Leaving Church - Barbara Brown Taylor [67]
If another loss in the months following my resignation was the loss of Mother Church, I gained a new attachment to the Holy Spirit, whom I steadfastly experienced as “she.” She was unpredictable. She was not safe. She was life-giving. While my heart continued to swell whenever I heard a string of wild geese passing overhead, I also learned to recognize the shrill call of a red-tailed hawk who hunted the fields around my house. I knew that she ate the wide-eyed field mice with the white bellies whom I liked so much, along with any chick that strayed too far from its mother’s shadow, but I could not hold that against her. It was the price of her wild beauty, the price I paid to watch her fly.
To see her fold her wings and stoop, falling through the air like a lightning bolt on her prey, was to wonder if Jesus did not see something more like that than “something like a dove” when the heavens split open at his baptism. Maybe the gospel writers did not want to scare the rest of us off, so they left out the part about the talons. I will never know, but I do know that as I emerged out from under the safety of one pair of wings, I was ready to climb onto the back of another. I was even ready to be gripped in her claws, if that was what it took to be carried aloft.
CHAPTER
15
Long before I moved to Clarkesville, I knew my way to the rustic lodge at Unicoi State Park in neighboring White County. Set in deep woods near Anna Ruby Falls, it was a favorite destination for big Atlanta churches on weekend retreats, where people looked forward to cedar in the air, fried catfish on the supper buffet, and quilts on the beds. The promise of these things appeased us as we crept out of town in rush-hour traffic, nosing our way through the visible tunnel of exhaust that hung over the expressway. When the four-lane ended in Gainesville, we took Highway 129 north to Cleveland, then switched to 85 for the last stretch that led past Ma Gooch’s restaurant, the lumberyard, and the Yonah Burger stand.
After almost two hours in the car, we knew what we were looking for. Just south of Helen, at the mouth of the Nacoochee Valley, stands an Indian mound topped by a white Victorian gazebo. The sizable knoll sits in the center of a lush pasture full of Holsteins, which makes the place a favorite for photographers. On a sunny day, with Yonah Mountain rising above the field and the Chattahoochee River sparkling behind it, the black and white of the cows against the vivid green of the grass and the loud blue of the sky can make you forget to watch where you are going. Plenty of people pull over to gape, whether or not they remembered to pack their cameras.
According to the historical marker, this is a burial mound, partially excavated by the Smithsonian back when robbing graves still passed as scientific research. Now fully protected, it attests to the once-vibrant presence of native people who knew a life-giving place when they saw one, and who died inside when they were forced to leave. Both Cherokee and Creek, their troubles began in earnest when they fought on the wrong side of the Revolutionary War. Because the British promised them more protection from the settlers who were invading their tribal lands, the natives joined the royal army of a king they had never seen. When the king lost, he recalled his troops to their home across the sea, leaving the native people to fend for themselves.
Already decimated by war, they were further weakened by starvation