‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself . . .

‘Our neighbor and your priest, Father Henry Talbot . . .’ He looked to Cynthia. Help me.

‘. . . is in urgent need of your love, your forgiveness, and your prayers. Bishop Martin asks me to tell you that Father Talbot’s duties as priest of this parish are officially ended.’

No gasping or seeming mortifications. Only stunned silence.

‘Father Talbot has charged me to tell you that he is deeply repentant for not serving you as God appointed him to do, and as you hoped and needed him to do.

‘He wished very much to bring you this message himself, but he could not. He bids you goodbye with a love he confesses he never felt toward you . . . until this day. He asks—and I quote him—that you might find it in your hearts to forgive him his manifold sins against God and this parish.’

He felt the tears on his face before he knew he was weeping, and realized instinctively that he would have no control over the display. He could not effectively carry on, nor even turn his face away or flee the pulpit. He was in the grip of a wild grief that paralyzed everything but itself.

He wept face forward, then, into the gale of those aghast at what was happening, wept for the wounds of any clergy gone out into a darkness of self-loathing and beguilement; for the loss and sorrow of those who could not believe, or who had once believed but lost all sense of shield and buckler and any notion of God’s radical tenderness, for the ceaseless besettings of the flesh, for the worthless idols of his own and of others; for those sidetracked, stumped, frozen, flung away, for those both false and true, the just and the unjust, the quick and the dead.

He wept for himself, for the pain of the long years and the exquisite satisfactions of the faith, for the holiness of the mundane, for the thrashing exhaustions and the endless dyings and resurrectings that malign the soul incarnate.

It had come to this, a thing he had subtly feared for more than forty years—that he would weep before the many—and he saw that his wife would not try to talk him down from this precipice, she would trust him to come down himself without falling or leaping.

And people wept with him, most of them. Some turned away, and a few got up and left in a hurry, fearful of the swift and astounding movement of the Holy Spirit among them, and he, too, was afraid—of crying aloud in a kind of ancient howl and humiliating himself still further. But the cry burned out somewhere inside and he swallowed down what remained and the organ began to play, softly, piously. He wished it to be loud and gregarious, at the top of its lungs—Bach or Beethoven, and not the saccharine pipe that summoned the vagabond sins of thought, word, and deed to the altar, though come to think of it, the rail was the very place to be right now, at once, as he, they, all were desperate for the salve of the cup, the Bread of Heaven.

And then it was over. He reached into the pocket of his alb and wondered again how so many manage to make it in this world without carrying a handkerchief. And he drew it out and wiped his eyes and blew his nose as he might at home, and said, ‘Amen.’

And the people said, ‘Amen.’

•   •   •

AT THE CHURCH DOOR, Buck Leeper gave him a crushing embrace.

A fellow who introduced himself as a visitor nodded and said, ‘Right on.’

The soldier in Army uniform with his family from Wesley waited until others had gone through the line. He embraced the boy—so sober, so young, younger than Dooley.

‘Where are you serving?’ he asked.

‘Armageddon,’ said the boy.

Eileen Douglas threw up her hands and shook her head with wonder and said nothing.

Which, God knows, was saying a lot.

Chapter Fifteen

On Monday, several of the parish communicated their thoughts as they had when he’d served at Lord’s Chapel. Skipping the amenities of the USPS, they posted their envelopes directly into the mail slot of the front door.

Dear Father Tim.

It was so nice to cry in church yesterday. There is so much to cry about in this world, thank you for the opportunity.

Your friend,

Dottie Holzclaw

Father,

I have heard about the laughing thing that breaks out in churches but this is the first I ever knew of the crying thing. Wish I could have been there and wish we could have you back if only for the innovations! (What next, ha ha!)

Sincerely,

Zack Clemmons

(I played first base on our Mitford Reds team—those were the days)

GREEN FAMILY PLUMBING & ELECTRICAL

Dear Father Tim,

Maybe it’s because we used to be Baptists but we have never liked Fr Talbot AT ALL, though now we do because we cried for him and we forgive him and will try to stick with it.

God bless you.

Connie and Elton Green

Charles Dickens said, It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens the temper—so cry away.

Love in Jesus

Beth and Jim Chandler

Father Tim

TEARS ARE OUR HOLY WATER

He stayed in his pajamas on Monday, occupying the hours by listing supplies for Tuesday, talking with Bishop Martin and Bill Swanson, praying, napping, and generally recovering his wits. He had called Harley and was assured that his neighbor was well enough to work tomorrow, if all he did was step and fetch for a couple of days.

After lunch, which was delivered by his wife, he mustered the courage to cut his own hair. Did he want help? No; there was no hair savvy in this house. Cynthia, Puny, Dooley—all had tried cutting his hair at one time or another and it was a worse disaster than he might foist upon himself.

Holding the hand mirror, he backed up to the bathroom mirror and squinted at the job to be done. It drove him crazy trying to hold the mirror with one hand and manipulate the scissors with the other; it was a bloody logistical nightmare that deposited hair in the sink, on the floor, and, as he lacked foresight to use a towel around his neck, inside the collar of his bathrobe.

When he went to retrieve a book from the shelves along the hall, Puny was leaving Dooley’s room with an armload of sheets.

‘Lord help! What have you done to yourself?’

‘What do you mean, done to myself?’

‘Your hair.’

‘I cut it,’ he said, daring further comment.

‘You shouldn’t have messed with th’ sides, I can tell you that.’ And down the stairs she went.

He was fatigued in every part and clearly in denial. All that had happened was too distressing to think about; he held it away from himself.

In the late afternoon, his wife delivered her local gazette: she had been walking in the neighborhood when she saw the moving van headed north. Slowly plowing between the rows of low buildings on Main, the van appeared monstrous, out of place. She had crawled into bed with him, fully clothed, and gone to sleep in her own grieving.

As for the proposed car deal yesterday afternoon, there had been none, of course.

They had come home from church at twelve forty-five, turned off the ringer on the house phone, and after downing two bowls of chicken soup, he’d gone straight to bed. Dooley slept for three and a half hours and headed out with a truckload of clean laundry and a container of egg salad on ice. Three and a half hours’ sleep for a five-and-a-half-hour drive was clearly insufficient, but what could be done? He surrendered his parental concerns to an All-Sufficient God and waited for the marching band.