The Five Lives of John and Jillian

by Greg Krehbiel

  Episcopals never sing loud in any event, and certainly not at the beginning of the song. They tend to sneak in, waiting for the choir to get things going before they add their polite and subdued voices. Consequently, John didn’t like to start singing at the beginning of a hymn – he didn’t want to stand out. There was no danger of that here. The packed auditorium joined right in on the first note with a deep, throaty voice. Surprise that people were singing so lustily was quickly overcome by another observation – the men were singing, and singing loud.

  He looked around – maybe there were just more men here than women, which in itself would be a surprise – and at first that appeared to be so, but then he realized that while there were a lot of men, a disproportionately large number of them wore beards or mustaches. And that seemed fitting as well. These tunes weren’t sissy stuff played slowly – the “contemporary” music of choice at St. Anne’s. These were masculine songs. He could picture men marching to these tunes. They were well-ordered. The beat kept going – you didn’t have to guess when the organist felt moved to go on to the next measure.

  It invigorated him. He never knew singing church music could be like this.

  * * *

  “I’ll have the double fudge sundae and a cup of coffee,” Jillian told the waiter at TGI Fridays much later that night. The restaurant was only a short drive from the church, and Amy seemed eager to pull them aside to get their reactions. John and Jillian were quite willing to accommodate. The conference was a new experience for them, and John remembered, even back in high school band, how disappointing it was to go straight home after an eventful night.

  John’s weariness had evaporated during the surprisingly engaging evening, although he ordered two cups of coffee against the drive home. He noticed with a little disappointment that the coffee was in an open carafe on an open burner at the waiter’s station. But he needed the caffeine.

  “I envy you, Jillian,” Amy said after ordering a bowl of strawberries. “How do you keep your figure when you eat like that?”

  Jillian smiled. “I do yoga, and I only splurge every once in a while.”

  Amy looked at John with a “yeah, right, tell me the truth” look.

  John nodded. “No, she’s very careful about what she eats, which makes it hard on Valentine’s Day.”

  “Flowers always work,” Jillian said as she tried to take in the busy decor of the restaurant. It didn’t seem to have a discernible theme. There was a bicycle wheel mounted on the paneled wall just above a hockey stick and a Norman Rockwell painting. A fish net with cheap plastic crabs was draped over one rafter, just barely out of the way of a large, flat-screen television. The news was on, but the sound was drowned out by the crowd.

  “So what did you think of the first night?” Amy asked with a hopeful look.

  “Did you hear John singing?” Jillian laughed, turning back to face Amy. “I never thought I’d hear the day. You have a good voice,” she said, poking him in the arm. “Why don’t we hear more of you?”

  “Why don’t we fire the organist at St. Anne’s and hire someone who knows how to lead music?” he replied. “Then I’ll sing.”

  Amy laughed. “Let’s bring it up at the next congregational meeting. But other than the music, what did you think of the conference?”

  “It was stimulating and disappointing at the same time,” Jillian said. “But overall it was very good.”

  Amy set down her fork and furrowed her brow in disapproval.

  “What was disappointing?”

  “It’s hard to explain. It was more of a feeling than anything else. The message seemed disjointed from the surroundings. On the one hand, he spoke very persuasively about how the Gospel affects all of life – that Christian principles should change the way we view politics, and etiquette, and education, and music, and all that. That was all very good.”

  “Yes. But?”

  Jillian shook her head again. “But the whole place – the building, the people, the marketing, the book tables – it all screamed ‘secular.’ It was like bringing the church into the shopping mall.”

  Amy looked either perplexed or unconvinced. She knit her brows and her eyes narrowed.

  “Yeah? And what’s wrong with that? Aren’t we supposed to take the gospel to the world? How does it go? Wise as serpents and innocent as doves?”

  “I guess,” Jillian said, shrugging slightly. “But this conference wasn’t for non-Christians. For goodness’ sake! Do you think my pagan friends were going to get a piece in the mail on ‘Building a Christian Worldview’ and drop by?”

  “I have to agree with Jillian,” John said. “Remember what we talked about before – about how believing the world was going to end affected architecture?”

  “Okay. I’m not going to defend the design of the building,” Amy began, but John interrupted.

  “That’s not where I’m going. I’m talking about building a Christian culture. If we want to influence the world 100 years from now, we can’t adopt the culture’s attitudes and methods. We need to create our own culture – one that reinforces Christian principles.”

  “People walked in and out of that ... sanctuary – that auditorium ... like it was a ball park,” John said. “There was no sense of decorum.”

  “But it’s just a building, John,” Amy protested.

  “Is the flag just a piece of cloth?” John shot back.

  “It’s ... uh, symbolic of the respect we have for our country.”

  “You can’t saulte a country, can you? But the flag presents the country to you, in a manner of speaking. And it teaches people to have respect for their country. Our culture trains us from diapers to respect the flag because we ought to respect what it represents. One transfers over to the other.”

  “And a Christian culture,” Jillian interjected, “would instill respect for God through respect for the cross, and the Bible, and the church, and her ministers.” She laughed and shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m saying that. I used to hate all that stuff when I was in Catholic school, but I guess I see the sense in it. Even when I was a pagan, I would never have treated a Bible disrespectfully.”

  “Wow,” Amy said. “It’s really amazing how different people’s reactions can be to the same event.”

  “We’ve dominated the conversation a bit,” John said. “What did you get out of it?”

  “I took down a lot of notes about why churches should be building schools,” she said, and they all laughed.

  Chapter 15 – Sunday School for Pagans

  “Today we have a special treat,” Fr. Devlin said after a critical mass of adults finally filtered into the sanctuary from the nave, ten minutes after the official starting time for adult Sunday School. Sometimes it seemed that the coffee, donuts and conversation drew more people to St. Anne’s than the liturgy or the sermons, and it was a constant battle to get the congregation to quiet down and join the class. Perhaps everyone valued fellowship above a boring message on a worn-out topic. But this was Jillian’s day. If the message turned out to be boring, at least it would be something new – it wouldn’t be Fr. Devlin … again.

  “Some of you may not know this,” the priest continued, “but we have a witch in our church. Jillian Matthews is going to tell us a little about Wicca. Jillian.”

  Jillian stood up stiffly from one of the front pews and directed a curious look at Fr. Devlin. “I’m not a witch, of course,” she said. “I used to be involved in the craft – that’s what Wiccans call it – but I was never a witch. Not technically, anyway.” She worked her way to the front as Fr. Devlin took his seat on the opposite side of the sanctuary. “Before I got too far along in paganism I ran into my bookish beau,” she smiled at John, “and he cured me.

  “But anyway, we’re not here to talk about me, but about Wicca. I want to tell you what it is, what it’s not, and give you some ideas about effective ways to share the Christian faith with people who practice Wicca.”

  John knew this was coming and kept his ey
e on Fr. Devlin to read his expression. The priest wasn’t pleased.

  “First of all, there’s the Wiccan rede. ‘Rede’ is an ancient word that means counsel, or advice. You’ll see a lot of that in Wicca. They like to use old-fashioned words to make it seem as if theirs is the ‘old religion,’ but in reality most of it was invented very recently.

  “The Wiccan rede goes like this: ‘An it harm none, do what you will.’ That’s the one thing you can say confidently about Wicca. Just about every Wiccan confesses the wisdom of that saying, but on almost everything else one Wiccan may disagree with another.”

  “But that’s a very Christian sentiment, that rede,” Fr. Devlin interjected. “It’s a place where we have common ground.”

  She knew this was going to happen, and after talking it over with John, Jillian decided she wasn’t going to contradict the priest in class. She looked at John, who was just opening his mouth to speak when Wayne piped up from the other side of the sanctuary.

  “Actually, Father, there are two interesting contrasts between that Wiccan thing and Christian ethics. First, the Wiccan leaves no room for obligation to God, since we can’t ‘harm’ God by what we do or don’t do. Second, all other limits – things that might hurt our fellow man – are restricted to harms that we can understand. If the Wiccan doesn’t see how fornication harms anyone, then he believes it’s okay. But Christian ethics presupposes a theistic orientation on both of those points. We have certain obligations to God, and we have other obligations that limit harm to others, even when we can’t see how. Like, for instance, the prohibition on lust.”

  Fr. Devlin squirmed in his seat.

  “Besides that,” Wayne continued, surprised that no one had cut him off, “that Wiccan thing is different from Christian ethics even on a human level. Confucius said, ‘What you don’t want others to do to you, don’t do to them,’ which is close to the Wiccan idea. But Jesus said ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ That’s a radically different standard. It requires us not only to refrain from harming a neighbor, but to seek our neighbor’s good. ‘Do unto others.’ It’s active.”

  Several heads nodded respectful agreement with Wayne, but Fr. Devlin couldn’t let it stand at that.

  “I’m sure Wiccans believe in helping people,” he said. “But we agree that you aren’t supposed to harm others, and I think that’s a significant similarity. Go on, Jillian,” he said in a tone that meant, “let that be the end of the other discussion.”

  Wayne shook his head in disgust, to the amusement of several people in the congregation. John smiled at Wayne. “You can only do so much,” he tried to say with his expression.

  “Okay,” Jillian continued, glad to move along. “The next thing to know about paganism is the wheel of the year. Pagans of all stripes, including Wiccans, but also including the Canaanites that Israel had to contend with, believe that the cycles of the year are a picture of the interactions between the Goddess and the God.” She glanced at John with a half-serious accusing look. John almost laughed.

  “Basically,” she continued, “it’s a fertility thing. Spring fertility symbolizes the union of the Goddess and the God. In the autumn, the God loses his strength and eventually dies at Samhain, the holiday we know as Halloween. He’s reborn again, of the Goddess, at Yule, when the days start to get longer. By spring time he grows again to manhood and it starts all over again.”

  “And of course the Nativity is during Yule,” Fr. Devlin said, “which is another point of contact between Christianity and paganism.”

  Jillian nodded. “Yes, thanks for bringing that up, because I think it’s an interesting point. I used to think that Christianity was just copying from the pagans. The pagan god is born at Yule, so we have Christmas in December. But when John and I started to reinvestigate Christianity, I began to wonder if it might be the other way around. In other words, maybe paganism is like a bad reflection of the truth. St. Paul says that God has left Himself a witness in every culture, and I think we can see that in some of these similarities – as if, by hints and shadows, God was preparing the pagan mind to hear the Gospel.”

  Fr. Devlin looked as if he’d swallowed a sour glass of lemonade and was trying to hide it.

  “But anyway,” Jillian continued, “the rites of Wicca are designed to help the Wiccan participate in this cycle – to re-enact it sacramentally, you might say.”

  “What do you mean, ‘participate in’?,” asked a middle-aged man in one of the back seats. “Is this why we hear about sex orgies and things like that in pagan religions?”

  “Exactly,” Jillian said. “Not all modern-day pagans take it to that level, but some do. The Baal cults you read about in the old testament were fertility cults. They had temple prostitutes for precisely that kind of ‘worship.’ The ‘worshipper’ would approach the priestess, and their action would ensure that the God and Goddess would do their part to make the earth fertile.

  “This is the essence of magic,” she continued, “and it’s tied up with the idea of the ‘Chain of Being,’ which is another concept you should know. According to this theory, everything is linked. A thing below is linked to a thing above. By manipulating the right object – even normal, everyday stuff – you manipulate other things up the chain, and ultimately you manipulate the deity, who’s at the top. This is where you get all the ‘eye of newt, wing of bat,’ stuff. The Wiccan believes that these things connect to something else in the chain of being, and that by doing something to these objects, spiritual forces can be manipulated and controlled.

  “Some Wiccans actually believe in magic in this way, which is,” she looked at Fr. Devlin, “a point of contact because it’s based on a belief in something real. That is, something that is true whether you like it or not. But many modern-day pagans don’t believe in objective reality. In their mind, everything is the way it is because people believe it to be that way, and the key to changing the circumstances of your life is to believe differently. For that kind of Wiccan, the ‘chain of being’ doesn’t actually exist. The point of the objects is to help the Wiccan to visualize what she wants, and it’s the visualization that creates the result.”

  Jillian looked around for any other questions, and decided it was time to bring out some of her tools. She unwrapped a cloth as she continued.

  “I’ve brought along a few of the things Wiccans use in their ceremonies.”

  She spent a few minutes explaining the differences between the sharp and dull knives, the purpose of the candles and the pentacle, but she used most of her time explaining how much she liked learning about herbs and their uses.

  “This isn’t magic or Wicca, really. It’s just a hobby of mine, and I think it’s part of the reason I was drawn to Wicca. Growing my own plants and learning what they can be used for seemed like a way to recapture something that was missing in modern life.”

  “A lot of people feel closer to God in their gardens,” an older woman commented. Jillian looked up and smiled at her. She’d have to invite the woman for coffee some day to talk about gardening.

  “So why don’t you show us how Wiccans use these things, Jillian,” Fr. Devlin said. “Do a Wiccan ritual for us.”

  Jillian furrowed her brow and looked sharply at Fr. Devlin. He was smiling in a very strange way, as if the smile was a mask he wore to hide his true expression. Jillian looked at John, whose face said, “I told you it would come to this.”

  She hadn’t doubted it. What she wondered was how the people of St. Anne’s would react to such a thing from their shepherd. She surveyed the expressions on the faces in the pews. Some showed indifference, some curiosity, and some – too few, she thought – fear or anger. In the moment she took it all in, she noticed something curious about the distribution of the people. Those seated on her right seemed, along with their other expressions, to be upset at Fr. Devlin’ suggestion, while those on her left seemed unnaturally eager, like a dog waiting for a bone.

  Jillian felt a smile form on her face as an id
ea took shape in her mind.

  “You know,” she said, arranging her tools in front of her, “there are no set rituals in Wicca. Each Wiccan is free to come up with her own rituals. The idea is that the ritual should express your own desires, longings, aspirations and hopes. The tools you use and the actions you perform are supposed to symbolize all of that.” She began to wrap the cloth around the tools on top of the table. “So I think this one would be appropriate for today.”

  She picked up the cloth, now wrapped like a sack around her collection of Wiccan artifacts, and, to everyone’s surprise, began to walk down the aisle, out of the sanctuary. Every head turned to follow her. When she reached the doors she turned to see that everyone was watching, and then she tossed the sack and all its contents into the trash can.

  Laughter rippled through the sanctuary as she walked back.

  “Well, I guess that’s it for Wicca. It’s in the church’s trash can, beneath the cross, where it ought to be.”

  Again she surveyed the expressions in the room. Those on her right, who had been shocked, were now amused and relieved, while those on her left were disappointed.

  As several people stood and congratulated Jillian on a good class, John watched Fr. Devlin. He was sitting as still as a stone, with a slight, incomprehensible smile on his face, staring at the wall across the room.

  John saw Jillian engaged in a polite conversation with the older woman who made the comment about gardening. He waited a respectful distance away, watching the rest of the congregation exchange late good mornings and small talk, and then clear out of the sanctuary to make room for the next worship service.

  “Great job,” John said with a big smile when he got her attention. “I really liked your new ritual.”