“He’s hurting about Joe, maybe worse than we are. When Hunter hit that cow and killed it, I don’t think you know this, but it was the first time he was able to cry.”
Sam rose, deliberately swished water in his mug. “I’m sorry.” He set the mug on the sideboard. “I have to go.”
All through the years, he’d recognized the importance of not failing his sister. And now, look what he had to do.
“Sam? What are you telling me?”
Their disappointments hung in the air like dust, swirling between them.
It’s not that I don’t trust God anymore. It’s that I don’t trust me.
“You need to be the one who’s there for your son, Brenda. I don’t have anything to give him.”
CHAPTER TEN
As Sam filed into the Covenant Heights boardroom Tuesday night for the monthly church business meeting, he carried a burden of guilt with him. All day, he’d weighed the cost of deserting his sister. All day, he’d berated himself for feeling empty and dry and unable to minister to his nephew, the one person who, among the others, probably needed him the most.
Sam wanted nothing more than to have this meeting go smoothly so he could return to the house, sequester himself inside his leather chair with Ginny nestled beside his feet, and nurse his guilt even further.
All began well. The deacon board worked their way through the approval of Mary Grace’s minutes and the treasurer’s report and the adoption of the next year’s Sunday school curricula. They discussed the building-and-ground committee’s intention to accept bids for the parking-lot lights, extolled the virtues of the Concerto II Orchestral organ, and authorized the youth pastor to research a youth mission trip to Matamoros, Mexico, for next July. They decided, due to impressive attendance, to continue the early-morning contemporary praise-and-worship service, complete with Ian Barker’s snare drums. They set the final date for the Christmas cantata. Then, they even called an executive session and, upon its conclusion, voted to award Mary Grace a modest and well-deserved salary increase.
Not until the bedraggled group began shoving away from the table and piling papers into notebooks did Grant Ransom say in a measured voice, “Sam, we haven’t adjourned. There is another item we have to deal with.”
“Well, someone go ahead and adjourn us,” Dave Haw thorne said, glancing at his watch. “I wanted to catch the last of the Cardinals game.”
But no one did. Chairs scraped toward the table again. Mary Grace leaned forward beside Sam, her red hair shining in the overhead lights. She flipped open her tablet again and, with a heavy sigh, readied her pen to take more notes. “You know what this is about, Pastor Tibbits?” she whispered. “Grant didn’t say anything to me.”
Sam shook his head. “Me, neither.” He shrugged. And in that short moment, he remained blessedly unaware of the events about to ensue.
Mary Grace smelled like oranges. Grapefruit, maybe. Something citrus that seemed to match her hair. She, above all the others, understood his aspirations for Covenant Heights and for its congregation. In that short moment, Sam admitted that he found her presence both pleasant and reassuring beside him.
Grant, sitting three chairs down, pulled a yellow legal pad from beneath his arm. He tamped the pad on the table and, as seconds ticked by and Grant hesitated to speak, Sam began to wonder if something might be awry.
He glanced at Mary Grace again and, this time, it was her turn to shrug.
Sam was sure no one in the Covenant Heights congregation loved this little church more than the Ransom family. When Grant’s father-in-law had died, Grant had set up a good amount of their inheritance as an endowment fund to keep vacation Bible school functioning in perpetuity. Every Wednesday at lunchtime, Grant left his own office and came to the church. In forty-five minutes’ time, no matter how bad the weather, he would insist that Sam settle on a sermon topic, would sort through the big plastic letters in the storage room, and would post Sunday’s upcoming title—things like WHEN A WISE MAN COMES TO CALL or THE THREE STEPS TO FINDING YOUR DESTINY—on the billboard beside the street.
Most important of all, Grant had always been the one to stop by Sam’s study and say, “Buddy, what do you say we head over to Saylorville Lake and throw some rocks in? Let your dog get her feet wet? I know you could use a break and I could, too.”
Grant tamped his notes against the table again and started to speak. For a moment, Sam was distracted by the open window behind him. The summer night drifted in, soft and sweet smelling, and Sam began thinking of rolling down the windows in his car on the way home, listening to music. Grant’s words floated along toward him the same way he imagined the songs.
“. . . everyone knows . . . care for this church . . . deep love for its pastor . . .”
Sam made himself focus. Okay. Okay. What is this, friend?
“. . . jeopardize the . . .” Grant was saying, “I would never jeopardize the future of anything here.”
Oh, then, of course, Sam knew. The deacon board wanted to make certain he knew where they stood on his “meal for the homeless” issue. Grant’s next words confirmed Sam’s guess. “We all see how you’re pushing this, Sam. You need to know that several members of your deacon board do not think this is the direction that the church ought to go.”
“The Father is calling us to befriend the friendless, Grant. I don’t know how anyone can disagree with that.”
“None of us opposes the idea in principle, you know that. But, as a church, we can’t be all things to all people. We have others already worshiping with us who have needs.”
“I see.” And I see more, Sam thought.
Maybe he was wrong this time. Maybe something inside his own life, a compulsion he didn’t recognize, was causing him to feel this avid draw toward those living in the Des Moines streets. Maybe when Sam had been small, too young to remember, a street person had shown some kindness to him. But he didn’t want to turn away from this, an impulse within him that mirrored other impulses that had felt supernatural, something that might prod his flock toward the explicitly divine.
When Sam had invited the homeless man named Kil, who he’d met at a bus kiosk, to services this past Sunday, he had done so in hopes that others might meet Kil and be drawn into their pastor’s vision. That idea, however, hadn’t gone over well. Yes, the man had found a seat in the third-row pew this past Sunday—in the Hawthornes’ regular spot. Lester Kraft (wonderful, wonderful Lester) had hugged Kil in welcome during the greeting time. But Kil hadn’t smelled good. He had sniffed stridently and made loud comments while Sam delivered the message. He had rocked back and forth in the pew. During the singing of hymns, he had shed what remained of his shoes, had shoved them beneath the pew in front of him, and had wiggled his dirty toes.
“I’ll admit,” Sam blurted out. “I invited him. If you heard his story—”
Sam had asked Kil questions about his life while they’d stood together, waiting for the city bus. Kil had come from Chicago, where he’d kept his earthly belongings in a shopping cart. One night a teenager had torched his shopping cart and by the time Kil’s street family had extinguished the flames, everything he owned was gone. His only friend, for a number of months, had been a beagle named Bench. Kil had unchained the dog from the back of a truck only to find out, after Bench happily and opportunely followed him along the streets for two weeks, the dog’s name engraved on its collar was short for “Approach the Bench.” Kil had untied a drug search dog worth thousands.
“—if you heard his story, you might feel differently about it.”
“I’ve heard plenty of stories about the homeless in Des Moines. I’ve given money to the shelters myself.”
The Scriptures, the images, the arguments had all been engraved deeply within Sam. What is it about this, Grant? he might have asked. Are you just afraid of having the homeless finding a refuge here? Or does it go deeper? Would you not welcome someone from the poorer side of Des Moines? Or someone who wasn’t born and raised in Iowa?
&
nbsp; Sam might have quoted something from the Bible. Psalm 113 came to mind. He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap. Or he might have asked, Since when have you been willing to leave things the way they are, Grant? Since when have you been satisfied with the status quo?
But Sam held his breath, aching inside, and let all these comments go unspoken between them.
“You know my family supports Covenant Heights financially. But we might have to rethink things. We may not want to commit this much to a church that cares more for entertaining vagrants than it does for its own congregation.”
This intense calling to encourage his flock, this need to reach out to people like Kil, had begun well before Sam and Brenda had helped their dad move their mom into the retirement center. It had been with him well before Joe had fallen ill. He had been pushing for this during Joe’s emotional and taxing funeral, Sam’s helping Brenda, and Hunter wrecking the Mustang. His desire to reach out to the homeless had remained a firm certitude the entire time Sam had prayed for Joe’s healing. Now, it was the only thing Sam had left.
“There are agencies in place to take care of the homeless, Sam. These people are not fundamentally the church’s problem.”
“I believe this goes deeper than being an agency, Grant. I believe we’d be reaching out in love to the most unreachable, unsaved in Des Moines.” Then, “You would withdraw your financial support over this? The Ransom endowment?” Sam knew this was the wrong way to put the question, but Sam suddenly felt too exhausted to measure his words. “After everything our friendship has meant to both of us?”
“Don’t take this to a personal level, Sam. This is about the church.”
For one split second, one curious moment that Sam couldn’t decipher, his deacon and friend examined a thumbnail. “Your energy level, Sam. We see that you’re tired. Ever since Joe died, you aren’t as effective with the congregation as you could be.”
“I see.”
“The other day when I walked into your office, you were sitting with your head on your desk.”
“Yes.”
“You aren’t paying attention to details. The lighting of the parking area, for instance. And now you’re talking about bringing in another ministry, something that will drain you further.” From some distant, hollow place, Sam heard Grant proceeding. “There are those of us here, Sam,” he said very gently, very carefully, “who think you need to take a sabbatical from Covenant Heights.”
Sam lifted his chin and stared at Grant. For the first time he noticed the quiet around the table. “What do you mean?”
“We mean that you need a break from the church. You know. Something of a vacation.”
And something else whispered back to him, It means they’re not satisfied with you anymore.
No one moved. Dave Hawthorne, who must not have known about this beforehand, stared in shock at his St. Louis Cardinals cap beside his arm. Sam heard Mary Grace’s breath come in a painful rush. Harvey Mitler, another deacon, stared at the lid of his Bic ballpoint as if it might shoot off and fly across the room any second.
“Have I done something wrong? Have I offended anyone? Grant, have I offended you?”
Silence.
“Am I repeating too many of the same jokes from the pulpit or what?”
The warm breeze from the open window made everything feel damp, the computer beneath his fingers, the skin on the base of his neck. “At this point,” Grant said, “we think we are better off as a congregation without you.”
“We?” Sam asked. “Who is we?”
“Your deacon board. We had a quorum. We voted.”
What gave Sam the oddest feeling—the most painful thing of all, really—was realizing that this had been discussed among his colleagues, whispered in hallways, brought up over lunches, dissected over cell phones, and he had never had any idea.
“I see,” Sam said, parroting himself, hating his voice for sounding like an automaton. His throat had squeezed shut and he couldn’t seem to force it open. “How long?” he finally managed. “How long do you want me to stay away?”
“We were thinking, oh, two, three months. Enough for you to figure out what the priorities of Covenant Heights need to be.”
“You’re expecting me to change my mind?”
“We’re hoping you’ll decide to focus in some other area.”
But who is going to preach Sunday if I’m not here? Who is going to talk to Lester about the carbon dating of the earth and Dottie about the faith it has taken to trust God with her son and the lonely man in the park who is grieving his dog Bench?
Sam wondered if there would even be a job left for him when he returned, if they wanted him to be gone for so long.
Why take a sabbatical? Where would I even go?
“Who would take my place? An associate? Would someone step up?”
“The board has already contacted several people. We’ve found someone who’ll serve as interim pastor. We’re bringing someone in. Someone who—”
“—will use my study. Do my job.”
What are they going to do without me for three months?
Who is going to eat all those casseroles if I don’t?
Fear began to needle at him. Suddenly, Sam wondered if he would have a position here when he returned. No matter how Sam worked to remind himself that fear wasn’t from the Lord, that his Father must have a reason for this, the questions flew at him.
If anything happened so that I wasn’t a pastor, how could I be anything else?
“You understand that it’s a space issue. If we had space to put him in a different office, we would do that.”
Long after the others had left for home that night, long after Grant had driven away and Dave had gone to try and catch the bottom of the ninth in the Cardinals game, Sam remained at the conference table, staring at his hands, shocked.
Shocked that Grant had threatened to withdraw financial support, which felt almost treacherous.
Shocked that tomorrow morning when he got out of bed and began to plan, nothing would be the same as it had been today.
Uncertainty began its first niggling assault upon him. Perhaps the deacons were right and he was wrong, perhaps he had somehow misinterpreted his calling, lost his focus. Perhaps they saw clearly and Sam’s own vision, which he depended on for his very survival in this pastorate, had grown murky.
This is everything I know how to be, Lord.
I wouldn’t know how to do any of this differently.
A vast library of reference books and tattered choir music and twenty years’ worth of teaching materials lined the high dark shelves around him. The room had never felt so empty, so heavy and meaningless, so devoid of sound.
Yet he was not quite alone. Mary Grace had been the only person who did not scurry away from him the moment the meeting adjourned. After the others had filed out, she had remained in her chair.
Sam had readied himself for her outburst of immediate sympathy. But that had not come. The woman who lit up the church hallways like a bright jungle creature and who teased him about his fake office plants now ministered to him with her simple, silent presence. She offered him neither encouragement nor solace.
Even in his pain, how grateful he was that Mary Grace understood. Sam’s struggle with this unforeseen doubt took him beyond words.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sam and his dad walked together Tuesday morning, something father and son had made a pact to do once a week. They tramped side by side in two ruts of farm road that cut across Hamby’s cornfields, the seven o’clock August sun illuminating the green stalks with a golden glow. For a long time they didn’t talk. Their steps were long and powerful, their arms swinging in cadence, matching each other stride for stride. Their feet swished through the grass and, when they made it back to the Tibbits old house, their sneakers would be wet with dew.
Ginny ran ahead of them, bounding in zigzags among the stalks, sending cobwebs and corn silk scattering through the air like ribbon
s.
As Sam marched beside Edward Tibbits, doubts assaulted him like physical blows. How long had he faithfully battled for what he thought was right for the church?
Yes, he finally admitted, I’m grieving. Fatigued. Burned out.
If not for these things, his doubt might not have defeated him. He just didn’t think he could fight anymore.
If Grant is right and I’m wrong, if I’m not hearing from the Lord now, have I ever really heard from the Lord at all?
When they arrived at the house, Ginny slurped up water from a bowl Edward kept there for her. Their breath was still coming in heavy, labored gasps. They stepped inside the kitchen that hadn’t changed since Sam was a boy. The air inside felt stuffy, so Edward opened the window over the sink and went to switch on the attic fan.
His dad returned and Sam was acutely aware that he was still standing in the same spot Edward had left him. He never could walk into this kitchen without missing his mother. He swallowed hard. “How is she doing, Dad?”
“Not too well, son, I’m afraid.” Sam’s father tugged a tea towel off the rack, mopped his sweaty face, and hung it right back up again. “She didn’t have a thing to say when I showed her those.” He pointed to the photos he’d left on the counter.
“What are they?”
“Old vacation pictures. From Piddock Beach.”
“Can I see them?”
“Sure.”
Edward slid the entire stack toward Sam and they fanned out of their own accord. Sam picked them up and began to thumb through them.
“Those trips were always so much fun. I thought if I took them to the nursing home and talked about them, your mom would remember.”
“And she didn’t?”
Edward shook his head and reached for the orange juice carton. “No.”
“Dad. I’m sorry.”
As he watched his dad pour orange juice into a glass, Sam could see his hand shaking. Sam stood, studying that trembling hand, a hand that had once been sure and strong. Sam caught himself wanting to step to the sink and touch his father’s arm and make it stop. But that seemed wrong, too, even to acknowledge it. He turned to the pictures again and pretended he had not seen.
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