The Brunist Day of Wrath

PROLOGUE

Tuesday 7 July

“Jesus loves me, this I know, For the Bible tells me so…” The young Reverend Joshua J. Jenkins, candidate for the West Condon Presbyterian ministry, whushing along through the rain-drenched countryside, the bus nosing out of lush farmlands and dark wet forests onto the gently undulant and somewhat barren coal basin that is to be, if his interview goes well, his new home, finds himself meditating upon his church’s Great Awakening — a great disaster, as he was taught (he himself is just awaking from a thick early morning doze, his head fallen against the bus window, muddled dreams of collegial dispute) — and upon the sequence of disruptive church schisms and rationalist heresies that followed upon the Awakening’s excessive evangelism through the convulsions of the American nineteenth century, so shaped by Presbyterian thought (and, one might say, confused by it as well), out of which musings he hopes to craft his inaugural sermon, and humming meanwhile that children’s hymn of simple faith…“Little ones to Him belong, They are weak, but He is strong…” He does not know why this old Sunday school tune has sprung to mind, but perhaps it is a subconscious reminder that he will not be addressing fellow intellectuals in this remote little coaltown, and must therefore keep his message, however profound at the root, simple and direct in its expression. Not his forte, as his professors have often remarked. He has the ability, which he perceives as a virtue but others more often as a fault, of holding several contrary ideas in his head at the same time, acting on each as if they were independent, even while being fully aware of their relative veracity or utility. On the one hand, for example, the Biblical account of the creation of the universe some six thousand years ago, and, on the other, what we know about the half billion years it has taken to produce the landscape the bus is now rolling through (a landscape, as seen through the smear of streaming rain on the window, increasingly scarred by the grotesquerie of strip mining: man’s impact on nature is more dynamic than geological processes, about which he also holds various conflicting views). Glaciers left their mark on this area as recently as some twelve thousand years ago, but the primordial swamps that nourished the vegetation which ultimately became the coal now being mined here, powering a nation but fostering much local violence and misery, existed at least three hundred million years ago, he knows that; yet he also knows that God, in His omnipotence and wisdom, can play with time as man might play with a ball of string, so that such so-called scientific facts do not exclude, even if they superficially contradict, the sacred stories in the Bible. There are various modes of discourse, Joshua believes — narrative, analytical, rhetorical — and each proceeds toward a truth of its own kind. He personally prefers (usually) that which leads, not to further disputation, but to action, the social or moral mode, as one might call it—“Jesus loves me when I’m good, When I do the things I should…”—and it is that way of thinking that has brought him aboard the bus this morning. He was in fact contemplating missionary work in Africa or in the poorer nations in Latin America when the offer of a pastorate in an impoverished and depressed coalmining community came along, thanks to a professor who had not previously been very supportive (“Jesus loves me when I’m bad, Though it makes Him very sad…”), and he recognized it as the perfect challenge with which to launch his ministerial career, though the professor may well have thought of it as a way of getting rid of him. Joshua has a deep instinctive sympathy with the unemployed, with the less privileged, the minorities, the illiterate, the maimed, and not excluding overworked and underpaid coalminers. Not many of whom are apt to be Presbyterians, of course, but still there is a mission here. He understands that currently there are divisive eschatological issues in this community, and he believes he will have something constructive to contribute to the discussion of them, having both an ecumenical tolerance for confused and heretical beliefs and an unbending faith in doctrinal orthodoxy, not to mention a profound distaste for emotional revivalism such as that which characterized the Presbyterian Great Awakening — a distaste, as he discovered in a telephone conversation, that he shares with church elder Theodore Cavanaugh, chairman of the Board of Deacons. Yes, this will be the right place for him. Intellectually engaged and socially concerned though he is, however, ultimately it is his simple love for Jesus that is his mainstay. Jesus is his master and his guide, but he is also his friend, a friend he has talked with daily ever since his earliest days in the Sunday School Brigade. Young Reverend Jenkins has few friends, but he does not need them, for his is to be — as designed, he believes, by God Himself — a lonely, austere, and singular passage through life’s mazy uncertainties. He has a friend in Jesus, and that’s enough. Which is why, in reality (whatever that is; many possibilities), he is humming this simple song. “Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me…!” In his zeal, he is singing aloud and, to his embarrassment, someone at the back of the bus joins in: “The Bible tells me so!”

After bus stops at a progression of small wet towns, eerily empty and haunted by the skeletons of abandoned mine tipples, Joshua arrives in West Condon at last. The rain has stopped and the sun is surging from behind the clouds, welcoming him to his new life. One of his companions on the bus, perhaps the one who had sung along with him earlier, asks as he steps down behind him: “Are you a defender, brother?” A big man in a billed cap, plaid shirt, and hunting boots. “Of the faith, you mean…? Yes, of course.” “Better git a gun, then,” he says and lifts his rifle in demonstration. The man and his two friends rattle off in somebody’s pickup truck before young Reverend Jenkins can reply (repartee is also not his forte) that, no (though why did he ask?), he is a man of peace. It is the message of the New Testament (one of them; militancy is another of course, though a peaceful militancy, mostly peaceful), a message he will try to incorporate in his inaugural sermon. So that they will know who he is, what he stands for. Peace. Faith. Charity. And so on.

The bus pulls out with a gassy wheeze, leaving him standing alone on an empty street. He is surprised that no one has come to meet him. In the inside jacket pocket of his new three-piece corduroy suit he bears the flattering letter from Mr. Cavanaugh and the First Presbyterian Board of Deacons, which suggested that Mr. Cavanaugh himself would be waiting here for him. Inside the little one-story corner bus station, he finds the manager complaining about a power outage. “You get a half sprinkle in this damn forsooken town and ain’t nothin’ works,” he says, adding an unnecessary vulgarism or two. When Joshua inquires, he is told that, no, no one has been asking for him. Impatient fellow, rather rude and rough of tongue. Almost certainly not a Presbyterian. Joshua supposes Mr. Cavanaugh’s bank cannot be far away, but he decides, now that the sun is coming out (he is perhaps a bit overdressed for July, but he knows the importance of first impressions), that this might be a fortunate opportunity to examine his prospective new town and church on his own, without a local booster at his elbow. As the four beasts of the Apocalypse say: Come and see. So he shall. He has the bank’s phone number; he will call later to explain why, having been “forsooken,” he chose not to bother Mr. Cavanaugh but to make his way on his own. According to the map Mr. Cavanaugh sent him, the town, though free-form in shape, is laid out on a simple grid, numbers running one direction, trees, flowers, and American and local patriots the other; the church — soon to be his church — is marked on the map with red pencil and should be easy to find. He deposits his heavy bag, overweighted with his cherished books, with the station manager, who drags it disdainfully behind the counter, kicking it back against the wall, and he sets off on his exploration.

Joshua has hardly left the bus station before he is out of the commercial district, there being so little of it, though the residential neighborhoods are not free of the occasional shop or repair facility as well as small homespun enterprises announced by hand-lettered signs in the windows. An unzoned blurring of private and working lives, profoundly American. The wet street is aglitter with the sun shining on it and, though people are beginning to emerge from their doors, it is peaceful yet, as if newly created, and largely free of traffic. He had expected to feel out of place, but he does not. He can make a home here. The town is not as impoverished as he had imagined, though of course this is the Presbyterian side of it, so to speak (he is passing a quite monumental Baptist church even as he has this thought), and probably not where most of the miners live. He will visit those neighborhoods and discover their needs and bring the power of Christian love and the charitable weight of his own church to bear upon them. Here on these dripping tree-lined streets (he walks on the sunny side) there is the charm of the ordinary: brick houses with broad porches bearded with flowering shrubbery, white frame houses with mock shutters and screen porches and carports, others brightly painted, yellow, pale blue, rose. American flags fly, and in many of the yards there are portable barbecue grills and cedar picnic tables, bejeweled still with raindrops, poised for homely smalltown family pleasures. There are no fences; the yards are one shared yard. People greet each other from their porches. “Are your lights working?” a woman calls to another. “No, they must be out on the whole street.” “I hope my freezer don’t melt!” Some have well-tended lawns and colorful flower gardens, others are scruffier with balls and toys and tricycles in the front yard, rusting bicycles leaning against porch posts, a tire swing hanging from a tree branch, a dented pickup truck on cement blocks. Dogs have been let out and are chasing each other. In a house somewhere, a child is being scolded. Dandelions proliferate between the sidewalk and the street. Where a bent hubcap lies in the gutter near a clogged drain. Is all this beautiful? It must be. God is the first author of beauty and all his handiwork is a priori perfect, and thus good and true and also necessarily beautiful. It cannot be otherwise. Instead, one asks of all one sees: wherein lies its beauty? His inaugural sermon, as yet unwritten, is entitled “An Old Evangel for a New Day,” and perhaps that will be the theme, one of them: Seeking the extraordinary in the ordinary, the uncommon in the common. He feels quite wise and rich with insight, touched as it were by something holy (“Just a closer walk with thee,” he is humming as he strolls, “grant it, Jesus, is my plea…”), the world behaving as a theater for his inmost thoughts.

A block before the Presbyterian church, a convoy of three Army trucks full of soldiers comes rolling by as if conjured up from the puddles in the street. They are certainly not conjured up from his thoughts; they surprise them. The trucks pause and the driver of the lead vehicle leans from his window and calls out: “Hey, chubby! Can you tell me how to find the high school?” “I’m afraid I am not yet from here,” he replies, then realizes that will not be easily understood. “But I have a map.” He hands it up to the driver, who studies it. A young officer is sitting beside him, staring straight ahead. There are impolite comments from the back of the truck about the manner of Joshua’s dress. “Right,” says the driver. “Mind if I keep this?” “Well—” “Thanks, chief.” And they go rumbling on down the street, spewing black exhaust and rude remarks. A curious and, given his present transcendent state of mind, somewhat jarring apparition. Perhaps it was to remind him that that “peace in the valley” he longs for is not without its obligatory sacrifices. That there are those for whom peace is not a first priority. He knows them; they were the bane of his childhood. He is reminded of the line from Luke: And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. But he, young Reverend Joshua J. Jenkins, is a man of peace, yes, he is, through and through. He would outlaw all the world’s armies, if he could; he will never ask his congregation to sing “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” A man of peace like Christ Jesus and his Gospel of Love. His friend. His best friend. Yes, what a friend I have in Jesus! He is humming to himself again. Again, an old Sunday school song. In spite of his aptitude for abstruse and complex thought, so convoluted at times that he baffles his listeners and even sometimes gets lost himself, it is the simple songs that Joshua loves most, songs like the one he is humming now, standing before the church that is to be his home, his platform, his testing ground, and his awesome pastoral responsibility, tunefully murmured like a kind of prayer to Jesus: Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on…

The church is less impressive than in the photograph they sent him, a modest brick structure, vaguely modernist in style, far less grand than the Baptist church near the town center and not so classic a house of worship as the stone Lutheran church he passed a couple of blocks back with its solid square bell tower and big double doors; but just as Joshua loves the simple songs, so does he love the simple Christian virtues, which people in this country in their ignorance think of as American virtues, and this church in its honest friendly dignity stands as a quiet monument to them. It suits him. It suits Presbyterianism and its democratic community spirit.

As the church is presently without a minister, he fears the doors may be locked, but they are not. He removes his felt hat and wipes his brow. “I’m tired, I’m weak, I’m alone; through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light, take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home!”

“You have arrived, Mr. Jenkins. Mr. Joshua J. Jenkins.”

“Why, yes—!” He has been thinking so much about his friend Jesus that young Reverend Jenkins is not altogether surprised to see him standing at the pulpit. Sunlight enters the church through the high windows in clearly defined beams. Jesus is standing in one of them, exactly as he appears in the frontispiece of Joshua’s favorite book of Bible stories for children. It is an astonishing sight. Jesus wants me for a sunbeam, Joshua is thinking, somewhat madly, the melody tinkling in his head as if played on glass bells. “But how did you—?”

“Your résumé, Mr. Jenkins.”

“My résumé—?”

“And what does the middle ‘J’ stand for, Mr. Jenkins? Not my name, I hope.”

“No!” He has been anticipating this visit to his new church with such excitement, perhaps he is only dreaming about it and the bus not yet arrived. That would explain the nightmarish army trucks. He touches his breast pocket; no, the map is gone. But dreaming is another mode of discourse, similar to the narrative mode but freed from some mimetic conventions. The map, for example, can be there and not be there at the same time. When he wakes, he will take notes. They will make for an interesting sermon. Perhaps his inaugural one. What happened to me on my way into West Condon. On the other hand, if he is not dreaming, and he probably is not, it can’t be Jesus, and in the realization of that he understands the terrible shallowness of his faith. Though in one part of his mind, that part he takes most comfort in, he is having a personal encounter with Christ; in the larger part, wherein his reason resides like the house demon, he knows it is not possible. “It’s…it’s Jehoshaphat. My grandfather…”

“Jehoshaphat! A king! ‘I am as thou art, my people as thy people, my horses as thy horses!’ Hah! What a memory! Not all of us are so lucky to have such a grandfather. Or even a grandfather at all. On my paternal side, it is something of a mystery.” Joshua is nodding at all this, hat in hand, but he’s not sure what he’s affirming. “Yes, I know you wrote a paper on it. I thank you for your contribution.”

“Pardon? Paper—?”

“He was reminding me that he wrote an essay on the old fellow, your namesake, getting diddled by the king of Israel. He got a B-plus for it. I was acknowledging that.”

“Oh yes, I see.” But he doesn’t. Who got a B-plus? He feels as he often feels when lost in his own theological conundrums, and wonders if he should go out and come in again.

“Who, Mr. Joshua Jehoshaphat Jenkins, do you say that I am?”

“Well, hah…you look a bit like Christ Jesus, but—!”

“Looks, Mr. Jenkins, are not always deceiving.” The man smiles benignly down upon him, stroking his beard. “We were talking, I believe, about the end of the world.”

“We were?”

“Everybody is. It is, I am afraid, the topic of the day. By many it is expected imminently. Perhaps before lunch. But the end of the world, Mr. Jenkins, is not an event. It is a kind of knowledge. And therefore, at least for those in the know, it has already happened. And those who are not in the know are living in sin, for ignorance is sin — the worst sin, am I right?”

“Well…”

“Of course I am. As soon as it was imagined, it was a done deal, I told you that millennia ago, don’t you remember?”

“I–I wasn’t—”

“‘But if it is by the finger of God that I drive out the devils,’ I said,” he says, pointing a finger down at Joshua as if probing for more demons, “‘then be sure the Kingdom of God has already come upon you.’ That’s what I said. ‘Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.’ My very words, repeated hundreds of times. They wrote them down. ‘But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God.’ You’re a man of the Good Book, as it is called in the trade. You have read it. Would I lie to you?”

“No! But—”

“Shut up! Apart from me you can do nothing!”

“I–I’m sorry—?”

“He was telling me I lie all the time.”

“He—?”

“That business of driving out devils like chasing hair lice, for example, he meant. Not exactly true, I admit it, but it was the way we talked back then.”

A lady enters. Like Jesus, she is also dressed in a flowing gown. A flimsy thing the color of fresh peaches. She seems almost to float. Is she walking on her toes? “Jesus! Those awful people are marching up that hill again! And they all have guns! I was watching it on TV until the lights went off. I don’t know what’s going to happen! I heard some very loud noises! I think we should excuse this gentleman and hurry back to the basement!”

“On the contrary, my dear. We too shall proceed to the infamous hill. I believe they are waiting for me.”

“No! They don’t know what they are waiting for! They’re completely crazy! Come with me now! Please!”

Jesus, or whoever he is (she called him Jesus!), only smiles calmly and raises one hand in a kind of blessing. Which would be completely convincing were he not scratching himself with the other. “We shall take Mr. Joshua J. Jenkins with us. He is the grandson of a king. He will protect us.” He winks at Joshua. Is he supposed to wink back? What people is she talking about? What infamous hill? Why do they need protection? Perhaps he should have waited for Mr. Cavanaugh at the bus station. “Come! Follow me!”