Gilead - Marilynne Robinson [37]
Every one of us had bolted out of a barn or a woodshed when a shadow moved or there was a thump of some kind, so there were always more stories to tell. I remember once Louisa said we ought to pray for the man's conversion. Her thought was that it would be better to go to the source of the problem than to keep praying for divine intervention on behalf of each one of us in every situation of possible danger. She said it would also protect people who had never heard of him and would not think to pray before they did their milking. This struck us as wise and parent-like, and we did, indeed, pray for him concertedly, to what effect only the Lord knows. But if you or Tobias happen to hear this story, I can promise you that the villain is probably about one hundred by this time, and no longer a threat to anyone.
I did know a little about the shirts and the gun because of a quarrel my father and grandfather had had. My grandfather, who of course went to church with us, had stood up and walked out about five minutes into my father's sermon. The text, I remember, was "Consider the lilies, how they grow." My mother sent me to look for him. I saw him walking down the road and I ran to catch up with him, but he turned that eye on me and said, "Get back where you belong!" So I did.
He appeared at the house after dinner. He walked into the kitchen where my mother and I were clearing things away and cut himself a piece of bread and was about to leave again without a single word to us. But my father came up the porch steps just then and stood in the doorway, watching him. "Reverend," my grandfather said when he saw him. My father said, "Reverend."
My mother said, "It's Sunday. It's the Lord's Day. It's the Sabbath."
My father said, "We are all well aware of that." But he didn't step out of the doorway. So she said to my grandfather, "Sit down and I'll fix a plate for you. You can't get by on a piece of bread."
And he did sit down. So my father came in and sat down across from him. They were silent for some time.
Then my father said, "Did my sermon offend you in some way? Those few words you heard of it?"
The old man shrugged. "Nothing in it to offend. I just wanted to hear some preaching. So I went over to the Negro church."
After a minute my father asked, "Well, did you hear some preaching?"
My grandfather shrugged. "The text was 'Love your enemies.'
"That seems to me to be an excellent text in the circumstances," my father said. This was just after somebody set that fire behind the church that I mentioned earlier. The old man said, "Very Christian."
My father said, "You sound disappointed, Reverend."
My grandfather put his head in his hands. He said, "Reverend, no words could be bitter enough, no day could be long enough. There is just no end to it. Disappointment. I eat and drink it. I wake and sleep it."
My father's lips were white. He said, "Well, Reverend, I know you placed great hope in that war. My hopes are in peace, and I am not disappointed. Because peace is its own reward. Peace is its own justification."
My grandfather said, "And that's just what kills my heart, Reverend. That the Lord never came to you. That the seraphim never touched a coal to your lips—"
My father stood up from his chair. He said, "I remember when you walked to the pulpit in that shot-up, bloody shirt with that pistol in your belt. And I had a thought as powerful and clear as any revelation. And it was, This has nothing to do with Jesus. Nothing. Nothing. And I was, and I am, as certain of that