Almost Friends (14 page)

Later that night, in bed, Barbara scooted beside him and rested her head on his shoulder. “You’re a bozo,” she said affectionately.

“Yep.”

“What do you think will happen to Krista?”

“I think she’ll go on to make some church a fine pastor. She’ll probably be my superintendent some day.”

“Wonder what Dale and Fern will do?”

“Probably move on to other endeavors, like tormenting orphans and widows.”

They fell asleep that way, Sam on his back, his arm around Barbara, her leg draped over his, in the steady, familiar way husbands and wives have with each other when their love is deep enough to forgive the occasional fantasy, so long as it doesn’t become a habit.

T
he next morning, Sam went for a haircut at Kyle’s.

“Still married?” Kyle asked, as he snipped around Sam’s ears.

“Happily.”

“I don’t believe I’d have publicly confessed to hankerin’ after a Sausage Queen. Some things you ought to keep to yourself.”

“You might have a point there,” Sam agreed. “Though I guess the proof is in the pudding. Krista and I still have our jobs.”

“Can’t argue with success, I suppose.”

Kyle shaved the back of Sam’s neck, clipped a wayward hair sprouting from his right ear, then dusted his neck with talcum.

Kyle stepped back to inspect him. “Want you to look your best now that you’re going back to work. Wouldn’t do to have a shaggy pastor.”

Work. The word fell sweetly on Sam’s ear. He’d missed it. Missed waking up each day with a purpose, with some noble
venture to engage him. He’d end up like Harvey Muldock and Fern Hampton, people who couldn’t let go, lest the world forget them. Three months off the job had nearly ruined him. He couldn’t imagine what retirement would do to him.

He spent the day raking leaves, lining them up in long piles along the driveway, then setting a match to them. The wind, he noted with some satisfaction, carried the smoke toward Shirley Finchum’s laundry hanging on the clothesline.

He and Barbara and the boys arrived at the meetinghouse fifteen minutes before the start of worship, just in time for donuts and coffee. He greeted Fern and Dale warmly—victory had made him charitable toward his foes. A few people, those who believed pastors should be sinless, kept their distance from him. But everyone else seemed genuinely glad to see him.

While Sam was in seminary, his professor of preaching told him, “You won’t hit a home run every week, but always try to advance the runners.” That Sunday morning, Krista hit a grand slam. She spoke on forgiveness, and her words soared; her sincere and gracious manner added to the luster. Sam had often joked with Barbara that he’d become a minister so he wouldn’t have to listen to other pastors preach. But he could have listened to Krista all day.

After her message, she sat down, and silence enveloped them. Sam’s mind turned back over the past four months. He remembered Brother Lester, the one-legged evangelist, coming to revive them, how Dale had seized the reins of evangelism, alienating the entire town and nearly killing his
father. Yet, in the words of the Apostle Paul, it had all worked together for good. Krista had come to their shores, teaching them much about dignity, courage, and grace.

When Dale had invited Brother Lester to bring them revival, this likely hadn’t been the new life Dale had envisioned. But then it was never wise to constrain the ways of God. The Spirit blew where it wished—one day a balmy breeze, the next a burly blast, sweeping clean the soul of all its hard debris.

When I was a child, I spent a lot of time in the woods, dreaming of becoming a forest ranger when I grew up. Forest rangers, it seemed to me, lived an idyllic life, freed from the clinch of church and school. I most certainly did not want to become a pastor. I could barely tolerate the one hour a week my parents made me attend. As for school, I was a flop, failing one subject after another, and not just barely, but spectacularly, like a spiraling plane, its engines crippled, smashing headlong into the ground. I despised English and composition most of all. The parts of a sentence were, and remain, a mystery to me. I wouldn’t recognize a pluperfect predicate if it kicked me in the shins.

And so God, in that whimsical way of the Divine, determined I should spend my life pastoring and writing.

The pastoring came first. In 1983, I became the youth minister at Plainfield Friends Meeting in Indiana. It has always mystified me why churches allow novice pastors to practice on their most vulnerable members. I’ve always thought new ministers should train with the elderly, who are not as easily corrupted. But the experience was a fine one and I made many friends.

In 1990, I became the pastor of Irvington Friends Meeting in Indianapolis. There were twelve people in the congregation and
their first request of me was to start a newsletter, even though I could have phoned everyone with the news in five minutes. I knew nothing about writing, so returned to college, to the Earlham School of Religion, where I sat at the feet of Tom Mullen, one night a week for a year. Those newsletter essays became my first book,
Front Porch Tales.
You’re holding my thirteenth book in your hands. Thirteen, for the superstitious-minded, is unlucky. But I’m not turned that way and feel nothing but blessed.

I continue to pastor, serving as the co-pastor of Fairfield Friends Meeting near Indianapolis. If you’re ever in the area, stop by and visit. I venture out occasionally to give a talk or visit a bookstore, where I meet my readers, many of whom have become my friends.

If you’re interested, here are some ways we can get to know one another a little better:

If you have e-mail, I can be contacted at
info@philipgulleybooks. com.

If you’re old-fashioned, you can send a letter to me at Harper-SanFrancisco, 353 Sacramento Street, Suite 500, San Francisco, CA 94111-3653. They’ll forward your letter to me and I’ll answer it, just as my mother and father taught me.

If you’re reading one of my books in your book club and would like me to phone in for a visit, write to
[email protected]
and we’ll get the ball rolling.

If you would like me to speak at an event, contact Mr. David Leonards at
[email protected]
or (317) 926-7566.

Thank you for buying and reading my books. I derive much joy in writing them; it is my prayer that you find joy in reading them.

Take care.

Philip Gulley