The Mitford Bedside Companion Read online

  Father Tim slid into the pew across the aisle and knelt on the worn cushion. “You may be asking the wrong question,” he said, quietly.

  Startled, the man raised his head.

  “I believe the question you may want to ask is not ‘Are you up there?’ but ‘Are you down here?’”

  “What kind of joke is that?”

  “It isn’t a joke.”

  The man took a handkerchief from his suit pocket and wiped his face. He was neatly dressed, the rector observed, and his suit and tie appeared to be expensive. A businessman, obviously. Successful, quite likely. Not from Mitford, certainly.

  “God wouldn’t be God if He were only up there. In fact, another name for Him is Immanuel, which means ‘God with us.’” He was amazed at the casual tone of his voice, as if they’d met here to chat for a while. “He’s with us right now, in this room.”

  The man looked at him. “I’d like to believe that, but I can’t. I can’t feel Him at all.”

  “There’s a reason…”

  “The things I’ve done,” the man said flatly.

  “Have you asked Him to forgive the things you’ve done?”

  “I assure you that God would not want to do that.”

  “Believe it or not, I can promise that He would. In fact, He promises that He will.”

  The man looked at his watch. “I’ve got a meeting,” he said, yet he made no move to leave. He remained on his knees.

  “What business are you in?” It was one of those questions from a cocktail party or Rotary meeting, but out it came.

  “Shoes. We make men’s shoes. I was on my way to a sales meeting in Wesley when I saw this place and I came in. I didn’t mean to do it, I just couldn’t help it. I had to come in. And now I don’t know what I’m doing here. I need to get on the road.”

  Still, he made no move to rise from his knees.

  * * *

  Do not look forward to what may happen tomorrow; the same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of you tomorrow and every day. Either He will shield you from suffering, or He will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace, then, put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations, and say continually:

  “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart has trusted in Him and I am helped. He is not only with me…but in me…and I in Him.”

  —St. Francis de Sales, from A Continual Feast: Words of comfort and celebration, collected by Father Tim

  It was an odd thought, but the rector pursued it. “Let’s say you need to move into another factory building. Trouble is, it’s crowded with useless, out-of-date equipment. Until you clear out the rubbish and get the right equipment installed, you’re paralyzed, you can’t produce.”

  “How did you know we’re looking for a new factory?”

  “I didn’t know. A divine coincidence.”

  There was a long silence. A squirrel ran across the attic floor.

  “You can keep the factory shut down and unproductive, or you can clear it out and get to work. Is your life working?”

  “Not in years.”

  Somewhere in the dark church, the floor creaked. “There’s no other way I can think of to put it—but when you let Him move into your life, the garbage moves out. The anger starts to go, and the resentment, and the fear. That’s when He can help get your equipment up and running, you might say.”

  “Look, I don’t want to wallow around in this God stuff like a pig in slop. I just want some answers, that’s all.”

  “What are the questions you want answered?”

  “Bottom line, is He up there, is He real?”

  “Bottom line, He’s down here, He’s with us right now.”

  “Prove it.”

  “I can’t. I don’t even want to try.”

  “Jesus,” the man said, shaking his head.

  This was like flying blind, the rector thought, with the windshield iced over. “I get the feeling you really want God to be real, perhaps you even want to be close to Him, but…but you’re holding on to something, holding on to one of those sins you don’t think God can forgive, and you don’t want to let it go.”

  The man’s voice was cold. “I’d like to kill someone, I think of killing him all the time. I would never do it, but he deserves it and thinking about it helps me. I like thinking about it.”

  The rector felt suddenly weakened, as if the anger had seeped into his own bones, his own spirit. He wanted the windshield to defrost; where was this going?

  “Do you like the fall of the year?”

  The man gave an odd laugh. “Why?”

  “One of the things that makes a dead leaf fall to the ground is the bud of the new leaf that pushes it off the limb. When you let God fill you with His love and forgiveness, the things you think you desperately want to hold on to start falling away…and we hardly notice their passing.”

  The man looked at his watch and made a move to rise from his knees. His agitation was palpable.

  “Let me ask you something,” said the rector. “Would you like to ask Christ into your life?”

  The stranger stared into the darkened sanctuary. “I can’t do it, I’ve tried.”

  “It isn’t a test you have to pass. It doesn’t require discipline and intelligence…not even strength and perseverance. It only requires faith.”

  “I don’t think I’ve got that.” There was a long silence. “But I’d be willing to try it…one more time.”

  “Will you pray a simple prayer with me…on faith?”

  He looked up. “What do I have to lose?”

  “Nothing, actually.” Father Tim rose stiffly from the kneeler and took the short step across the aisle, where he laid his hands on the man’s head.

  “If you could repeat this,” he said. “Thank You, God, for loving me, and for sending Your Son to die for my sins. I sincerely repent of my sins, and receive Christ as my personal savior. Now, as Your child, I turn my entire life over to You. Amen.”

  The man repeated the prayer, and they were silent.

  “Is that all?” he asked finally.

  “That’s all.”

  “I don’t know…what I’m supposed to feel.”

  “Whatever you feel is exactly what you’re supposed to feel.”

  The man was suddenly embarrassed, awkward. “I’ve got to get out of here. I was on my way to a meeting in Wesley, and I saw this old church and I…things have been, I’ve been…I’ve got to get out of here. Look, thanks. Thank you,” he said, shaking the rector’s hand.

  “Please…stay in touch.”

  He stood at the door for a moment and watched him go. There was so much he hadn’t said, so much he’d left out. But the Holy Spirit would fill in the blanks.

  As they were leaving the church, Barnabas looked up, sniffed the air, and began to bark wildly at the ceiling. His booming voice filled the small nave like the bass of an organ.

  With some difficulty, he unglued his charge from the narthex floor, and pulled him along on the leash.

  It seemed years ago that he’d come in this door, he thought. Yet his watch told him he’d been at Lord’s Chapel only a little more than two hours.

  He felt strangely at peace, following the man’s footprints along the snowy path to the street.

  At Home in Mitford, Ch. 11

  “WHAT ARE YOU grinnin’ all over yourself about?” Dooley asked, his eyes bleary with approaching sleep.

  “I am not grinning all over myself.” He sat on the side of the bed. “Did your studying go well? Did you need me to help?”

  “Naw, I got ’at ol’ mess figgered out.”

  “I’ll be praying for you tomorrow at one o’clock when your test begins.”

  “Prayin’ ain’t goin’ t’ knock ’at ol’ test in th’ head.”

  “You’re right about that, my friend. However, praying will help you knock it in the head.”

  Dooley yawned and turned over. “’Night,” he said.

  “’Night,” said the recto
r, putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  Father, he prayed silently, thank you for sending this boy into my life. Thank you for the joy and the sorrow he brings. Be with him always, to surround him with right influences, and when tests of any kind must come, give him wisdom and strength to act according to your will. Look over his mother, also, and the other children, wherever they are. Feed and clothe them, keep them from harm, and bring them one day into a full relationship with your Son.

  He sat for a long time with his hand on the sleeping boy’s shoulder, feeling his heart moved with tenderness.

  At Home in Mitford, Ch. 17

  IT WAS J. C. Hogan who was ringing his office phone at eight-thirty on Monday morning. “I got a letter to the editor I need to answer,” said J.C.

  “How can I help you, my friend?”

  “This kid read my story about the man in the attic, about the prayer you prayed with the guy in the pew, and how you got two birds with one stone, you might say. Wrote me this letter.”

  J.C. cleared his throat. “‘Dear Editor, What exactly was the prayer the preacher prayed when the man in the attic got saved? My daddy wants to know, and I do too. Thank you.’”

  “Do you want me to write it down and drop it by, or just tell you on the phone?”

  “Phone’s fine,” said J.C., breathing heavily into the receiver.

  “Well, then. Here it is. ‘Thank You, God, for loving me, and for sending Your Son to die for my sins’…”

  “Got it,” said J.C.

  “‘I repent of my sins and receive Jesus Christ as my personal savior.’”

  “Got it.”

  “‘And now, as Your child’…”

  “As your what?”

  “‘As Your child.’”

  “Got it.”

  “‘I turn my entire life over to You. Amen.’”

  “What’s the big deal with this prayer? It looks like some little ol’ Sunday school thing to me. It’s too simple.”

  “It’s the very soul of simplicity. Yet, it can transform a life completely when it’s prayed with the right spirit.”

  “I was lookin’ for something with a little more pizzazz.”

  “My friend, the one who prays that prayer and means it will get all the pizzazz he can handle.”

  At Home in Mitford, Ch. 18

  “WHEN PAPA AND Mama died, I did perhaps the only independent thing I had ever done in my life.” She looked at him and smiled weakly. “I moved across the aisle and started sitting on the gospel side.”

  She slumped a little in the chair. He leaned forward and reached for her hand, which felt small and cold.

  “That’s my love story, Father. I’m sorry it did not have a happier ending. The nursing home will give it a happy ending. The building will be given in honor of Mama and Papa. The beautiful fountain out front will be in memory of Captain Willard James Porter. It will be a place of solace and peace, a place for healing.”

  Father Tim got up from his chair and placed a hand on her fragile shoulder. “Father,” he prayed, “I ask you to heal any vestige of bitter hurt in your child, Sadie, and by the power of your Holy Spirit, bring to her mind and heart, now and forever, only those memories which serve to restore, refresh, and delight. Through Jesus Christ, your Son our Lord, amen.”

  “Amen!” she said, reaching up to put her hand on his.

  At Home in Mitford, Ch. 19

  “I HAD ONE of them dreams th’ other night at th’ farm. I was dreamin’ m’ little brother Kenny had fell in th’ creek and turned into a fish an’ I was runnin’ after ’im along th’ bank, hollerin’, ‘Kenny, Kenny, come back, don’t be a fish, don’t leave me!’ an’ Miz Owen said I woke up Rebecca Jane, but that was all right, she come in and talked t’ me.”

  “Do you miss your brother?”

  “Yeah. He was my best friend.”

  Dear God! Five children wrenched apart like a litter of cats or dogs.

  “Tell me about your brothers and sisters.”

  “There’s Jessie, she’s th’ baby, still poopin’ in ’er britches, and Sammy, he’s five, he stutters. Then, there’s ol’ Poobaw…”

  “What does Poobaw mean?”

  “Means he took after a pool ball my mama brought home, had a eight on it, she said it was a keepsake. Poobaw hauled ’at ol’ thing around, went t’ sleepin’ with it, an’ that’s where ’is name come from, it used t’ be Henry.”

  “What’s Henry like?”

  “Wets ’is bed, ’e’s seven.”

  He dreaded this. “Do you know where they are?”

  “Mama said she’d never tell nobody, or th’ state would come git ’em. I was th’ last’n t’ go.” There was a long silence.

  If it wrenched his own heart to hear this, how must Dooley’s heart be faring? “Have you ever prayed for your brothers and your baby sister?”

  “Nope.”

  “Prayer is a way to stay close to them. You can’t see them, but you can pray for them, and God will hear that prayer. It’s the best thing you can do for them right now.”

  “How d’you do it?”

  “You just jump in and do it. Something like this. You can say it with me. Our Father…”

  “Our Father…”

  “Be with my brother Kenny and help him…”

  “Be ’ith m’ brother, Kenny, an’ he’p him…”

  “To be strong, to be brave, to love you and love me…”

  “T’ be strong, t’ be brave, t’ love you an’ love me…”

  “No matter what the circumstances…”

  “No matter what th’ circumstances.”

  “And please, God…”

  “An’ please, God…”

  “Be with those whose names Dooley will bring you right now…”

  He heard something hard and determined in the boy’s voice. “Mama. Granpaw. Jessie an’ Sammy an’ Poobaw. Miz Ivey at church, an’ Tommy…’at ol’ dog…m’ rabbit…Miz Coppersmith an’ ol’ Vi’let an’ all.” He buried his face in the pillow and pulled it around his ears.

  The clock ticked. Somewhere, through the open alcove window, he heard the rooster crow, the rooster whose whereabouts he couldn’t identify, but whose call often gave him a certain poignant joy. Dooley moved closer to him, and in minutes, he heard a light, whiffling snore. He sat up and pulled the blanket over the boy’s sleeping form.

  He didn’t know why he felt this would be a splendid summer for Dooley Barlowe.

  At Home in Mitford, Ch. 20

  THE BELL JINGLED, and a customer walked in. “Brother Greer, I need a box of oatmeal!”

  “Comin’ up,” said Absalom, leaving his guest.

  The rector noted the slowness of the old man’s gait as he walked toward the shelves. He hadn’t seen that last year and felt troubled by it. Deep down, he expected the people he loved to live forever, no matter how many funerals he had performed during his years as a priest.

  Absalom rejoined the rector and sat again.

  “My brother, I was in deep prayer as I preached, that the Holy Ghost would knock through the crust on every heart along that creek—but I have to tell you, my own heart was sinking, for it looked like the vineyard wasn’t givin’ off a single grape.”

  “I hear you.”

  “That’s the way it was goin’ when I noticed a young girl sitting on a limb of that big tree by the water.

  “Usually, a good many young ’uns would sit up there for the preaching, but somebody had put a board across some rocks that evenin’, and all the young ’uns but her was sitting on the board. I pay a good bit of attention to young ’uns, having been one myself, but I’d never spotted Lacey Turner before.

  “You talk about listening! Her eyes like to bored a hole in me. If a preacher had a congregation to sit up and take notice like that, he’d be a happy man. It seemed like every word the Holy Ghost put in my mouth was something she craved to hear. I got the feeling my words were like arrows, shooting straight at that long-legged, barefooted girl, but
still missing the souls on the ground.

  “Wellsir, that young ’un slid off that limb and landed on her feet right in front of me, blam!

  “Strikin’ the ground like that kicked the dust up around her feet. I looked at that dust and looked at that girl, and I knew the Lord was about to do a work.

  “She said, ‘I’m sorry for th’ bad I’ve done, and I want to git saved.’ It was as matter-of-fact a thing as you’d ever want to hear.

  “Well, the young ’uns on the board, they started in laughing, but that girl, she stood there like a rock, you should have seen her face! She was meaning business.

  “I said, ‘What would you be repenting of?’ And she said, ‘Bein’ generally mean and hatin’ ever’body.’

  “My brother, that’s as strong an answer as you’re likely to get from anybody, anywhere.

  “I said, ‘Do you want to be forgiven of meanness and hatred?’ and she squared back her shoulders and said, ‘That’s what I jumped down here for.’

  “I said, ‘Well, jump in here and say a prayer with me and turn your heart over to Jesus.’ And we both went down on our knees right there by the water, saying those words that’s changed the lives of so many lost and hurting souls.

  “‘Lord Jesus,’ she prayed in behind me, ‘I know I’m a sinner. I believe You died for my sins. Right now, I turn from my sins and receive You as my personal Lord and Savior. Amen.’

  “Wellsir, I looked up and half the crowd had moved over to that big tree and was going down on their knees, one by one, and oh, law, the Holy Ghost got to working like you never saw, softening hearts and convicting souls ’til it nearly snatched the hair off my head.

  “We stayed kneeling right there, and I led first one and then another in that little prayer, and before you know it, brand-new people were getting up off their knees and leaping for joy!

  “Oh, you know the lightness that comes with having your sins forgiven! It’s a lightness that fills you from one end to the other and runs through your soul like healing balm.”

  The rector could feel the smile stretching across his face.

  “My brother, I scrambled down the bank to that creek, and that little handful swarmed down over rocks and roots, some crying, some whooping for joy, and we baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost ’til I was sopping wet from head to toe.”