Of Stillness and Storm

by Michele Phoenix

  He sighed and scratched the back of his head a little too vigorously. “We’ve been over this.”

  “And I’m still confused.” And frustrated. And angry. “You’re assuming that all the thoughts and details that are apparently completing the picture in your mind are in my mind too, but they’re not! All I hear is you saying, ‘We’re packing up, we’re moving to Nepal, and it’s going to be great because God’s told us to go.’” I threw up my hands in exasperation. “I need more than that—Ryan and I need more than that!”

  “Why?” He leaned in, arms outstretched, every inch of his body expressing his incomprehension. “This has never been in question. We’ve always said—even in our wedding vows!—if God calls us, we’ll follow. Wherever he calls us, we’ll follow.” He said the first word again, giving extra emphasis to the second part. “Where—ever.”

  I motioned to him to calm down. “And I’m not recanting what I said on our wedding day,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and measured. “But I can’t just manufacture the same level of certainty you seem to feel for this … this … thing.”

  “Calling.”

  “What?”

  “Not a ‘thing.’ A calling.”

  I cringed. Inserting God into the negotiations felt like unfair advantage.

  Sam resumed his pacing. There was perspiration on his forehead and a tightness in the carriage of his shoulders that made him look feral. He was not a choleric man. In all our years of marriage, I’d only seen him lose his cool three times, all three for valid—even noble—reasons. So his anger on this night and others took me aback. I wondered if my doubts were reason or revolt, if my questions were moving the conversation forward or strangling it before it could conclude.

  “My wedding vows were sincere.” My voice shook with repressed frustration. “I still want to follow where God leads. But Sam … don’t you think that if God called you, he would have called me too?”

  “Maybe he is and you’re not hearing him.”

  I took a couple deep breaths and stifled a retort. “Let’s slow down a little. Okay? Take our time. Talk to a few people. You’ve always made lists of pros and cons. Let’s do that with this too.” I stepped over to where he stood and grasped his shoulders, forcing eye contact. “I’m not trying to stand in your way. I’m just …” He resisted a little as I framed his face with my hands. “I’ve got to be sure of this. Can we give it more time?”

  He took my hands and held them. “How much time do you need?”

  I felt the slow burn of frustration again. “I don’t … It’s not …” I didn’t know how long it would take. What pieces were missing. All I knew was the intensity of my hesitation. “Ryan is seven. He’s just started school. He has friends. He lives in a familiar world with all kinds of safety nets—”

  “And if we didn’t have Ryan,” Sam interrupted. “If we didn’t have a son, would you be reacting any differently?”

  I wanted to tell him that I’d pack a bag and be on my way to Kathmandu in a moment if we didn’t have Ryan, but … “I don’t know, Sam. This is sudden. And it feels like you’re acting—I don’t know—rashly.”

  “Passionately. About something that’s important to me.”

  “Impulsively.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on knees as he rubbed his hands over his face. “Think about it,” he said, more calmly this time, looking up at me. “Think about all the world-changers whose work started with just that. An impulse they acted on. A rash decision their loved ones might not have understood.” He shook his head in a sort of frustrated reverence. “David Livingston. Hudson Taylor …”

  “Sam.”

  “I don’t think I’m being impulsive. I think …” He stopped and breathed for a few moments, staring at the ceiling. “I think this is what I’m meant to do.”

  I moved to the bed and sat down next to him, my hand on his thigh in the only gesture of support I could muster. His arm came around me and I let him draw me in. “I love your passion, Sam,” I said, turning into the warmth of his shoulder.

  His voice rumbled through his chest. “But?”

  I burrowed in deeper, closer to his voice, closer to the heart that beat so fervently for the less fortunate and always would. “But I need for us to take more time. Just so we’re sure. You know?” I pulled back just far enough to see the pulse beating in his neck and concession on his face. “I just want to be sure. For Ryan’s sake.”

  He nodded and tightened his arm around me. Some of the tension went out of his body as he propped his chin on the top of my head. I relaxed into his chest and felt his breathing slow.

  I knew he was praying.

  Squawking geese walked on the frozen lake, following Ryan’s progress as he skipped, stick in hand, along the hardened ground. His blue jacket and bright yellow boots stood in stark contrast to the black-and-white scenery left by too many weeks of below-freezing temperatures. The long cold snap had been fun for the first few days, when school closings had allowed for fireside games and hot cocoa. But there are only so many rounds of Monopoly a family can play. Only so many finger-painting projects an eight-year-old can tolerate. “Can we please get a Wii?” our stir-crazy son had asked roughly fourteen times a day for the past two weeks.

  So though the sky was overcast on this early-April Saturday and the fog far from inviting, an acute case of cabin fever and temperatures finally rising above freezing had made us venture out for goose-feeding and a bit of fresh air. I could feel my lungs celebrating the luxury.

  Ryan walked ahead of me on our slow progress around the lake. Every so often, he stopped to show me a leaf coated with ice or to point at something the geese were doing. Sam had motioned us on after answering his phone back at the car. “I’ll catch up with you,” he’d mouthed. I wasn’t sure who had called, but I had a fairly good idea of the topic they were discussing. I glanced over my shoulder—he was sitting in the driver’s seat, still talking. He’d been doing a lot of that since bringing home those brochures of Nepal three months ago.

  I loved watching Ryan when his mind and body were released from the restrictions of schoolwork and planned activities. The looseness in his gait, the frequent changes of direction and focus, the eyes-wide-open contemplation of the world … They spoke of a lightheartedness I couldn’t imagine—a lack of preoccupation I envied.

  I watched him insert his stick into a discarded Coke can and lift it into the air, then flick it at an oak tree. It hit the trunk with a bright clatter, and he did a little victory dance, mouth open in imitation of a cheering crowd. He ran over to retrieve the can and launched it again, this time in the direction of a sign that warned against walking on the ice. The can sailed past the sign onto the frozen pond and scattered the geese still hoping to be fed. He looked at me and covered his mouth with a blue-mittened hand.

  I shook my head. “Ryan …”

  “I was aiming for the sign!” he said, running over to me and pointing back in the direction of the painted warning his missile had missed.

  “And now there’s a Coke can in the middle of the lake.”

  “I can go out and get it!” He stopped in front of me, eyes wide with the adventure he imagined. “I can go out really slowly, and if I hear cracking, I’ll come right back.”

  “You’re not going out on the ice, Ryan.”

  He pointed at the can with his stick and put on his best responsible expression. “But I put the can out there! Now I have to go get it before the geese eat it or something.”

  I crouched down in front of him. “When was the last time you saw a goose eat a soda can?”

  His forehead wrinkled as he frowned, deep in thought. “Sasha—at Brendon’s party.”

  I gave him my stop-fooling-around look. “That was a dog and a cupcake.”

  “But it could have been a goose.”

  There was no contradicting that kind of logic, not when it was so earnestly expressed. He looked at me with the sort of conviction he brought to endorsing the health b
enefits of Wii games and the nutritional value of donuts. “Mom,” he said with confidence, my agreement apparently a foregone conclusion, “we can’t leave a tin can out on the lake.”

  I’d always wanted children—I’d imagined all my life what motherhood would feel like. But nothing had prepared me for the surges of love that overtook me at random times. There were moments, like this one, when feelings so fierce I forgot to breathe made me want to grab my son and hold on so tightly that he’d know the full force of my devotion. Oh, how I loved this little human being. His laughter fed my soul. His tantrums and demands sturdied it. His love heartened it.

  On this day, a protective rush exacerbated the already powerful emotions. Sam and I were still at odds. His passion and my reticence formed an uncomfortable, combustible dichotomy. I despised the tension and its toll on our marriage. But as I took in the details of Ryan’s upturned face, I felt the repercussions of a possible mistake like a physical ache. I had to be sure before we moved forward with Sam’s plans. For Ryan’s sake, I had to be convinced.

  We were standing by the railing throwing stale bread to the geese that had stranded themselves in Indiana for the winter when Sam joined us. Ryan ran up to him, pointing at the ice.

  “Dad, we have to go out there and get the can!”

  Sam followed the direction Ryan was pointing. “It’s pretty far out there, kiddo.”

  “But if a goose eats it, it could die!”

  “The goose or the can?”

  Ryan furrowed his forehead. “What?”

  Sam found a spot where the embankment was gradual enough for him to reach the edges of the lake. Ryan yelled instructions at him. “Go really slow, Dad! If you hear cracking, you have to run right back, okay? Dad, take my stick in case a goose gets mad!”

  Sam was a good sport. He took a couple steps out onto the ice and hopped once, just to make sure it would hold his weight. Then he shuffled out far enough to reach the can with Ryan’s stick and send it clattering back to the shore. Ryan whooped and did his victory routine again, exchanging a vigorous high five with Sam when he joined us.

  We ambled on to the park’s designated barbecue area, where a small deck projected a few feet over the lake. “You want some bread?” Ryan asked, waiting for his dad to join him at the fence.

  “You go ahead and feed them, buddy.”

  “But Dad!”

  I pulled a piece of stale bread from the bag I carried and handed it to Sam. “If you can’t beat ’em …”

  He smiled as he took the bread from my hand, then tore off a piece and threw it to a smaller goose that hung back a bit from the rest. “That one’s not looking too good,” he said as he tossed another piece. My husband the rescuer.

  Ryan could have stayed out there for hours, despite the cold. He was fascinated—enraptured, really—with animals and always had been. Sad? Mad? Stubborn? Sickly? All I had to do was mention a trip to the petting zoo, the pet store at the mall, or to the lake to feed the geese, and my little guy perked up.

  I handed Ryan his fourth slice of bread and instructed him to break it into smaller pieces so it would last longer.

  “I know, Mom,” he said, drawing out my name. It’s not like I hadn’t told him the same thing with the first three slices.

  I tousled his hair with my purple-mittened hand. “When it’s gone, it’s gone.”

  “Okay.” And he chucked half of the piece at the feet of the loudest goose.

  Sam leaned on the fence next to his son and propped a foot on the lowest rung. I delighted in the similarities of their profiles. Same high cheekbones and deep eye sockets. Same classic nose. I was contemplating the similarities in their personalities too when Sam said, “Ryan, Mom and I have been talking and we want to tell you about something we’ve been thinking about.”

  I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach. “Sam …” I wasn’t ready for this conversation.

  Ryan’s face brightened. “A puppy?”

  “No,” Sam said, mock-aggravated. “We’re not getting a dog!”

  Ryan went back to feeding the geese. “Shoot.”

  I tried to subdue the impulse to tell Sam to be quiet. We’d talked about this. We’d agreed that it would be good to very slowly introduce Ryan to the possibility of change. I’d initially resisted the notion, unwilling to put our son through the prospect of a difficult transition if we ended up not going after all. But Sam had convinced me of the value of this step, of the benefit of giving Ryan time to consider the possibility of a life-change we might choose for him. I just hadn’t expected this talk to come so soon.

  As we stood by the frozen pond, I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the quickly cooling air. Sam sought my gaze and held it for a moment. I nodded my agreement, though a bit reluctantly, and moved to stand closer to him. A unified front. That’s what we’d agreed on. He turned to lean back against the top rail of the fence and took my hand, drawing me nearer. I leaned into his side, arms crossed against the chill. His arm around my waist wrapped me closer to his warmth. “Remember that story we used to read to you?” he said to Ryan. “The one about the family that moved to Africa to bring Jesus to the people there?”

  “The lion story?”

  “Sure. The one with the lions and elephants.”

  Our son held out his hand for another slice of bread. He tore off a huge piece.

  “What would you think about us doing something like that?” My voice was deliberately calm and noncommittal.

  Ryan’s arm froze midthrow. He looked from Sam to me, then back to Sam. Then he frowned. “You mean, like, Africa?”

  We’d agreed not to mention Nepal until we were convinced that was where we were heading. “We’re not completely sure of the place just yet,” Sam said. I loved the softer tone he used when he talked to Ryan about important things. “But we think God might want us to move to another country.”

  “A faraway one?”

  “Maybe,” Sam said.

  Ryan tossed the piece of bread he was holding with a little less enthusiasm and turned toward us, traces of confusion on his face. I crouched down beside him and took one of his hands. “It’s not a for-sure thing yet,” I said quietly. “But we want you to know that we’re thinking about it, because it involves you too.”

  Sam came down on his haunches next to us and smiled his beautiful father-smile. “You know how sometimes we get this feeling that something’s going to happen?”

  “Like I might get sick if I eat another cookie?”

  I pinched my lips against a giggle.

  “Or like you know it’s going to be a really good game—even before the game starts,” Sam continued, a smile in his voice. When Ryan nodded, albeit a bit dubiously, he went on. “Well, Mom and I have wondered for a while if we might end up in another part of the world, telling people about Jesus. And I have that same kind of feeling that it might be a really great thing.”

  “You mean, going somewhere?”

  “Yup. Going somewhere.”

  “Will they have soccer?”

  “We don’t know yet,” I said as casually as I could. “But we want you to be thinking about it too, because we’re not going anywhere without you!” I kissed his face and he wiped it off.

  “I don’t want to go somewhere.” He turned and threw more bread at the waiting geese.

  Sam and I looked at each other, both still in a crouch while the subject of our concentration ripped another piece from the slice he held in his blue mitten. We groaned back to a standing position like seventy-year-olds. “Just think about it,” I said.

  Ryan shook his head. “I don’t want to go somewhere,” he said again.

  “We’re not going anywhere quite yet.” That was the problem with explaining theoretical situations to children who saw the world in immediate, immutable terms.

  Sam stepped closer to the rail to throw his last piece of bread onto the frozen surface of the lake. “We’re just giving you time to get used to the idea,” he said, gripping the top of Ryan’s hea
d in his large hand and giving it a shake. “We don’t know what’s going to happen yet.”

  Ryan’s chin jutted out a little as he too released his last piece of bread. He watched the geese leap toward it, wings flapping, barking in their comical show of bravado.

  I met Sam’s eyes and shrugged. We’d opened the conversation. It would take time and persistence to see where it led.

  As we headed to the car, there was a bit less lightness in Ryan’s zigzags and distractions. He stopped every so often to look back at us with something that looked like suspicion in his eyes. I held Sam’s arm and huddled close.

  seven

  ONE DAY UNTIL SAM CAME HOME. I HAD MY PRE-RETURN list taped to the fridge door—tasks to be accomplished before Sam got back. I plugged away at them during each three-week absence, but those I disliked or resented had the annoying habit of staying there, glaring at me from the rainbow-colored notepad as I scratched off the items above and below them.

  So on this eve of Sam’s return, I glared right back at the “Write newsletter” and “Finish accounting” lines on my to-do list. I would not even think of Facebook until the items were both checked off. They were excruciating endeavors for me. The first because I despised begging disguised as reporting. The second because I’d married a financial guru. If only I’d have thought of including “And you will do all the entering of expenses and income into our monthly budgeting plan” in my wedding vows. Hindsight.

  About six months into our life in Nepal, the giving that fueled our ministry had decreased. Forgetfulness. Lack of connection. Personal difficulties. We didn’t know what was causing the funds to dry up, but we were keenly aware that we’d be powerless without them. I’d had to find the right time to suggest to Sam that we engage in the type of communication he despised—newsletters and mass e-mails. “Just so people know what we’re accomplishing.”

  He didn’t like the concept. I think he saw it as lack of faith. His God was above all a provider and a miracle worker. He wanted him to show up without our effort—to prove the validity of our work through unsolicited, generous donations from people and churches whose only motivation was the work God was doing.