Leaving Church - Barbara Brown Taylor [48]
Late that week, a maintenance crew from Piedmont showed up with a flatbed trailer to transport my things to my new office. In no time at all they had piled my old couch, my chairs, my butler’s table, and my oak desk on the trailer, tucking dozens of book boxes in between. Since the trailer was an open one, the driver took his time traveling the six miles between the church and the college, while I followed behind him in case something fell off.
The last time I had driven twenty-five miles per hour down the highway, I had been following a hearse. My headlights were not on this time and no one pulled off on the shoulder of the road as I passed by, but there was still mourning going on in my front seat. I had thought I would stay at Grace-Calvary for ten years at least. I had thought I would be a good rector. I had thought I would know how to lead a congregation, and when I could not see the way ahead I had thought God would give me a vision. Instead, I had resigned with a mortgaged heart and a sense of defeat so great that I had no ready answer for friends who asked me why I left. The easiest thing was to tell them that I had always wanted to teach college, which was true, but behind that answer lay truths harder to confess. My quest to serve God in the church had exhausted my spiritual savings. My dedication to being good had cost me a fortune in being whole. My desire to do all things well had kept me from doing the one thing within my power to do, which was to discover what it meant to be fully human.
My possessions flapped pitifully in the breeze. The last time I had seen them heaped up like that was on the lawn of the parish house after my triumphal entry into Clarkesville. While I wanted this move almost as badly as I had wanted that one, there would be no one waiting for me on the other end this time. I would not meet my first classes until the beginning of the spring semester, which was still three months away. There would be no celebration of new ministry this time, no welcome gifts set in front of my door. Instead, the same crew that had loaded my things would unload them again, packing them into the tiny office in the business school, which was the only one available. Then they would go away and I would be alone, just as I had wanted to be.
By the time the procession reached the college, I had thrown dirt on the coffin and was ready to move furniture. Since only about half of what I owned would fit into my new quarters, I made two piles: things to keep and things to let go. I kept the desk, two chairs, and my grandmother’s crystal flower vase. I let go of the couch, the butler’s table, and the print of the Reverend Robert Walker ice-skating on Duddingston Loch.
As I passed through the door of my new office with my second load in my arms, I noted the nameplate, which carried no titles or honorifics. “Barbara Taylor,” it read, “Religion.” The Master of Divinity had become a member of the Department of Humanities. Feeling both the lightness and the bareness of that description, I hung my father’s academic gown on the back of the door, the one black robe that would replace my linen albs and brocade chasubles, my rainbow-colored stoles, my black cassock, surplice, cincture band, and tippet. My divestment had begun.
PART TWO
Losing
Vocation puts an end to you in order to disclose your true end.
RICHARD LISCHER
CHAPTER
11
What do you do the day after you change your life? I left Grace-Calvary so quickly that I had spent the last weeks tying up every loose end I could. Like a prisoner who wanted to leave her cell neat after her jailbreak, I was so focused on finessing my escape that I did not spare a thought for what I would do the next morning. Then the next morning arrived and I stood looking at a vast salt plain without the first idea what to do next.