Restoreth My Soul (Psalm 23 Mysteries) (21 page)

“What’s wrong?”

“I can’t deal with Roy and Gus’s arguing anymore,” he said. “It’s just too much.”

“They’re fighting again?”

“Yes, right now.”

“Where are they?” Cindy asked.

“In the sanctuary.”

“They’re arguing in the sanctuary?” she asked, feeling something inside of her let loose.

“Yes.”

“That’s it,” Cindy said. “No more.” She pushed back from her chair and headed to the door.

“What are you doing?” Dave asked.

“Something that someone should have done a long time ago,” Cindy said, setting her jaw.

She walked out the door and headed at a brisk pace for the sanctuary. Once inside she moved a few paces in. She stepped over the place where seemingly a lifetime ago she’d found a dead body lying behind the last pew. That moment replayed itself vividly in her memories. The pain, the terror, and Jeremiah, a stranger to her then, coming to her rescue.

Roy and Gus were standing at the front, just in front of the pulpit, gesturing wildly.

“You’re crazy. It won’t fit,” Roy was saying.

“It will if you’d just let me move things around a little for the service. It’s not like anything is bolted down. Why are you being so stubborn about this?” Gus asked.

“And why do you want to mess up what we already have, just to satisfy your own ego?”

They were so intent on each other that they didn’t even notice her as she marched down the aisle. When she drew close to them, she thundered, “Enough! This is the house of God and that might not mean anything to you two, but it does to me.”

They both turned and looked at her in surprise. Roy recovered first. “This is a private conversation.”

“No, it’s not, and that’s the problem. You two have been at each other’s throats for years and you might like to delude yourself into thinking that it’s no one else’s business, but it affects all of us. Geanie quit because of your fighting. Dave is about to. Your inability to get along with each other is hurting everyone around you and you’re both too selfish and pigheaded to see it. You might not have a problem hurting others and ultimately tearing this church apart, but I have a real problem with it.”

“I think you’re being overly dramatic,” Gus said.

“No!” she shouted. She stepped forward and shoved a finger in his chest. “You are being overly blind and selfish. Both of you are,” she said, turning on Roy and thumping him in the chest as well just in case he thought she wasn’t talking to him, too. “If you weren’t you’d see the pain and the anxiety you’ve caused, you’d realize how much stress and difficulty you’ve brought upon us all when you drove Geanie to quit.

“Now, I don’t know how this whole thing between the two of you started, but I know it’s been going on for years and it’s time to stop. You know what today is? It’s Yom Kippur. It’s the Day of Atonement and that means it’s the day to get right with God and to start anew. I’m beginning to think the two of you could learn a little bit from our neighbors.”

“We’re not Jewish,” Roy said.

“No. Which means you have even less excuse. We don’t have one day for atonement, for reconciliation with God and a few days to reconcile with others. It’s our duty, our responsibility, to God and our fellow man to make every day Yom Kippur. Ephesians 4:26 says ‘Let not the sun go down upon your wrath’. And Jesus himself said, ‘Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.’ Do either of you remember that?”

“Luke 6:37,” Gus muttered, dropping his eyes.

“Oh, so you, at least, remember it. Look, I get it, the two of you don’t like each other, you don’t see eye-to-eye. Fine, but don’t take it out on the rest of us, don’t make us suffer because of it. Either you shake hands right now, ask each other’s forgiveness, forgive each other and pledge to try to work things out more peaceably in the future or both of you quit now and go work somewhere else where you might not poison everything around you.”

She stopped and glared at both of them.

“I never realized I was hurting everyone else, I just didn’t think,” Gus said, looking ashamed. “I just get my mind set on things and I dig in my heels and never stop to look at who I might be trampling on. I am so sorry,” he said, lifting his eyes to look at Cindy. She could read the misery there.

“That’s nice, but I’m not the one you need to ask forgiveness from.”

“You’re right. I’ll go apologize personally to Geanie as soon as we’re done here.” He took a deep breath and turned to Roy. “I am so sorry. I was wrong to fight with you instead of trying to find a peaceful compromise. I don’t know where things went wrong between us, but I know that my stubbornness is mostly to blame. I am so very sorry for all the trouble and hurt I’ve caused. Can you ever forgive me?”

Roy cleared his throat, “I forgive you.”

“Thank you,” Gus said. “That means a lot to me. I hope we can just start fresh. You’re right, I’m trying to change too much about the Christmas pageant too soon in my zeal to do something fresh and new. There are a lot of little things that we could do that would accomplish the same thing without causing so many problems. I’ll get to work on that.”

“Good,” Cindy said, feeling better. She reached out and touched Gus’s shoulder and he smiled gratefully at her. She then turned expectantly to Roy.

He just stared at Gus without saying anything. A minute passed in silence.

Finally Cindy asked, “And what do you want to say to Gus?”

“I don’t need your forgiveness, nor do I want it.”

Cindy couldn’t hold back a gasp. She thought the two men were actually getting somewhere. He turned and looked at her. “You are right, though. This place is toxic. I’m leaving.”

He turned and exited through the side door.

Gus and she just stared after him.

“I didn’t see that coming,” Cindy whispered.

“Me either,” Gus said.

Cindy turned around and jumped. There, lined up at the back of the sanctuary, was the rest of the staff, standing, watching.

“How long have they been there?” she asked.

“They came in right after you,” Gus said. “They heard everything.”

Cindy felt slightly dizzy. What had she just done? She had lambasted the head pastor and he had just quit. What would the others say?

She walked slowly up the aisle, her heart in her throat.

Dave lifted his hands and clapped them together. She stared at him, wondering if he’d lost his mind. Then, suddenly, all of them were applauding.

She walked toward them as one in a dream. When she was close Sylvia stepped forward and hugged her. “Thank you,” she said softly. “Someone had to do it.”

Gus came up next to her. The applause stopped. “I need to ask everyone’s forgiveness,” he said. “I’m arrogant, proud, opinionated, and stubborn. And I realize those are my good traits.”

Dave smiled at that.

“I know it can’t have been easy to work with me the last few years. I’m sorry. If you can all forgive me, I’d love to stay. If you can’t, I understand and I’ll go, for the good of the church.”

Dave stepped forward and embraced him. “I forgive you.”

Sylvia hugged him next. “I forgive you.”

“We’d like you to stay,” Jake, the associate pastor, said as he, too, embraced Gus. Then he turned to Cindy and hugged her as well. “I’m sorry. I should have been the one to put an end to the feuding.”

“It’s okay,” Cindy said, dazed.

Danielle, the children’s pastor and the janitor Ralph both stepped forward to embrace Gus as well.

“I just need to call Geanie now,” Gus said.

“No need,” Geanie spoke up from the doorway.

Cindy looked up at her roommate, startled.

“I was supposed to be meeting with Sylvia,” Geanie said.

“I was going to beg her to come back. I hadn’t filed any paperwork yet,” Sylvia said.

Gus walked over and hugged her. Cindy couldn’t hear what they said to each other, but when they broke apart Geanie was wiping a tear from her eye. She cleared her throat. “I guess we’re all staying,” she said, her voice shaky.

Everyone cheered and Cindy grabbed the back of a pew for support. Her relief that Geanie was coming back was overwhelming. Maybe this was all going to work out after all.

“Okay,” Jake said finally. “It’s lunchtime. So, I only have one question. Where are we going out to eat, because food’s on me.”

This was met by more cheers and a quick decision to take two cars and go to the local steakhouse. Everyone scattered to grab purses and wallets and lock everything up before agreeing to meet back up in the parking lot.

Five minutes later Cindy was piling into a car with Geanie, Sylvia, and Dave. Everyone was talking at once and the excitement was palpable. It felt like everyone had a new lease on life. It was utterly amazing.

“You realize this will go down in church legend as the day the secretary fired the pastor?” Dave said, turning around from the front passenger seat to give her a huge grin.

Cindy groaned. “Great, that’s just what I needed.”

“Maybe not, but it’s what everyone else did,” he said, turning serious. “Again, thank you. I’m sorry it fell to you to show them that that what they were doing was destructive.”

“Me, too,” Cindy said with a sigh. “At least that part’s over.”

“Yeah, now we just have to tell the congregation, notify the higher ups, and see who we get sent as a replacement,” Sylvia said.

Cindy groaned. “I can’t even think about that at the moment.”

“You shouldn’t. Today’s a victory and you need to celebrate it for what it is,” Sylvia said.

“Things are going to be changing around here,” Geanie noted.

Cindy reached over and hugged her. “At least you’ll still be here.”

“Amen,” Sylvia and Dave chorused from the front.

“That was a nightmare I was not prepared to deal with,” Sylvia admitted. “Do you have any idea how hard you’d be to replace given everything you do?”

“Hmmm...I think I sense a raise coming my way,” Geanie said.

“Not likely,” Dave laughed. “I haven’t seen one in three years.”

“Well, maybe if you worked harder,” Sylvia said tartly, “instead of goofing off.”

“I’m the youth pastor, goofing off is my entire job description,” Dave said.

Cindy laughed. The world wasn’t ending. In fact in so many ways it felt like it was just beginning. She couldn’t remember the words Jeremiah had told her days ago, but she smiled and said, “Happy Jewish New Year! May we all be sealed for a great year.”

There was another chorus of “amens” followed by more joking and teasing.

Everything was changing, and she realized that wasn’t a bad thing.

She leaned back in her seat and smiled.

Lunch ended up taking most of the rest of the day. By the time they made it back to the office there was just enough time to really close up shop for the night. Cindy drove home, heated herself up a frozen dinner, and settled down to watch some television.

It should have been relaxing, at the very least mind-numbing, but she couldn’t find any kind of release from the frustration she was feeling. She finally turned off the television in disgust.

She glanced out the window just in time to see the sun setting. Fall was upon them, sunset was coming earlier it seemed each night.

Sunset. That meant Yom Kippur was over.

She got up and changed clothes. Maybe talking to Jeremiah would help her sort out how she was feeling. She drove to the synagogue, thinking he might not have left yet.

When she pulled into the parking lot and saw his car still there she knew she was right. She got out and leaned against it. A breeze was blowing and the cool air felt good against her skin.

She let her mind wonder, thinking about that breeze and where it was coming from, how many other people it had touched. The world was a big place, but her own little piece of it felt like it was shrinking. It upset her, unnerved her in a way few things ever had.

She heard a footstep and it shook her out of her reverie. Jeremiah was walking toward her.

“Surprise,” she said.

“A nice one. What are you doing here?”

“I just realized it was sunset. That means the Days of Awe are officially over, right?”

“Yes, it does. They are.”

“Everything go okay?”

He tilted his head and shrugged. “My people got everything they were expecting and I did everything that was required of me in my official capacity.”

“How about personally?” she asked.

“Not as spiritual or as productive as I would have liked,” he admitted. “Seems I had some pressing things on my mind.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s not your fault,” he said, reaching out to brush a strand of hair out of her face. “How about you? Are you doing okay?” he asked.

“Not really.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know, I guess I’m just out of sorts. All these huge, epic things happened and then I wake up today and it’s like back to life as normal. It just seems wrong somehow. Like somehow this almost isn’t even my life. Do you know what I mean?”