This Rock

by Robert Morgan

  “I will preach about the Transfiguration,” I said.

  “That’s always a good topic,” Preacher Liner said. “People like to hear about the Transfiguration.”

  Preacher Liner said he’d be going down to South Carolina the Sunday after Homecoming, and I could fill the pulpit in his place. Panic jolted through me so hard it hurt. In two weeks I’d be standing in front of the congregation. In two weeks I’d be facing all those people that I’d knowed since I was in diapers.

  “Glory be,” Mama said when I told her I would be preaching in two weeks. “This is the answer to my prayers.”

  NOW THE THING about worry is it can’t do you much good. For worry just wears you down and don’t help the least bit. But you can’t just turn off worry like it was a spigot. Worry ain’t something you can do much to control. Worry creeps up on you at night while you’re laying in bed and crawls right into your head. And worry soaks its way into whatever you’re thinking about in the daytime.

  I figured if I studied out my sermon beforehand it might help. They said preachers in town actually wrote down sermons and read them on Sunday. But no Baptist preacher ever wrote out a sermon on Green River. That would prove you didn’t have the call of the Spirit in your heart. Anybody that would write out a sermon and read it to the congregation would be laughed out of the pulpit and never invited to preach again. Only Scripture was worth reading out in the pulpit.

  I took my Bible and climbed up into the pines on the pasture hill. Thought if I got on top of the ridge I could think better. The air would be clearer and I’d be closer to God. And the Transfiguration took place on a mountaintop where Peter and James and John went with Jesus. I read in Matthew: “‘While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said: This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.’”

  That seemed to me the finest passage in the Bible. I said the words over again and made my voice deep in my throat, and I made my tongue curl around the words.

  I turned to the book of Luke where it also described the Transfiguration.

  “‘And as he prayed the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering.’”

  I walked up and down under the pine trees and said the verse. I swung my arm to show the power of the words. I knowed if I could get started in the pulpit I could keep going. It was getting started that was hard. I’d took part in the debates at school when I was eleven and twelve. It was standing and saying the first thing that scared me. The first time I stood before the class I was so dazed I couldn’t think of nothing. My throat locked closed like spit had stuck there and glued my windpipe. Next time I debated I determined I’d say one word if it killed me. And I did stand up and say one word, and after that I could say more. But I remembered that feeling of having my tongue and throat froze, like they’d turned to rock.

  Last, I turned to the Second Epistle of Peter, where he talked about the Transfiguration.

  “‘And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.’”

  It was the holy mount I wanted to mention in my sermon. For I wanted to say any mountain could be a holy mountain. And that the ground where we stood could be holy ground. I wanted to preach mountainism, for I’d read somewhere that mountainism meant a vision of paradise on earth. But I didn’t know if I could say it right.

  In his excitement and confusion Peter had talked about building three tabernacles on the mountaintop, one to Moses, one to Elias, and one to Jesus. He’d talked foolish, out of his head. I hoped I didn’t talk foolish. I hoped I didn’t speak beside myself, once I was in the pulpit. But I understood the desire to build something sacred. I had studied about building almost as much as about trapping and preaching. A life’s work should be to build something that inspired people.

  I stood under the pines facing the wind and read more verses, making my voice strong and far-reaching as I could. I read in a low voice and I read in a loud voice. I read the verses in a proper voice, and I read them the way a mountain preacher would that hadn’t hardly been to school. I couldn’t decide which way was best. But I thought, The place for a church is on a mountaintop. The perfect place to say the words of the Bible was on the highest ground in sight.

  WHEN MAMA NOTICED how worried I was she said, “Nobody can preach without the help of the Lord. If the Lord wants you to preach, then he’ll give you the words to say.”

  “But I have to prepare the vessel,” I said.

  “If the Lord don’t give you the words they won’t be worth listening to,” Mama said.

  “All the words has already been said,” my sister Fay said. Fay had growed gangly and awkward but hadn’t begun to show her womanly shape in the dresses Mama made her.

  “Don’t make no difference,” I said. “They need to be said again.”

  “Why do they?” Fay said.

  “That’s like saying all the dinners have been eat,” I said. “People will still be hungry come dinnertime.”

  “People need to hear the Word again and again,” Mama said. “As long as you go by the Scripture you can’t go wrong.”

  “Are you going to take up a collection?” Moody said. “That’s the test of a preacher, how much people throw in the collection plate.”

  “The collection is took up before the sermon,” I said.

  “That may be to your advantage,” Moody said. Moody had got hurt in a fight in Chestnut Springs earlier that year, and he had a scar on his cheek below the left eye.

  “A first-time preacher don’t get no money,” I said.

  But like he did so many times, Moody could change his tune in an instant. He would talk mean and bitter, and he’d mock you and belittle you. And then all of a sudden he’d be a good-natured brother. His name fit him perfect. I knowed he was named after the great preacher Dwight L. Moody, but the name was right for him.

  It was the Friday before I was supposed to preach on Sunday morning, and I went out to milk the cows after supper and water the horse and feed the chickens. It was still full daylight, and while I was mixing the crushing and cottonseed meal for the cows Moody come up behind me and said, “You know I want you to do good on Sunday.”

  “Sure you do,” I said.

  “No, I mean it,” Moody said. “I want you to make that church house ring. And I want you to save so many people they’ll demand that you preach again.”

  “Didn’t think you cared,” I said.

  “I care about my little brother,” Moody said. “I want you to scare them so much and thrill them so much they pee in their britches.”

  ON THE SUNDAY after Homecoming I got to the church a little early. I put on the new herringbone suit I had bought special, and a tie that Daddy had owned. The suit fit so well over my shoulders and hips it give me confidence, and the woven cloth glistened in the sun. The song leader, Mack Ennis, got there almost as soon as I did. The church felt cool inside in the early morning.

  “Now, what songs do you want to sing today?” Mack said.

  That was the one thing I hadn’t thought about. I’d worried about the text I was going to read, and who I was going to call on to lead in prayer, and how long I was going to preach. But I hadn’t even considered what hymns I wanted sung.

  “Ain’t you picked out the hymns?” I said to Mack.

  “The preacher usually has some suggestions, depending on the text of his sermon,” Mack said.

  “What would you normally sing?” I said.

  “There is over five hundred hymns in the book,” Mack said. “We can sing whatever ones you prefer.”

  “Why don’t we sing ‘How Beautiful Heaven Must Be’?” I said. “And then ‘Nearer My God to Thee.’”

  “This is not a funeral,” Mack said.

  “And maybe ‘On Jordan’s Stormy Banks,’” I said.

  When Charlotte McKee, the organist, arrived Mack told her what songs we was going to sing. She nodded and smiled at me.
/>   I’d heard of preachers that didn’t even appear until it was time for the sermon. They’d stay out in the dark, or in the woods, or even in the outhouse, till it was time for them to appear. And then they’d enter like a prophet come down from the mountain, or like John the Baptist come from the wilderness. But that wasn’t the custom on Green River. It would look silly if I stayed outside till it was time to preach.

  There was a chair to the side and behind the pulpit where the preacher set. And that’s where I waited while people come into the church. I didn’t want to look at people as they shuffled in and set down, so I looked at the Bible in my hands, and I even opened it and tried to read. I’d seen Preacher Liner do that. But I couldn’t see the Bible verses in front of me because of my nerves. I’d marked the places and I’d memorized the passages so I could recite them if I had to.

  When Charlotte started playing the organ I stood up and everybody else stood up. “How Beautiful Heaven Must Be,” I called out. But my voice sounded trembly and weak in the empty air over the congregation.

  “Page 302,” Mack called out.

  While they was singing I tried to join in but couldn’t even think of the song. I hoped the song would go on forever. I looked out over the faces and tried not to look at any one face. I knowed everybody in the church, but I tried not to recognize them. The light was glaring from the white-painted windowpanes. I kept my eyes on the last window on the left side.

  When the song was over it was time to lead in prayer. I knowed the custom was for the preacher to lead the first prayer. I was about to bow my head and start praying when I seen the door open and somebody slip into the back of the church. It was Moody, and he didn’t take his hat off when he come in. Moody never did hardly go to church. He was the last person I expected to see there, and he was the last person I wanted to see there. He had said he wouldn’t come. He slid into the back row with the other boys and backsliders. He never did take his hat off. It was time for me to start praying, but all I could think of was Moody setting there with his hat on.

  I bowed my head, but instead of praying I said, “Will Moody Powell please take his hat off in church.” The words was out before I could stop myself.

  Everybody in the church turned around and looked back. There was snickers here and there. With a grin Moody lifted his hat and held it a few inches above his head, then dropped it to the floor. There was more snickering and titters from the boys in the back row.

  I prayed but don’t remember what I said. I had thought for days about what I’d say in a prayer, but I couldn’t remember a single word of what I’d planned. Moody had throwed me off. I swallowed twice and said something about thanking the Lord for bringing us all together on such a fine day. My face was hot and the sweat was breaking out under my arms and in my hands.

  When I finished praying and opened my eyes I seen Mama looking at me. She smiled and nodded, like she meant to say, You go ahead and do a good job now. There was circles of sweat under her arms. But I couldn’t look at her. And I couldn’t remember what hymn we was supposed to sing next. It was the offertory hymn and the two deacons, Silas Bane and my cousin U. G. Latham, come forward and took the collection plates from the table in front of the pulpit. Charlotte was looking at me and Mack was looking at me. And I remembered I’d told him “Nearer My God to Thee.” But it was too late. Mack frowned and flipped through the songbook and called out, “Number 326.”

  While they begun to sing, and I pretended to join in, all I could think of was what a gom I’d already made of things. I looked at the collection plates passing among the congregation and wondered why I’d even thought I could preach. How did I know what was the call and what was just vanity? Nobody but Mama had thought I had the gift. What was I going to say when the song ended? For then it would be time to begin my sermon.

  When the song was over the deacons brought the collection plates to the front, and Silas Bane poured the contents of one plate into the other and put the empty plate over the money like a lid. Both Mack and Charlotte took their seats on the benches, and I was alone in front of the church. As I stood up I felt the stares of the people like a furnace blasting my face. I wanted to step back out of the heat. I wanted to run out into the fresh air and sunlight.

  Stepping to the pulpit, I realized I’d left my Bible on the floor beside the chair. I’d already opened my mouth to speak, but I stopped to pick up the Bible. I spun around and kicked the chair so hard it banged the wall and clattered over on the floor.

  When I stood up again behind the pulpit and opened the Bible, the air in the church was absolutely still. You could have heard a spider scratching itself, or a moth belch. The air was so hot and tight it was in pain. The skin on my forehead felt stretched. The skin around my mouth was so tight I thought it was going to break. And my lips was stuck together.

  I tried to find the verse in Matthew about the Transfiguration, but I kept turning pages and couldn’t spot it nowhere. My hands was so sweaty they stuck to the paper. I thought I seen the chapter, and then it disappeared. I was looking in the Old Testament. It seemed like minutes and hours was passing while I flipped through the pages.

  “I want to read you a Bible verse,” I tried to say. But the words stuck in my throat. I swallowed and tried again.

  There was snickers in the church. The air was dead still, and I could hear the blood pounding in my ears. Sweat gathered on my forehead and dripped down on the pages of the Bible.

  Finally I found Matthew 17 and started reading, but I couldn’t recall what I’d planned to say about the text. What was the point I’d wanted to make about the Transfiguration? Peter said we should build three tabernacles on the mountaintop, but he’d been talking crazy with excitement. There didn’t seem to be much point in speaking about that.

  Because I couldn’t remember what it was I wanted to say, I kept reading. I read beyond the place where Matthew talked about the Transfiguration. I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  I seen Annie setting in the third row beside her mama. Annie looked at me and she looked at her lap. Why had I thought I’d impress her with my preaching? Why had I ever thought she cared anything about me? She looked so young she seemed just a child. She didn’t care what I said in the pulpit. I’d wanted to say something about going to the mountaintop, but what was it?

  “This is what can happen when we go up on the mountaintop,” I said. “This is what happens when we get up close to the Lord.” But I couldn’t recall what else I was going to say. It had all seemed so clear when I’d planned the sermon. But I couldn’t remember what the connection was.

  “Now let me read to you what Mark says,” I said. I crumpled pages of the Bible trying to find the passage in the Second Gospel, but I finally located the right chapter. “Listen to this,” I said. But as I read the verses I heard my voice in the still air of the church, and it sounded more like a boy reciting in school than any preacher. I couldn’t think of what words to say next, so I just kept reading again. And when I got to the end of the chapter I said, “There is blessings for us on the mountaintop if we’ll just go there. We can see the shining face of Jesus, and we can see his raiment white as snow.” I could feel the voice coming to me a little bit. It was not the talk I’d planned, but at least I was talking.

  “We can stand with our faces in the wind and feel the Spirit moving,” I said.

  Just then there was a whine in the back of the church. It was like the whine a wet log makes when it burns. The whine thickened to a blowing sound, and I knowed it was a poot, the loudest and longest fart you ever heard. It was like a trumpet and trombone together blowing a fanfare.

  I forgot what I was saying and couldn’t go on. My tongue was tied and flopped around helpless as a fish in mud. I tried to recall what I’d been saying, but nothing come out. I was froze, and then I seen Moody stand up and walk to the back window. He raised the back window with a groan and a bang and stuck his head outside. Laughter started at the back of the church and swept forward until it filled
the whole sanctuary like a mighty song.

  Two

  Ginny

  I HAD ALWAYS wanted there to be a preacher in the family. From the time I was a girl and started going to Holiness meetings I thought a preacher was the most wonderful man there was. What could compare with a man of God, a man of the Book, a man of the faith? If I had been a man I would have been a preacher myself.

  “All preachers have an eye for the girls and a mouth full of easy words,” my sister, Florrie, said. She always did like to say the worst thing that come to mind. She would say the most irreverent things, but she married David that wanted to be a preacher, and I married Tom Powell that didn’t hardly like to talk at all. Who could have foretold the choices of the heart? But even then I wouldn’t let Florrie smart-mouth me.

  “Next you’ll tell me preachers love fried chicken,” I said to Florrie.

  “Preachers do like fried chicken,” Florrie said.

  But Florrie knowed as well as I did a true preacher is the vessel of the Lord. A true preacher is a lamp that lights our feet and burns away the darkness of this world. A true preacher can charge the air in a church and in a congregation, and in a whole community. A great preacher can make the trees and rocks seem witnesses to the power of the Bible. A great sermon can make time itself seem a testimony to the grace meant for us.

  The best preacher I ever heard was Preacher McKinney who held the revival where I first received the baptism of fire and spoke in tongues. I had been saved before when I was twelve and been baptized in water and joined the church. I’d heard talk of sanctification and the baptism of fire but never thought much about them until I went to Preacher McKinney’s meeting. I’d gone to church all my years without loving it. I’d gone out of duty and habit. My pa had built the church when he come back from the Confederate War. I liked singing and good preaching, but I’d never seen the beauty of fellowship together.