Whisper Town (27 page)

The weight of national failure is a heavy weight, but we cannot forget that weights are forged by time, and broken by fortitude
and character. Failure is the opportunity to scrutinize what has weighed us down, admit our failures, and look for elements
most often neglected, elements that corrupt our dreams and leave us as outcasts in our own land, desperately sojourning again,
as our ancestors sojourned, and seeking to climb again, to see again, to feel the sun on our faces and read hope in our children’s
eyes.

Our humanity cries for justice and of wrongs being righted. We long to be lifted up and made strong conquerors. But history
proves that conquerors fall, so we listen well, retool, and seek a better dream. If we look deep, it is the one most inevitable,
the one we can rely upon and trust as our constant; that is in knowing that when we are broken, like the bread from Christ’s
table, the whole world is fed.

The sweet nectar of brotherhood is my reaching across the fence to take the hand of the fallen neighbor. Or if both of us
have fallen, we hold tightly to one another and stand together, one against the other. But we have both given and, as a result,
we have both received.

Here we stand broken, some of us fallen, of that we are certain. We dislike this broken state of affairs. It makes us ill
at ease and gratefully we look for the morning when we will leave it behind. But as we empty our hands of failure, we should
also learn our lessons in knowing for what things we should reach. Remaining breakable is not our natural desire, but in the
forging of our plans, it should be our driving mission. If we remain breakable, we are no longer keeping what we know of freedom,
ingenuity, and happiness under the roofs of a few. If what we are producing within our own heart is food for many, for others
beside us, then we become that feast, a banquet of liberty, love, peace, kindness, generosity, humility, and a country for
all men and women that is a bottomless basket. That is not only how we feed the world, it is how we feed ourselves.

When we cease to feed our brother, to make room for him at our table, bitter corrosion will infect us all and we will find
ourselves once more beneath its weight. Greed is not a friend. Love for all is not our foe.

What is my American dream? To remain that breakable member of humanity who is no stranger to charity. I desire a language
that is so fluent in generosity and compassion that all the world will beat a road to my door to learn new tongues. If I can
know the fellowship of strangers, see that no orphan is homeless, and rise up to find that no mother is left to grieve over
the treatment of her children, I have found my dream.

Perhaps I am a man of lost causes. But what man or woman is without an ancestor who has not known the bitter defeat of a lost
cause, only to rise on that one glorious morning to discover their broken state has proliferated and given them back their
land, their fertile condition, and to know that it emerged from brokenness?

Christ declared we are only one body, one bread. He showed us how by giving up our single purpose, laying down our isolated
aims, that we could accomplish magnanimous feats. Such exploits are gotten through pain, but what ideal wrought beneath the
beatific pain of selfless love has ever disappointed mankind?

When the self is told to stand down, what rises is the spirit. From spirit comes flight. Flying once again is our grand enticement.
By unfolding our arms to reach into a brother’s life, we are unfurling our wings to fly.

Who is my brother? He is like me, flesh and blood and soul and yearning.

What is the American dream? It is more than a dream. This laying down of the self is our mission. It is our calling and we
offer it freely, our feast of breakable bread, to our brother and our neighbor and those who sojourn with us on this soil.

Jeb thanked them.

The crowd exploded with cheers while Jerry Shaperi presented Jeb with a plaque.

Fern came up behind Jeb and slid her arms around his waist. “I’ve found my dream too, Jeb,” she whispered. “I dream of you.”

“It says that the reflecting pool is one-third mile long. I feel small here,” said Fern, who read from a brochure. “This is
what it feels like to be an ant.” She glanced up and down the reflecting pool, from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington
Monument. “Where did Florence and Angel go?”

“Sightseeing. You think anyone in Nazareth heard me today?” he asked.

“The ones who wanted to hear heard you. In time I believe that all will hear.”

“That’s what I love about you, your optimism.” Jeb took her hand and led her to the center of the west end. He knelt. “I’m
sorry this has taken so long. You’d think that with my speech making I’d know exactly what to say at this moment.”

Fern’s cap blew off in the wind. Her hair blew around her face, as it had done the first time he saw her from the stream.

“I know there are women who are easy to know, easy to get. I’ve known them and they’ve known me. But only once have I met
the one who I knew from the minute I laid eyes on her that she was the prize. I’ve had to fight to have you and lose those
parts of myself that made me, at least in part, unworthy to even call you my friend. But I’m asking you now, Fern Coulter,
to be my friend for life, with all these children in tow, with my life in a mess.”

Fern cried. “I never really answered you, did I, Jeb?”

“Marry me, Fern, just as I am. I love you more than life.”

“Jeb, you are my very best friend.” She bent and kissed him. “I have watched you grow into a giant of a man, but I’ll gladly
stand in your shadow if it means that you will always be holding my hand. I will take you if it means living with twenty children
not our own and dealing with a hundred towns like Nazareth. I think you should know that I’m not the perfect woman, though.
I don’t have a perfect past either. Over time I want you to know that about me, that my history is not as honorable as you
believe. But if you still want me, yes, I want to marry you too.”

“The past is the past, Fern.” Jeb came to his feet and they kissed.

They walked beneath the Japanese cherry blossoms and it was spring, a time when heroes walked the streets again.

1. Jeb Nubey has assumed the full duties as pastor of Church in the Dell but the stresses of the ministry are beginning to
weigh down his enthusiasm. His tendency to exemplify a savior style of ministry is central to his self-doubt. How does his
need to fix the problems of his church complicate his life? How does it improve his abilities as a minister?

2. When a baby girl is dropped off on Jeb’s doorstep, his attempts to find a home for the baby are hindered by her race.
Would this situation create a conflict today? How have racial relations improved or worsened since 1930’s America? Should
the Church or can the Church take measures to improve racial harmony?

3. Jeb wrestles with the burden he feels he has placed on his relationship with Fern Coulter. He imagines a life with Fern
free of the responsibility of the abandoned children he has taken into his home. Some believe that a life of faith equals
a life of selfless service to others. Others consider a life of faith as one limited to personal development. What sort of
boundaries can a person of faith create that strikes a balance with personal goals and service to others?

4. When Jeb finally resigns himself to the fact that he is the only one willing to step up to the plate and care for Myrtle,
he realizes he cannot shoulder the burden alone. He hires a woman considered amoral by the community to nurse the baby. Then
he allows the young teen, Lucky, to move in and help with her care. His life grows steadily more complicated as he invites
people from outside the church to help an orphaned baby. How might the people who were judging him for these choices have
helped to simplify his decisions?

5. The church board members view Jeb’s dilemma as one that a good leader can mend quickly. Some of them imply that Jeb is
a weak leader because he is not responding fast enough to the demands of the church families. If you were to make a list of
the qualities of a strong leader, what would those qualities be? Does Jeb possess some of the qualities on your list? Have
you ever witnessed a leader being criticized for not responding quickly enough to the demands of those he is leading?

6. The various opinions and viewpoints that confront Jeb cause him to question his abilities. He discovers that maintaining
his confidence in his abilities is an exercise in mental strength. Have you ever been criticized for making what you felt
was the right choice? Is our society supportive of those who choose to make the harder ethical choices?

7. Reverend Louie Williamson makes reference to standing up against the monsters of his day. What does he mean by standing
up against the monsters? In what way does he take a stand?

8. Angel longs to be a part of Fern’s family or at least live as the Coulters live with what she views as quiet security.
Fern considers her family’s background a burden and one from which she has seemingly run away. It is human nature to want
a life different than what you already have. Is there a key to building a life in which you will know true contentment?

9. The Mt. Zion church choir makes an unexpected appearance singing for the Church in the Dell families. If Jeb had asked
for a delegation from his church to visit the Mt. Zion Church, what might have been the response? If a minister were to make
such a request today, what might be the response?

10. When Lucky’s brother Ruben shows up to express to Jeb his desire to forgive his family’s enemies, he is eager to see
his life change. Then his life changes for the worse. Injustice makes us feel helpless. What are the positives that can follow
an unjust act? Do the positives justify the injustice?

11. Jeb is driven by his frustration to write an essay for the
American Dream
contest. He wins and then is invited to deliver the message to a small group of people in Washington, D.C., far from Nazareth
and far from the inequalities that have not been brought to justice. Does it make us feel frustrated or encouraged when a
life that stands for right is handed a small if temporary platform?

12. Jeb Nubey becomes a symbol to Fern of what a true hero represents. Are most heroes recognized in their day and by their
peers?

13. What small fragment of a community might be changed through one heroic act? What biographies might you recommend of those
who through small heroic acts have ushered in a world of change?

Here are a few recommended biographical titles, but by no means an exhaustive list:

The Hiding Place
by Corrie Ten Boom

Eric Liddell: Something Greater Than Gold
by Janet Benge

A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael
by Elisabeth Eliot

Jungle Pilot
by Russell T. Hitt

Mary Slessor of Calabar
by W.P. Livingstone

Now It Is Time
by Lois Heathman Roberts

R.A. Torrey, Apostle of Certainty
by Roger Martin

Into the Glory
by Jamie Buckingham

William Carey
by Basil Miller

The Legacy of William Carey
by Vishal Mangalwadi

George Muller: The Guardian of Bristol’s Orphans
by Janet Binge

Gladys Aylward
by Catherine Swift

Multi-biographical volumes:

Movers and Shapers—Singles Who Changed Their World
by Harold Ivan Smith

Profiles in Evangelism
by Dr. Fred Barlow

Molder of Dreams
by Guy Doud (one man’s story of how everyday people impacted his life)