Gilead - Marilynne Robinson [30]
You know the Lord's Prayer and the Twenty-third Psalm and Psalm 100. And I heard your mother teaching you the Beatitudes last night. She seems to want me to know that she will bring you up in the faith, and that's a wonderful effort for her to make, because frankly, I never knew anyone in my life with a smaller acquaintance with religion than she had when I first knew her. An excellent woman, but unschooled in Scripture, and in just about everything else, according to her, and that may be true. I say this with all respect.
And yet there always was that wonderful seriousness about her. When she first came to church she would sit in the corner at the back of the sanctuary, and still I would feel as if she were the only real listener. I had a dream once that I. was preaching to Jesus Himself, saying any foolish thing I could think of, and He was sitting there in His white, white robe looking patient and sad and amazed. That's what it felt like. Afterward I would think, That did it, she'll never come back^ and then the next Sunday there she'd be. And once again, the sermon I'd spent the week on would be ashes in my mouth. That happened before I even knew her name.
I had an interesting talk this morning with Mr. Schmidt, T.'s father. It seems he overheard some inappropriate language. I'd overheard it, too, in fact, since it has been the favorite joke between the two of you for the last week. I'll admit I didn't see the need to object. We said the same thing when we were children and emerged unscathed, I believe. One of you asks, in a nai've and fluting voice, AB, CD goldfish? And the other replies in the deepest voice he can muster, a voice full of worldliness and scorn, L, MNO goldfish! And then outrageous and extravagant laughter. (It is the L, need I say, that has disturbed Mr.
Schmidt.) That young man was very earnest, and I had a terrible time keeping a straight face. I said gravely that, in my experience, it is better not to attempt too strict an isolation of children, that prohibition loses its force if it is invoked too generally. He finally deferred to my white hair and my vocation, though he did ask me twice if I was Unitarian.
I told Boughton about this, and he said, "I have one fet that letter ought to be excluded from the alphabet." Then he laughed, tickled with himself. He has been in high spirits since he heard from Jack. "He'll be home soon!" he said. When I asked him where he was coming from, Boughton said, "Well, the postmark on his letter said St. Louis."
I won't tell your mother about my talk with Mr. Schmidt. She wants very much for you to keep your friend. She suffered when you didn't have one. She suffers for your sake much more than she should. She always imagines the fault is with her, even where it appears to me there is no fault at all.
She told me the other day she wants to read those old sermons that are up in the attic, and I believe she will do that, I really do. Not all of them—that would take years. Well, perhaps I can get a box of them down here somehow and do a little sorting. It would put my mind at ease to feel I was leaving a better impression. So often I have known, right there in the pulpit, even as I read the words, how far they fell short of any hopes I had for them. And they were the major work of my life, from a certain point