Undaunted and undeterred, she had insisted upon placing the necklace with its medal into his palm, closing his other hand over top, pressing the cold metal to his flesh with whispered conviction.
“He’s the saint of all travelers.”
In the lobby of Pleasant Shade, he yanked off his hat and insisted he had not been religious at all—the Lord as his witness! By God, he wanted me to understand that! He was young and strong. He was brave and brash. He showed no damn weakness. He sure as hell didn’t need a savior, much less anyone’s mumbo-jumbo. But what did he have to lose?
He wore the metal around his neck every goddamn day of his time in the shit, including the day when a bomb burst out of nowhere, instantly killing his two best friends and knocking him to the hard ground. Even before opening his eyes, his trembling hands felt all over his body for wounds. Fearing the worst, he dared to look.
“And there it was. The blessed thing was lying in the mud right in front of me. I scooped it up and ran.”
He then reached under his shirt and pulled out an old piece of metal attached to a tarnished silver chain.
“Alright, Father, don’t just sit there with your mouth agape like a damn fish. Go ahead and serve the blessed wine.”
I managed to stammer something about being addressed as “Pastor” because I was not Catholic, but Moravian.
“Mormon? What the hell?”
I assured him that Moravians were, in fact, Protestants and added that, actually, I had grape juice. I gave the plastic bottle a little shake to swirl the good old Welch’s around.
“Ya damn Protestants,” he sighed. “No wine and no saints.”
When I came home for the second time on this my twenty-eighth anniversary, I found Bonnie talking to Philip on the phone. With a stern look, she handed me the receiver and mouthed be nice. She meant that she most certainly did not want me to pester him with a barrage of anxious questions concerning his specific behaviors over the past weekend. His twenty-first birthday is this Friday and Philip is coming home—provided that I do not jeopardize this precious opportunity ahead of time.
So I was very nice. In fact, I eagerly told Philip about the raw litany of the shit and Saint Christopher and so-called Mormons. The story prompted my youngest son’s trademark laugh, a small chuckle so quiet it was barely audible over the phone. I knew, however, that his shoulders would have been shaking with mirth. There is a secret to quiet laughter, Abraham Lincoln once wrote. Picturing Philip, I reflected upon my son’s life and what I know of his carnal relations and what I would give to protect him throughout his journey far from home. But I kept such thoughts to myself.
Philip wanted to know about Frank Powers, our old family friend who had recently moved to Pleasant Shade.
“Dad, you tell Mister Powers that I said I’m rooting for him, okay?”
I must try to remember, not only his words, but the sweetness of my son’s voice as spoke.
If they know Moravians are not Mormons, most outsiders will think of us for our Lovefeasts at Christmas. Perhaps they are familiar with our sugar cakes and thin ginger cookies. We are most known for our baking, which I suppose is better than half-baked theology. But to be Moravian is to value a story. The story is the candlewick—common, ordinary, and hardly worth anything at all; yet the candlewick carries the light. This is cause for gratitude before bed. I will also offer prayers for traveling mercies.
August 14th, 2000
I have learned how to be an early riser. This is one of the lessons of parenthood. When we were first married, I would take afternoon classes in order to lounge in bed as long as possible. Children require a different schedule. I would be up with the boys, which meant changing diapers and pouring cereal, hunting socks from behind dressers and playing Hide-and-Seek, talking and tickling, laughing and listening. I am not complaining. These everyday tasks were sacraments, connecting us even in ways beyond our awareness. The ties that bind are mysterious. Grace is found in the ordinary . . . if you are awake and paying attention.
Now my sons have outgrown our house, leaving me to take care of our dog.
Our Dylan is part Border collie, but has no interest in herding the likes of me, preferring to zigzag through the church’s cemetery on our morning walk, apparently lured by all manner of smells, each one beyond my limited olfactory capabilities. Perhaps we are both searching. It is my mind that wanders through time and space as we meander through God’s Acre. This is the traditional name given to each Moravian cemetery. Here at Talmage the grounds are actually more than an acre, but I absolutely believe these brothers and sisters belong to God.
According to our Moravian tradition, the gravestones are the exact same size, shape, and color, each an identical slab of white marble laid flat on the ground, inscribed with the person’s name, dates of birth and death, and a single verse of scripture. Even a much smaller dog could clear one of our markers with an easy leap. There are financial reasons underpinning this arrangement, which belie the economic constraints of the early communities. More poignantly, tall and fancy tombstones were not only regarded as ostentatious, but as examples of worldly indulgence offensive to the Lord. Looking out on the rows of identical rectangles, one cannot help but feel a sense of the fundamental equality of all humankind—a belief I hold to be close to the heart of God. We are all brothers and sisters.
Walking Dylan can be a chore, yet I choose to spend precious free time among the markers of the dead. Standing before a loved one’s tombstone, scraps of our conversations float to mind, bits and pieces of anecdotes, musings, questions. Faith. I have come to think of such fragmented recollections as prayer flags, colorful reminders of the unseen holy that passes through this world.
This very morning I noticed the grave of Paul Huxley, a friend who has been dead ten years. He came of age during the Great Depression, which indelibly marked many men and women of that generation. Along with other neighborhood children, Brother Paul used to chuck rocks at passing trains. “I had a good aim,” he once told me with a shy smile. This often provoked engineers to hurl coal in apparent retaliation. But these conductors, whizzing past children on the wrong side of the tracks, offered lasting kindness in those fleeting moments. The kids would collect the bits of fuel in order to bring them back to their families and heat their homes. Unspoken covenants are sealed in the fires of need. I have preached on that story before, though I forget what I took as my text. Sometimes I just want to keep a legacy aflame.
A little on ahead, there lies Jerry Bentley, the man who every year happily completed our taxes, free of charge. God rest his soul. Brother Jerry added and subtracted, multiplied and divided without the use of a calculator. “I have more faith up here in my round noggin’ than in any machine,” he had a habit of saying while tapping the side of his head. Admittedly, that made me a little nervous. But the IRS never knocked on my door. And I can now recognize a kind of freedom that is becoming rare in our technological era.
Dylan and I stumble across a tombstone with the name Peter Davidson, though everyone knew our brother as Buster. He once described a dream about a swarm of bees chasing him, getting closer and closer. Unable to outrun them, he turned and pelted rocks in their direction, killing some, driving the rest away. This aggressive self-defense angered a massive bear who charged, snarling in rage. Buster threw and threw, but nothing slowed the revenge-seeking beast. “There could be no escape,” he had whispered to me one quiet morning in my study at the church. Only a few weeks later, he was diagnosed with the inoperable, unstoppable brain tumor that snuffed his life much too soon.
I know without looking that Elmer Stetson is next to Buster. Though baptized Catholic, I never knew him to attend church regularly. I preached his service almost by default, as the man had no other pastor in his life. I became friendly with Brother Elmer because he would walk this very property and lob sticks into the adjoining woods, always with a sidearm throwing motion. I asked