Heavens to Betsy (4 page)

Mrs. Tompkins sniffs. “Well, I’m relieved to hear there’s nothing serious between you. It simply wouldn’t do.”

How do I respond to
that
pronouncement? My first impulse is to tell her in a precise, yet slightly profane way, that my love life is none of her business. Yet the strange reality of being a minister is that your life does become the business of your congregation. They have a stake in you. If you mess up, it reflects on them. Your errors hurt them. So you go through your days in a sort of behavioral straitjacket that keeps you from traumatizing yourself or anyone else. I’ll be so glad to leave that behind.

“Have you signed up to work in the community soup kitchen yet?” I decide to turn the tables on her. At the prospect of communing with homeless people, Mrs. Tompkins melts away like snow in July. She’s gone, but her words remain to stoke the embers of my fear. What if I told David how I feel? Would he laugh? withdraw? I couldn’t stand it if he shuffled his feet, ducked his head, and made a beeline for the nearest exit. Like a boy I once asked to dance at a junior-high social.

Still, the seed’s been planted deeply enough in the fertile soil of my mind where it might actually take root. Perhaps it would be better to know. Maybe that frisson was a freak incident; maybe if he touched me again, I wouldn’t feel a thing.

Of course, I have one tiny problem. I told David I have a hot Valentine’s Day date next weekend. I don’t want him to know I lied,
don’t want to look that desperate. So first things first. I’ll find a date for next weekend. And after that I’ll tell David about what happened while the indeterminately ethnic villains were plotting to blow up the world. Surely I can scrape up enough courage for such a simple act. Yeah, sure. And after I’m done, I’ll bungee jump from the Jefferson Street Bridge.

Church of the Shepherd is your typical graying, dying downtown congregation, which is one of the reasons I chose it when I fled my first church. How demanding could it be to serve a relic? These days we can count on our fingers and toes the number of members under thirty.

We hold two services on Sunday morning. The early service at eight o’clock attracts the eldest of the elderly, the golfers, and those headed to a Tennessee Titans game. Most Sundays you could shoot off a cannon in the huge sanctuary at that service, and no one would be harmed.

The later service at eleven o’clock is the main event. But even then you don’t have to come early to get your favorite pew, unless you like to sit in the back row. No matter what the size of the congregation, the seats furthest from God always fill up fast.

I like the early service better when I’m preaching, although in some ways it’s harder to stand in the pulpit and proclaim a Great Truth to thirty people scattered about such a huge space. But somehow my sermon feels more like an offering to God at that service.

Now, though, it’s time for the late service, and the pressure to perform increases with the size of the congregation. I’m also feeling the
burden of stepping into Dr. Black’s pulpit for the first time since I’ve been on staff at Church of the Shepherd. Can I measure up?

I’m a one-woman show this morning. The lay liturgist didn’t show up, which means the whole service is mine. That makes it tough on my voice, which is more on the soothing end of the spectrum than the booming one. In my old church, folks who liked to nap during the sermon loved my preaching.

It’s winter, so I’m wearing my clerical robe. Dr. Black puts his away during the summer months, which strikes me as a very Southern thing to do, like not wearing white after Labor Day. For a woman minister, the blessing of a clerical robe is that it saves you from helpful fashion advice from your parishioners. If I stick to my navy suit, I hear that I need to be more stylish. If I wear a dress instead, I’m not properly professional. And God forbid I should wear pants on the chancel, even under my robe. The steeple would probably crack down the middle and fall into the parking lot.

Today I’m in my navy suit. After the David incident last night, I’m repressing any hints of sexuality, robe or no robe. If it wouldn’t make me look like a flight attendant from the eighties, I would have tied a little bow in the scarf around my neck. Instead, it’s discreetly tucked inside my jacket. My only jewelry is a pair of small pearl earrings. If I were any more vanilla, I’d be in a tub at Baskin-Robbins.

The last notes of the opening hymn die away, and I ascend the steps to the pulpit. It’s a tricky moment because I have several things to accomplish. First, I need to not trip or stumble, which is an iffy proposition for me on a good day. Second, I must remember to bring with me everything I’ll need while I’m up there: Bible for reading the Scripture text, sermon manuscript, worship bulletin, and a cup of
water. If I forget any of these, I’m toast. At my first church, I used to put them up in the pulpit before the service, until the Sunday one of the deacons who was preparing the communion table helpfully decided my essentials were leftovers from the previous week. He dumped the water, threw away the sermon and the worship bulletin, and apparently sent my Bible to the Island of Lost Things because it’s never been seen since. Oh well. It was just my study Bible from divinity school—with three years of intensive notations scribbled in the margins.

Today I make it safely into the pulpit. Before the service I did a sound-check on the microphone, adjusted the height of the pulpit with the nifty little hydraulic switch, and turned on the library lamp below the microphone. Now, as the congregation settles back in the pews, I spread the first two pages of my sermon across the podium, stow the worship bulletin on the little shelf below, and open my Bible.

“Hear these words from the gospel of Mark.”

Mark’s my favorite gospel. Short and to the point. Matthew, Luke, and John have lots of bells and whistles, which can be quite entertaining and illuminating, but Mark keeps his focus. I try to show my congregation the same consideration.

Today’s passage is full of lost things. Sheep. Coins. And a shepherd and an old woman who go looking for them until they’re found. I can identify with that lost sheep and the coin that fell between the cracks somewhere, and I figure if I can identify, my parishioners can too.

When I finish the Scripture reading, I set my Bible on the shelf on top of the worship bulletin. I swallow, take a deep breath, and begin.

“When I was a child and I’d lost something, my mother always told me it would be in the last place I looked…”

Happily, today is such a day.

She’s an older woman I’ve never seen before—a visitor maybe or someone’s Aunt Ruth who happened to be in town this week. She frowns at the challenging parts of the sermon, smiles at the funny parts, and even takes a few notes in the margin of her worship bulletin.

Bingo.

That’s when the fun really begins. The words roll off my tongue as if I’ve said them a thousand times before. And they’re words from my heart.

“God never quits looking, never gives up on finding us no matter where we’ve wandered off to. No matter what cracks we’ve slipped between…”

I hope the woman will speak to me before she leaves today. I’d love a more substantial comment on what I have to say than “You have such a sweet speaking voice.”

The sermon peaks on the next-to-last page of my manuscript.

“Are we really willing to be found? to let God lead us back to the fold? Maybe it’s easier to be lost than to be in the care of the Shepherd, because when we surrender to God’s care, we’re relinquishing our lives to a higher authority.”

I try to leave time for some denouement, a bit of quiet reflection
before the “Amen.” In that small space of time, you know whether you’ve succeeded or failed. If it’s quiet, you’ve been heard. People are chewing on what you’ve said. If there’s a lot of rustling with worship bulletins and fussing with purses, you missed. If you preach every Sunday, the misses aren’t so catastrophic. There’s always next week. Now, as an associate minister, the misses hurt more because I have fewer chances to hit the target.

I pause before the last paragraph to gauge the mood of the congregation. It’s mostly quiet. A sweet sense of satisfaction starts in my midsection and spreads outward. When you use a gift God has given you and use it well, there’s nothing comparable. At least, I didn’t think there was until last night in that movie theater.

“Thanks be to God. Amen.”

And it’s done. Next week Dr. Black will be back in command of “his” pulpit, and if I’m lucky, I’ll get to do some of the liturgy That’s another reason I’m leaving the ministry. Being an associate is too much like being Tantalus from Greek mythology, the guy who hungers in the underworld with food eternally just beyond his reach.

The rest of the service runs smoothly, and before I know it, I’ve pronounced the benediction, recessed down the aisle behind the choir, and am shaking hands at the church doors. The visitor, the older woman, comes through the line to shake my hand. I hold my breath. Her fingers are warm in mine.

“That was well done.” Her smile is warm and genuine. “You have such a lovely speaking voice.”

My smile freezes on my face.
Come on, woman. Give me something better than that.

She squeezes the fingers of my right hand, then reaches down and
grabs my other hand. She looks at the ring finger on my left hand. “A lovely girl like you ought to be married by now.”

“Aren’t you sweet,” I say. No hint of my frustration shows on my face, and she disappears into the Sunday-morning sunshine.

Eventually, the line of people dwindles, and I set about the business of closing up the sanctuary, not sure whether to laugh or cry.

I find myself in that situation a lot these days.

She rolls her eyes. “Honey, do you want to lose your job? ’Cause I know you don’t have a thing for my brother, and unless it’s true love, it ain’t worth it.”

I twirl my half-caff-nonfat-two-Equal-latte between my palms and try to appear nonchalant. “Well, I find your brother … interesting.”

“Interesting? He’s Phi Beta Kappa. Of course he’s interesting. What about sexy? hot?”

Truth to tell, LaRonda’s brother is all of the above, but he’s too much of a brainiac for me. He’s a resident over at Vanderbilt in obgyn. So he’s sexy and smart, and he probably has a greater working
knowledge of my anatomy than I do. But as intimidating as he may be, he’s not David, and that’s my main criterion for any date material for the coming weekend.