it has made me face my mortality; it strikes me that I may never live to see it finished. In truth, considering the funds we’ll need to raise and the time it will take to raise them, I may not be around for the groundbreaking, much less the dedication. We’re not going to borrow a cent, you see.”

  “Well, then, we may both be dead and gone.”

  “I’ll be seventy-two in eleven months, at which time, as you know, they’ll chase me off with a broom. I’ve always regretted our strict retirement policy. I’ve never felt better in my life. Why should I be forced to retire at seventy-two?”

  “Beats me,” said Father Tim.

  “In any case, I’m getting a very late start on a cathedral!”

  “If you don’t mind the platitude, it’s never too late.”

  “I also wonder whether this notion is merely a self-serving desire for immortality, some…strut of the flesh.”

  They pondered this together, quietly. The clock on the mantel ticked. “Do you think,” asked Father Tim, “that the desire for immortality was the driving force behind Michelangelo’s David or da Vinci’s Mona Lisa?”

  The bishop crossed his legs and appeared to gaze at the toe of his shoe.

  “Or behind, shall we say, Handel’s Messiah?”

  “I don’t pretend to know what’s behind much of anything we humans do. There are days when it seems that everything we do is for unutterably selfish reasons, then come the days on the mountaintop when we’re able to know the galvanizing truth all over again, which is that we earnestly seek to do it all to the glory of God.”

  “What has God said to you about this thing?”

  “Quite a lot. Actually, I think it’s His notion entirely. I’m clever enough, I suppose, but not quite so clever to drum up the…particulars of this idea. I must confess that when it all came to me, I wept.”

  “Then it has nothing to do with seeing your name chiseled over the door? St. Stuart’s on the Hill?”

  Stuart laughed. Ah, but Father Tim liked hearing his bishop laugh!

  Stuart’s secretary opened the door and poked her head into the room. “I’m off to lunch. I don’t suppose the two of you need anything?”

  “Only a bit of humility, seasoned with patience and fortitude,” said the bishop.

  “On whole wheat or rye?” asked his secretary, closing the door.

  “Some of us,” said Stuart, “are interested in initiating only what we’ll see come to fruition, but I’ve always looked beyond the present, beyond the day, a propensity that’s both a blessing and a curse.”

  “Niebuhr spoke to that,” said Father Tim.

  “Indeed. He said, ‘Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.’”

  “‘Nothing we do, however virtuous,’” quoted Father Tim, “‘can be accomplished alone; therefore, we must be saved by love.’”

  Stuart leaned forward slightly in the chair. “I have enemies, you know.”

  Father Tim didn’t say it, but he did know, of course.

  “As you’re aware, ours is the poorest of the southeastern dioceses. So far, the idea of a cathedral has been largely dismissed as flamboyant, self-seeking, a display of spiritual pride, and a flagrant waste of money which could be used for higher purposes.”

  “And that’s just for openers, I’m sure.”

  “The diocese exists in a culture in which a cathedral smacks of European decadence, though the Baptists down the road just built a church to seat two thousand and nothing was thought of it, nothing at all.”

  “Where will the cathedral be built?” asked Father Tim, looking on the bright side.

  Stuart rose from the chair, grinning, and buttoned his jacket. “Come. I’ll show you on our way to lunch.”

  “This is a cow pasture, Stuart!” He knew for a fact that he’d just stepped in something.

  “Ah, Timothy, open your eyes! A cow pasture, yes, but one that slopes down to a magnificent view
of the city! Look where we’re standing, for heaven’s sake! It’s a habitation for angels!”

  The wind swept words from their mouths; their coats billowed and flapped like sails.

  “…transept,” yelled Stuart, pointing toward the brow of the hill.

  “…cruciform!” he shouted, waving with outstretched arms. Though it was nearly impossible to distinguish what Stuart was saying, his bishop’s countenance spoke volumes; he was as radiant as the youth Father Tim remembered all those years ago in seminary.

  They hurried back to the car, swept along by the chill wind at their backs.

  “So here are the particulars,” said Stuart, forgetting to put the key in the ignition. “We’ll build our cathedral of logs.”

  “Logs.”

  “Yes! Honest materials straight from our own highland forests, with scissor trusses of southern yellow pine, a roof of hand-split shakes, oak pews constructed by local artisans…. I can’t tell you how this excites me, Timothy! Plus…”

  His bishop had a positive gleam in his eye.

  “Plus, such materials are exceedingly cost-wise!”

  “Aha.”

  “We think we can do it for six million,” said Stuart. “A pittance, all things considered. At last we’ll have what we’ve needed for so many years—a common meeting place for our scattered diocese, a center of learning, and one day, I trust, a great choir school.”

  The bishop started the car and they rolled slowly down the hill along the tree-lined street. “Pray for me in this,” he said quietly.

  “I’ve been praying for you more than forty years, my friend.”

  “Don’t stop now. You know, of course, that you are faithfully in my prayers, and ever will be.”

  “Yes,” said Father Tim. “And I’m grateful.”

  “But I’ve talked too much about my own interests. Forgive me, Timothy. Tell me what brought you today, what’s on your heart.”

  The discussion of a great cathedral was a tough act to follow, but there was hardly a beat between the question and his answer.

  “The mission field.”

  Stuart winced visibly. “You’re not keeping busy enough, retirement generally gives too much time to think.”

  “Don’t talk down to me, Stuart.” He hadn’t treated Stuart’s dream lightly, and he didn’t take kindly to having his own casually dismissed.

  “You’re right, of course.”

  “This is important to me, and to Cynthia. Besides, the commission is to go and tell, not sit home and fossilize.”

  “I reacted that way because you’re diabetic. You don’t need to be stumbling around in some bleak outpost with no medical assistance.”

  “I take two insulin shots a day, monitor my sugar closely, eat at regular intervals, exercise twice a week—it’s no big deal. Actually, my doctor would forbid a bleak outpost; we won’t go far from home.”

  “Any idea where?”

  “Somewhere in Appalachia,” he said. “It’s where the Dooley Barlowes and Lace Harpers come from.”

  “Who is Lace Harper?”

  “An exceptional young woman who’s the adopted daughter of my doctor and his wife, off to her first year of college this fall. It wasn’t long ago that she was living in the dirt under her house.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “To escape a drunken father who beat her senseless.”

  “Dear Lord.”

  “Until the Harpers took her in, she was almost completely self-educated, thanks to the county bookmobile. Now she’s one of the brightest stars her private school has ever seen. We’re exceedingly fond of Lace, we cherish the notion that someday she and Dooley might…well, you understand.”

  “I see. And your boy, Dooley, he’s doing well, isn’t he?”

  “A freshman at the University of Georgia, where he’ll study veterinary medicine. If you recall, Dooley’s the son of an abusive father he scarcely knew, and of a formerly alcoholic mother who gave her children away. Pauline has since come to know Christ and has married a believer; the transformation is wondrous. All this is to say I’ve seen what a difference it can make for kids like Dooley and Lace to be given a break, to be loved. In truth, it makes all the difference!”

  Stuart braked, waiting to turn left, and looked at his old friend. “An English missionary said, ‘Some want to live within the sound of Church and Chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.’ You have my blessing.” Of all his clergy, Timothy Kavanagh had been the one he could depend on completely, the one whose theology never wavered and whose friendship genuinely counted.

  “I’ll need your help, Stuart, your input about the ministries we should consider.”

  The bishop wheeled into the restaurant parking lot and switched off the ignition. He looked at Father Tim and nodded his assent. “You’ll have that, too,” he promised.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Mixed Blessings

  Lady Spring’s Coy Flirtation Fails to Amuse

  —BY HESSIE MAYHEW

  For three days in mid-February, Lady Spring cajoled our wintry spirits with zephyrs so balmy that we found ourselves utterly deceived. How quickly we forget, year to year, the heart-wrenching extent to which this frivolous and unrepentant lady betrays us.

  Our power lines felled by ice storms in March! Our rooftops laden with snow in April! Our lilacs lashed by bitter winds on May Day! One shudders to think what June may bring, the dear June that once gave us roses and clematis!

  On the southerly slopes of the mountain, where the japonica has long since shed its crimson petals, we, hapless stepchildren that we are, must find delight in adorning our homes with sprigs of withered berries!

  However much the heart may yearn toward Lady Spring’s vernal passage, hearken, I implore you, to the one bit of counsel that, come what may in this earthly life, will never, ever betray you:

  DO NOT PLANT UNTIL MAY 15!

  Hessie Mayhew’s annual spring angst….

  He sighed and dropped the newspaper to the floor.

  Once he’d clipped along through the Mitford Muse in twenty, thirty minutes, max. Looking at his watch, he was dismayed to learn he’d just spent an hour and a half with the darned thing, as absorbed as if it were the Chicago Tribune.

  He’d even studied the classifieds, something seldom done in this life, and found his interest sincerely piqued by a walnut chest of drawers listed at a yard sale in Wesley.

  Retirement. That was the culprit.

  He snatched the latest Anglican Digest from the table by his chair and went at it, head down.

  “Mail call!” crowed his wife, never happier than when the mail had been chunked through the slot in the front door.

  And who wouldn’t be ecstatic? he wondered. Scarcely a day passed that her devoted readers didn’t express their admiration of her talent, beauty, wit, intelligence, and general benefit to mankind.

  She sat beside him on the study sofa and busied herself with sorting.

  “Fan letter, fan letter, fan letter, bill…bill, bill, fan letter, junk mail, bill…”—she was, he noticed, piling the bills in his lap, not hers—“junk mail, junk mail, fan letter, bill—”

  “Doo wap, doo wap,” he said.

  She stopped sorting and tore open an envelope.

  “Oh, lovely, it’s not a fan letter, it’s from Marion!” Marion was their good and faithful friend from their interim on Whitecap Island; he always relished Marion’s long, newsy letters.

  “Oh, my!” She burst into laughter.

  “What?” he said.

  “Ella Bridgewater’s bird, Louise…remember the canary that serenaded you? Well, it’s not Louise at all, it’s Louis! Marion has no earthly idea how Ella discovered this surprising fact, but it’s the talk of St. John’s.”

  “Aha.”

  “Marion’s going online and wants our e-mail address.”

  “That will be the day.”

  “And she and Sam send their love.”

  “That’s all? Louise is Louis a
nd they send their love?”

  “That’s all, dearest, it’s just a little note.”

  “Oh,” he said, disappointed. His wife moved quickly to other matters, using her letter opener to slice the flap of a white envelope.

  “My goodness,” she murmured, reading. “Well, then…” She appeared briefly saddened, then looked at him and smiled.

  “What is it?”

  “I’ve been asked to tour the country with four other children’s book authors and illustrators.”

  “Tour the country?” The thought chilled his blood. He remembered her trip to Lansing several years ago to read at a school. She had arrived home very late, just as he was calling the police to begin a statewide search.

  “With a program called READ,” she said, glancing again at the letter, “an acronym for Readers Earn Author’s Day. Let’s see…umm…what a grand idea! Schools compete to read so many books, and those who reach or exceed the mark are eligible for a visit by Davant Medal authors. It all raises money for local literacy programs, and look…the other authors are my favorites!”

  Her bright countenance frightened him.

  “But…”

  “But of course I can’t go,” she said.

  “And why not?”

  “Because it’s the first of August, and we’ll be in Tennessee.”

  “Right!” He was flooded with relief. “Of course!” They were going to Tennessee in less than two months, to join forces with Our Own Backyard, the mission project they’d long prayed might present itself. Dooley would finish his freshman year at college, spend a few days with them in Mitford, and head to Meadowgate for the summer to assist Hal Owen in his veterinary practice.

  Then Father Tim and Cynthia would tool across the state line to their year-long ministry in the newly formed OOB. The concept for this project, which was warmly endorsed by Stuart Cullen, had been developed by Father Roland, whose research had uncovered dumbfounding truths about the extent of poverty and deprivation in an area around Jessup, Tennessee. There they would find alcohol and drug abuse, violence, severe medical and dental problems, families without transportation, unpaved roads, a high rate of school dropouts—bottom line, an area not unlike Mitford’s Creek community before it had become a shopping center.