End Of The Road
Stories
Object:
Contents
"End of the Road" by Keith Hewitt
"When I Was Crazy" by Sandra Herrmann
"A Song of Lament" by Sandra Herrmann
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The End of the Road
by Keith Hewitt
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
How on Earth did it come to this?
The question insinuated itself into Louise Brasher's brain from the cloud that hung over her, and then bounced back and forth inside her skull until it echoed loudly enough to drown out the raised voices and excited babble of children as they poured out of the school and lined up for buses or caught rides with parents. Ineffectually, she put her hands over her ears and lay her head back against the signpost behind the bench, trying to ignore the tumult.
Just one more morning, she reminded herself... one more half-day, and the year would be done. Again.
But it would be different, this time. This time, after the kids were gone and she had mopped up the last bit of paperwork, shelved the last books, and taken down the bulletin board... when she walked out the door when all that was done, she would not be coming back.
After twenty years of kids who didn't care, parents who managed to care even less, and administrators who cared more about maintaining a good public image than they did about education, it was her turn to stop caring. She had turned in her letter of resignation, dropped it on Coleridge's desk that morning without a word, after one more sleepless night.
She'd actually written it after grading projects over Spring Break, and then held onto it all that time because she wanted to be sure. She wanted to be sure that this was what she needed to do -- and it seemed that every day since the kids had come back, they'd helped to reinforce her decision.
Why fight it? Why stand there like the little Dutch boy, with her finger in the dyke, trying to hold back the tide of ignorance, apathy, and outright hostility... the crumbling values and the ever-fading hope that some form of civilization might yet take root?
"So you're doing it. You're really doing it."
Louise uncovered her ears, realizing that the comment emanated not from within, but without. She turned slightly on the bench, saw Dr. Coleridge standing next to her; he held the envelope in his hand, opened. She nodded. "I have to. I can't do this anymore. I've been beating my head against the blackboard long enough -- I realized today that it doesn't even hurt anymore and that has to mean that it's time to get out."
"Is there anything -- anyone -- in particular, that's causing you to think this way?"
"I teach seventh grade English to kids who stopped caring about school long before they got here, if they ever cared at all. The ones that do try to learn, do try to do the work, aren't just fighting their own limitations, but they're fighting against a culture that doesn't value education, peers that think it's a joke, and parents that think this is nothing but daycare for teens. The parents that don't think it's just glorified daycare think all teachers have it out for their kids -- their precious, misunderstood little darlings. TV tells 'em they don't have to actually achieve anything to be famous, maybe even rich -- they just have to be standing in the right place at the right time, when lightning strikes."
Coleridge sighed, and sat down on the bench. Together, they watched students boarding buses for a while, then he said quietly, "Why did you go into teaching, Louise?"
"So I could help people -- teach kids. Mold young minds -- you know, all the idealistic crap that they fill you up with in school. I read the books and saw the movies when I was growing up, and I thought, 'Yeah, I can be like that. I can turn their lives around and make them love reading or writing. I can help them be successful.' " She shrugged. "Turns out, I can't. I'm not Sydney Poitier, or Michelle Pfeiffer, or Edward James Olmos -- I'm Louise Brasher, middle aged failure. It's time to move on."
"I see." He was silent for a time, slowly tapping the envelope against his hand, and then he stirred and said, "Have you ever been to Rome, Louise?"
She frowned. "I drove through it, once, on the way to Whitewater."
"Not Rome, Wisconsin -- the other one. In Italy."
She grunted. "Italy? Not on what you're paying me."
"I've been, when I was in school. We went to the Sistine Chapel. You know the Sistine Chapel? The paintings on the ceiling?"
She nodded. "I'm a failure, not an idiot. I know Michelangelo."
"But you don't know this. It took him four years to complete the paintings. Four years. Do you know why it took four years?"
"Big ceiling?"
"Not that big. The problem was, he would finish a painting -- a part of a painting -- and then before he started on the next, he would look at what he'd done and realize it wasn't perfect. So he would go back, scrape the plaster off, re-plaster the ceiling, and then paint it again. He just kept doing that, over and over again, trying to make it perfect." Coleridge tapped his head with a finger. "He had a vision in here, of what it should look like -- and when it didn't match the vision, he wouldn't accept it; he'd reject what he'd done as worthless."
Louise looked at her watch as the last of the buses pulled away.
Coleridge saw, but ignored it as he continued. "Then one day, the Pope -- Julius, it was -- Pope Julius II comes to inspect the work and sees that almost nothing has been done. Since he's footing the bill, he gets a little irritated, and he calls Michelangelo into a meeting. He asks what the problem is, and Michelangelo tells him. Do you know what Pope Julius says, then?"
"You're fired, Loser?"
Coleridge smiled, then, and shook his head. "No. He takes Michelangelo by the hand and leads him out to the center of the floor, then he uses one hand to kind of tilt Michelangelo's head back, so he's looking straight up at the plain, vaulted ceiling, and he says, 'My son, you look at emptiness and you see an image of perfection, but human hands can never achieve what you see. If you keep trying, and retrying, and trying again to achieve it, never happy with the results, you will never achieve anything. You will never be happy with anything you've done, and you will cheat the world out of what you might have given it, if only you could have tolerated those imperfections.' "
Louise glanced at him, then. "So you're saying I should take up painting?"
"I'm saying everything you said about your students -- about society -- is true, more or less. Some days I think we are like lemmings headed for the cliff. But that makes what you do all the more important, because people like you -- you choose to stand there between the lemmings and the cliff, trying to turn them aside. You give them knowledge, and sometimes they learn it. You speak the truth, and sometimes they hear it. You show them love, and sometimes they feel it. They need to hear what you're telling them, even if they don't look like they're listening."
He fell silent, then, and the two of them stared across the parking lot for several long moments. When he spoke again, his voice was even lower, softer.
"I know you're tired. I know you're frustrated. But you've got a bigger problem than that."
"What's that?"
"You've got a calling. You care. Despite everything that's gone on, you care and you know you do. These kids coming up, they need to hear what you have to say. And you're starting to see some of the kids you taught as parents, now, and they need your help more than ever. And you know all that, don't you?"
Louise Brasher let her head settle back against the signpost once more, and nodded. "I do. But I'm just so tired."
"Then tell you what -- take the summer off, and we'll see you next fall."
She opened her eyes, looked at him and shook her head. " 'Take the summer off --' very funny. But I suppose you're right. Maybe I just need a couple months off."
"You'll feel like a new woman, come August," he promised. "You always do." He held up the envelope. "What do you want me to do with this?"
She shrugged. "Put it with the others, I guess."
He slipped it into his coat pocket and tapped the outside. "Good choice. You know, by the time you do retire, in another fifteen years, I should have a pretty good collection of these."
She stood up, then, and brushed unseen dust away from the seat of her pants with her hand. "You almost had the last in the series, this time -- you really did. It's been a tough year. Thanks for the history lesson."
Coleridge said nothing, just stood up and waited for her to start walking back toward the building, then fell in beside her. As they reached the door, and he held it open for her, she paused and looked directly at him. "I never knew you'd been to Italy."
He shrugged, smiled sheepishly. "On my salary? Please."
"Then that story? Michelangelo?"
"I guess it was my turn to stand between the lemming and the cliff -- to remind you about why you do what you do. And anyway, it could have happened," he said defensively, as she brushed past him and walked back into the building.
The closing of the door drowned out her reply.
Keith Hewitt is the author of three volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a local pastor, former youth leader and Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He is currently serving as the pastor at Parkview UMC in Turtle Lake, Wisconsin. Keith is married to a teacher, and they have two children and assorted dogs and cats.
When I Was Crazy
by Sandra Herrmann
Luke 8:26-39
There are many things I don't remember about my mental break. Days sometimes slipped by and I couldn't even remember one thing I had accomplished. Maybe I accomplished nothing. It felt as though my body somehow went on, but I remained behind, sitting, watching...
I don't remember how it started. I know that I was frightened, but I didn't know what had frightened me. I know that I was sad. I even remember why I was sad -- my lovely wife, the love of my life since she was 14 and I was 17 -- had died in childbirth. We had no money for insurance, and so she hadn't gone to the doctor much while she was pregnant. The doctor said she had a stroke while in labor, and that we might have avoided this if she had just come to the free clinic each month. But no one had told us there was a free clinic. How were we to know that the headaches, the spots before her eyes, meant she was in deep trouble?
I didn't even ask about the baby. Why I thought the baby must have died too, I can't explain. The doctor had been so angry, telling me we had been stupid, that I just assumed the baby had died too.
Well, she hadn't. She had lived. More than lived. She was a big, round baby with dark hair all over her head. She wasn't as healthy as she looked, though. What had been wrong with my wife had given the baby a problem too. She had to be in an intensive care unit for nearly two weeks. My wife's mother, Francine, came every day and sat with her, holding her hand, crooning to her. I stayed away, certain that she, like the doctor, would tell me how stupid we had been, not going to the doctor every month.
I had a good excuse for staying away. At least I had a job, and I had to get to that job every day, because if I didn't, I didn't get paid, and if I didn't get paid, I would lose everything we had both worked so hard for. Besides, working kept my mind busy, so I didn't keep yelling at myself for what we didn't know.
I told Francine how much I appreciated her care for the baby, explained that I had to be at work, and she seemed to understand. But one day I got there and she said that the nurses had been very upset that the baby didn't have a name, so she had told them to name the baby Jonquil.
"Jonquil? What kind of a name is Jonquil?"
"It's a flower, David. Like a daffodil. You know, those yellow spring flowers that look like they have trumpets for faces. I thought it was a pretty name. And you didn't seem to think of any names, so I had to." Her face was set, red, with a vein throbbing at her temple. I panicked, and left the room, the hospital, and walked the three miles home to our apartment.
I found that the long walk made me feel better. I was more relaxed when I got home. I seemed to have left the fear and guilt behind me as I strode down the street. That night, for the first time since Jonquil -- what a stupid name! -- had been born, I slept through the night. So the next morning, instead of stopping at a bus stop, I walked to work. I was a little late, because I hadn't thought about how much longer it would take me to walk than riding the bus, but my boss was pretty cool about it.
That night, I walked about half way to the hospital right after work. I was getting a little shaky, so I stopped for a Coke and a burger and fries on the way. Then I walked the rest of the way to the hospital. I was almost too late to see my baby, because I hadn't realized how much time it had taken me to get there. But the nurses were nice and let me stay past visiting hours. I even got to hold my baby for a long time, sitting in a rocking chair, just rubbing her tiny fingers and looking at her fluffy hair. I fell asleep holding her, woke up when the nurse took her out of my arms, afraid I might drop her.
That made me mad. Well, afraid too. I shouted at the nurse, "I wouldn't hurt my baby. She's all I have any more! I wouldn't hurt her!" The nurse looked a little frightened, then fierce. She warned me that if I shouted, waking all the babies, I would have to leave.
That made me even angrier. I stood up, and she backed up a step, still holding my daughter, the only thing I had left in the world. I reached for my girl, and that nurse, she turned around so I couldn't get hold of my baby, and she called for help! I wasn't doing anything, I didn't want to hurt her or my baby, I tried to say so, but everybody was milling around and the guard was grabbing my arm, and they kept telling me to "keep it down" and I had no idea why they were pushing me away, down the hall, to the parking lot outside. The last thing the guard said to me was, "Come back when you're sober." Sober? I don't drink. I don't do drugs. I was sober! I couldn't figure out what was going on.
I walked home but the thought of going inside, where I had no wife, no baby -- I couldn't stand to go in there. I just kept walking. I figured I'd get tired, like before, and then I could go in and go to bed. I decided to walk over to the park, the big one about a mile away, and I walked up and down the path beside the lagoon. It was a dark night, with splotches of yellow light where the streetlights were, and I stumbled and fell over a tree root. By that time, I didn't feel like I had the strength to stand up, so I just went to sleep right there.
Sometime after the sky got light, I woke up and walked to work. I got there right on time, but my boss said I was dirty and didn't look good. He put me in a cab and sent me home to "get cleaned up, maybe get some rest," and I did. I slept and slept, and then got up and went to the hospital. But they wouldn't let me hold my baby. They said Francine had taken her home. So I went home too.
But the baby wasn't at our apartment. She was at Francine's. When I went over there, she told me I was filthy, I couldn't hold the baby. And then the police came and took me to jail, where I stayed overnight. The judge let me go but told me to stay away from Francine and the baby. How could I do that?
So one thing led to another, and I spent thirty days in jail. When I went back to work, I had no job. No job, no paycheck, no apartment, no wife, and a baby my mother-in-law had stolen. I was sleeping in doorways, scrounging for food, walking, walking, walking. I had no hope, not a prayer, no memory of yesterday or even an hour ago. I was lost, frightened, and I guess frightening.
Frightening to everybody but this nun I met. She walked the streets at night, handing out blankets and sandwiches and cups of coffee she kept in a grocery cart. First time I saw her, I thought she was a street person. But she had a place to go, a bed to sleep in, unlike people like me.
Because I had become one of those crazy people on the street, mumbling to myself, hungry and dirty and tired. Beaten by life. But she saved me. She didn't just give me a blanket and go away. She sat and listened while I babbled, at first incoherently, but then as she asked questions, I was able to tell her what had happened to me. What I had lost. What scared me the most. What I wanted. What I needed. She sat on the sidewalk with me, drinking coffee, and listening. And then she offered me a bed, shelter. Did I want to come back inside?
I wasn't sure. I'd been on the street a while. I could survive.
"But that baby of yours," she said, "don't you want to see her again? You'll have to clean up. Nobody will let a dirty man hold a tiny baby."
I nodded. I sat. I thought about it. "Will they let a crazy man hold his baby?" I asked.
"Maybe once you're clean and rested and not hungry anymore, you won't need to be crazy anymore. Is it worth the risk to you?"
"Well," I said, "it might be worth a try."
And that was the day I stopped being crazy. It took me a while to get my feet on the ground. "Nothing happens all at once," she would tell me. She held me up, got me well, helped me find a new job, a room, my mind. And my baby, though it took a while to get Francine to trust me. But that day came too. I owe it to God, and the nun who works for him. Thank you, Lord!
A Song of Lament
by Sandra Herrmann
Psalms 42 & 43
Lois couldn't remember when it had started. There was no big event; she had been retired for a few years and had built a good life of volunteering mixed with a part time job that she enjoyed -- no recent changes. No one dear to her had died. Her children were long grown up, and kept in touch, so no empty nest syndrome. She and her husband lived in their own home, the same one they had lived in for thirty years. In short, she had a good life. One she should have been grateful for. And if she had any other ideas about her life, her sister would correct her. Had told her, repeatedly, to snap out of it, because anybody they knew would trade places with her in a minute. But knowing and feeling are two separate things, and her heart refused to respond to reason.
Her friends at church didn't know much of what she was going through. She didn't need for any of them to ask her what was wrong with her faith. Didn't she trust God? The only person she had told about her current state of mind had said, "Just lean on the Lord," Eloise had said. "He'll make everything right." Lois sighed. What could she possibly say to that? But prayer had become a burden, not easy as it had been for her for years. She would fold her hands, intending to talk to God, and her tongue seemed to go numb. No words could express what she was feeling, and even if she could put those feelings into words, how could she tell God that she was tired all the time, and she wasn't sure she could trust him anymore. Wasn't despair the ultimate sin?
In fact, her prayer life had taken on a single theme: "How long, O God? How long before my life on earth is at an end? How long must I wait until I can join my Savior at the banqueting table in heaven?" She expressed it as a hope and something to look forward to. "How can I not look forward to seeing my parents again? And the older women and men I've lost already? And to meet Jesus? What could be better than that?"
Her husband looked worried when he overheard her saying this to the members of her Adult Sunday School Class. On the way home from church, he teased her about it. "Getting ready for your final exams a bit early, aren't you?" he asked.
She tried to laugh with him. "Oh, it's like planning a vacation. You know how many brochures I got for cruise lines before we took that Caribbean trip."
"Do we need a vacation trip?" he had asked. "We could go see the kids in New Mexico. They're always after us to come down any time." His voice wasn't exactly troubled, but he was clearly concerned for her happiness.
No, she thought to herself. Too much trouble -- all that packing and getting the paper and mail stopped and getting someone to water her plants. Not to mention boarding the cats. It just was too much for her to even think about doing. Out loud, she said, "Oh, no, I want to get some plants in, and if I do that before we go, there's no one to watch them. And if I do that when we get back, it will be too warm for them. Let's just enjoy the spring weather here."
Frank didn't say anything, so she assumed she had given him an answer he could accept. Meanwhile, she stared out the window, wondering why planting her annual flower beds didn't perk up her soul like they always had in past springs. She had never been like this before, she thought. Spring catalogs would arrive in February, and she would spend two months pouring over them, marking everything that appealed to her. The hardest part was crossing out what they couldn't afford or find places for in the yard. Even the bloom of the forsythia bush and the varied colors of the tulips all around the foundation of the house couldn't get her interested this year. Of course, it had been a dismal, cloudy spring, with several cold snaps that called for garbage bags to be thrown over her most tender flowers. Maybe that was all that was going on with her. A cold spring.
"Maybe a weekend trip," Frank was saying.
Startled, she asked, "A weekend trip? Where?"
"Maybe up to Wisconsin. We could go up to Door County, see the cherry blossoms, stay at that inn we liked so much, take walks on the beach, through the woods."
Lois thought about it. Lake Michigan would be rough, this early in the year, probably spraying up to their favorite spot to walk, along the top of cliffs that overlooked a rocky section of coast. That would certainly match her mood. And she had always said she felt closest to God in the woods. She turned to her husband with a bit of hope and said, "Let's do that. It certainly can't hurt." He raised his eyebrows at her attempt at a smile, but then he nodded. "We need to make some phone calls," he said, just make sure we'll have a room when we get there."
"Hmm," she nodded, "that's smart."
"Super!" Frank pounded the steering wheel rhythmically. "I'll get on the phone as soon as we get home." He accelerated, turning toward home.
"Just a minute, Superman," she replied. "I require lunch before I work."
He smiled at the road and mentioned their favorite buffet. She even smiled back. For a little while, she even felt good. That good mood gave her the energy to get packed, call the cat sitter, and ask the neighbor to pick up the papers and the mail for a few days. They were on the road the next morning, cruising north in the early morning.
About noon, they pulled into the check-in lane in front of their favorite inn on the peninsula. They unloaded the car and went to their suite. Lois went to the window and pulled aside the drapes. Light flooded the woods outside and glittered on the lake below. She took a deep breath and said a brief prayer of thanks. Maybe this trip would be the thing to stabilize her mood. A good, long walk, a pleasant dinner, who knew?
They did it all. They walked along the cliffs, hand in hand. They had a boiled fish dinner, the specialty of the house. They retired to their room, where she fell asleep in Frank's arms. The next three days sped by as they admired a cherry orchard and walked through the woods (and found themselves watched by a young doe, peering at them around an apple tree in an old orchard). While most of the tourist attractions were closed, they stopped at a few artisans' shops. Frank bought Lois a pair of earrings that were engraved in the shape of a labyrinth. The artist explained that the labyrinth was a tortured circular path that seekers after God would walk to remind them that the path to God is never altogether straight, nor can we always see the end of the path until we get there. Lois put them on at once and later said to Frank, "It's a good reminder, isn't it, that even if we cannot see our way, we know that in the end we will be in the presence of God?"
Frank put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, and they walked back to the car together, both of them smiling. When they were driving back home, Frank said, "Let's try to remember that even when we're retired, we still need time away to keep ourselves steady." Lois could not have agreed more. She was feeling at peace for the first time in how long.
Lois had thought that this peace would last, but once back home, her mood began to shift downward again. She had a bit more energy than before their trip, but when she went out to work in the garden, she was tired before she had gotten any kind of a start. She came back in the house, leaving her garden gloves and small tools on the kitchen table, and went back to the bedroom and laid down. With Frank out of the house, she could get a nice nap without worrying him.
She woke up when the bedroom door closed softly. How long had she been sleeping? With relief, she saw that it was barely four in the afternoon. She got up, washed her face, and put on a bit of lipstick, deciding against doing any more makeup. She fluffed her hair a bit and tried on a smile at the mirror. It didn't fool her a bit, and she doubted it would fool Frank.
She was right. Frank wasn't fooled and in fact looked worried when she came out onto the patio. "Are you all right?" he asked.
"Oh, sure. I just needed a bit of a nap. Did you have a good afternoon?"
He didn't pry further. Lois was grateful and kept up her end of a meaningless chat. Frank suggested dinner out, and she agreed with gratitude. "Standing up at the stove isn't too appealing tonight."
On the way home, Frank pulled into a local ice cream parlor. "Want a cone or a sundae?"
Over their ice cream cones, Frank suggested that maybe Lois should see their family doctor. Though Lois protested that she wasn't sick, Frank insisted that her ongoing depression needed something more than walks on the beach or lovely dinners out. He pointed out her tiredness, sadness, and lack of interest in anything that normally engaged her. He pointed to a serious depression that might need medication or therapy.
"I'm worried about you, honey," he added. "It's not like you to be like this. And you don't have to be down like this."
"You think I need medication?" she exclaimed. "Am I that bad?"
"Honey, you're never bad. You just aren't the person you usually are. I just want the best for you, Sweetie. Please let me make an appointment with the doctor." He peered at her over his cone and waited.
"Well, okay. I'm not sure it will do any good, though."
Frank looked relieved. Lois sighed. She promised that if he made the appointment and went with her, she would talk to the doctor.
She was shocked when the doctor immediately made an appointment for her to see a psychiatrist. She protested. Surely she wasn't that bad off?
"Lois," her doctor responded, "you show every sign of a deep depression. You're not eating well, are you?" At her surprised look, he went on, "You've lost fifteen pounds since I last saw you. And you didn't need to lose any weight. And your face is much more lined than usual." When she tentatively touched her cheek, the doctor reached for her hand. "Trust me, Lois. This is not a bad thing, seeing a psychiatrist. He can prescribe an antidepressant. Once that kicks in, I think you'll understand what the depression has been doing to you."
Within days, she was in the psychiatrist's office, answering his questions about what she could and could not do easily, what her interests were and how often she did them in the past compared to recently. She was amazed when he very briskly pronounced that she was "just" depressed, and that a pill could change all that.
Three weeks later, she bounced down the deck stairs to the garden, garden tools in both hands. "Thought I'd better get at those weeds around the roses today," she told Frank. She laughed at the widening of his eyes. "Well, you were the one who said I needed a doctor. Don't look so surprised that you were right!" She kissed him as she went past the picnic table. "But don't think that gets you out of taking me out to dinner tonight."
As she worked in the garden, a hymn came to her, and soon she was singing praises to God: "I come to the garden alone/ while the dew is still on the roses," she sang as she pulled weeds and laid mulch around her favorite flowers.
Sandra Herrmann is a retired United Methodist pastor living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
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StoryShare, June 23, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
"End of the Road" by Keith Hewitt
"When I Was Crazy" by Sandra Herrmann
"A Song of Lament" by Sandra Herrmann
* * * * * * *
The End of the Road
by Keith Hewitt
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
How on Earth did it come to this?
The question insinuated itself into Louise Brasher's brain from the cloud that hung over her, and then bounced back and forth inside her skull until it echoed loudly enough to drown out the raised voices and excited babble of children as they poured out of the school and lined up for buses or caught rides with parents. Ineffectually, she put her hands over her ears and lay her head back against the signpost behind the bench, trying to ignore the tumult.
Just one more morning, she reminded herself... one more half-day, and the year would be done. Again.
But it would be different, this time. This time, after the kids were gone and she had mopped up the last bit of paperwork, shelved the last books, and taken down the bulletin board... when she walked out the door when all that was done, she would not be coming back.
After twenty years of kids who didn't care, parents who managed to care even less, and administrators who cared more about maintaining a good public image than they did about education, it was her turn to stop caring. She had turned in her letter of resignation, dropped it on Coleridge's desk that morning without a word, after one more sleepless night.
She'd actually written it after grading projects over Spring Break, and then held onto it all that time because she wanted to be sure. She wanted to be sure that this was what she needed to do -- and it seemed that every day since the kids had come back, they'd helped to reinforce her decision.
Why fight it? Why stand there like the little Dutch boy, with her finger in the dyke, trying to hold back the tide of ignorance, apathy, and outright hostility... the crumbling values and the ever-fading hope that some form of civilization might yet take root?
"So you're doing it. You're really doing it."
Louise uncovered her ears, realizing that the comment emanated not from within, but without. She turned slightly on the bench, saw Dr. Coleridge standing next to her; he held the envelope in his hand, opened. She nodded. "I have to. I can't do this anymore. I've been beating my head against the blackboard long enough -- I realized today that it doesn't even hurt anymore and that has to mean that it's time to get out."
"Is there anything -- anyone -- in particular, that's causing you to think this way?"
"I teach seventh grade English to kids who stopped caring about school long before they got here, if they ever cared at all. The ones that do try to learn, do try to do the work, aren't just fighting their own limitations, but they're fighting against a culture that doesn't value education, peers that think it's a joke, and parents that think this is nothing but daycare for teens. The parents that don't think it's just glorified daycare think all teachers have it out for their kids -- their precious, misunderstood little darlings. TV tells 'em they don't have to actually achieve anything to be famous, maybe even rich -- they just have to be standing in the right place at the right time, when lightning strikes."
Coleridge sighed, and sat down on the bench. Together, they watched students boarding buses for a while, then he said quietly, "Why did you go into teaching, Louise?"
"So I could help people -- teach kids. Mold young minds -- you know, all the idealistic crap that they fill you up with in school. I read the books and saw the movies when I was growing up, and I thought, 'Yeah, I can be like that. I can turn their lives around and make them love reading or writing. I can help them be successful.' " She shrugged. "Turns out, I can't. I'm not Sydney Poitier, or Michelle Pfeiffer, or Edward James Olmos -- I'm Louise Brasher, middle aged failure. It's time to move on."
"I see." He was silent for a time, slowly tapping the envelope against his hand, and then he stirred and said, "Have you ever been to Rome, Louise?"
She frowned. "I drove through it, once, on the way to Whitewater."
"Not Rome, Wisconsin -- the other one. In Italy."
She grunted. "Italy? Not on what you're paying me."
"I've been, when I was in school. We went to the Sistine Chapel. You know the Sistine Chapel? The paintings on the ceiling?"
She nodded. "I'm a failure, not an idiot. I know Michelangelo."
"But you don't know this. It took him four years to complete the paintings. Four years. Do you know why it took four years?"
"Big ceiling?"
"Not that big. The problem was, he would finish a painting -- a part of a painting -- and then before he started on the next, he would look at what he'd done and realize it wasn't perfect. So he would go back, scrape the plaster off, re-plaster the ceiling, and then paint it again. He just kept doing that, over and over again, trying to make it perfect." Coleridge tapped his head with a finger. "He had a vision in here, of what it should look like -- and when it didn't match the vision, he wouldn't accept it; he'd reject what he'd done as worthless."
Louise looked at her watch as the last of the buses pulled away.
Coleridge saw, but ignored it as he continued. "Then one day, the Pope -- Julius, it was -- Pope Julius II comes to inspect the work and sees that almost nothing has been done. Since he's footing the bill, he gets a little irritated, and he calls Michelangelo into a meeting. He asks what the problem is, and Michelangelo tells him. Do you know what Pope Julius says, then?"
"You're fired, Loser?"
Coleridge smiled, then, and shook his head. "No. He takes Michelangelo by the hand and leads him out to the center of the floor, then he uses one hand to kind of tilt Michelangelo's head back, so he's looking straight up at the plain, vaulted ceiling, and he says, 'My son, you look at emptiness and you see an image of perfection, but human hands can never achieve what you see. If you keep trying, and retrying, and trying again to achieve it, never happy with the results, you will never achieve anything. You will never be happy with anything you've done, and you will cheat the world out of what you might have given it, if only you could have tolerated those imperfections.' "
Louise glanced at him, then. "So you're saying I should take up painting?"
"I'm saying everything you said about your students -- about society -- is true, more or less. Some days I think we are like lemmings headed for the cliff. But that makes what you do all the more important, because people like you -- you choose to stand there between the lemmings and the cliff, trying to turn them aside. You give them knowledge, and sometimes they learn it. You speak the truth, and sometimes they hear it. You show them love, and sometimes they feel it. They need to hear what you're telling them, even if they don't look like they're listening."
He fell silent, then, and the two of them stared across the parking lot for several long moments. When he spoke again, his voice was even lower, softer.
"I know you're tired. I know you're frustrated. But you've got a bigger problem than that."
"What's that?"
"You've got a calling. You care. Despite everything that's gone on, you care and you know you do. These kids coming up, they need to hear what you have to say. And you're starting to see some of the kids you taught as parents, now, and they need your help more than ever. And you know all that, don't you?"
Louise Brasher let her head settle back against the signpost once more, and nodded. "I do. But I'm just so tired."
"Then tell you what -- take the summer off, and we'll see you next fall."
She opened her eyes, looked at him and shook her head. " 'Take the summer off --' very funny. But I suppose you're right. Maybe I just need a couple months off."
"You'll feel like a new woman, come August," he promised. "You always do." He held up the envelope. "What do you want me to do with this?"
She shrugged. "Put it with the others, I guess."
He slipped it into his coat pocket and tapped the outside. "Good choice. You know, by the time you do retire, in another fifteen years, I should have a pretty good collection of these."
She stood up, then, and brushed unseen dust away from the seat of her pants with her hand. "You almost had the last in the series, this time -- you really did. It's been a tough year. Thanks for the history lesson."
Coleridge said nothing, just stood up and waited for her to start walking back toward the building, then fell in beside her. As they reached the door, and he held it open for her, she paused and looked directly at him. "I never knew you'd been to Italy."
He shrugged, smiled sheepishly. "On my salary? Please."
"Then that story? Michelangelo?"
"I guess it was my turn to stand between the lemming and the cliff -- to remind you about why you do what you do. And anyway, it could have happened," he said defensively, as she brushed past him and walked back into the building.
The closing of the door drowned out her reply.
Keith Hewitt is the author of three volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a local pastor, former youth leader and Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He is currently serving as the pastor at Parkview UMC in Turtle Lake, Wisconsin. Keith is married to a teacher, and they have two children and assorted dogs and cats.
When I Was Crazy
by Sandra Herrmann
Luke 8:26-39
There are many things I don't remember about my mental break. Days sometimes slipped by and I couldn't even remember one thing I had accomplished. Maybe I accomplished nothing. It felt as though my body somehow went on, but I remained behind, sitting, watching...
I don't remember how it started. I know that I was frightened, but I didn't know what had frightened me. I know that I was sad. I even remember why I was sad -- my lovely wife, the love of my life since she was 14 and I was 17 -- had died in childbirth. We had no money for insurance, and so she hadn't gone to the doctor much while she was pregnant. The doctor said she had a stroke while in labor, and that we might have avoided this if she had just come to the free clinic each month. But no one had told us there was a free clinic. How were we to know that the headaches, the spots before her eyes, meant she was in deep trouble?
I didn't even ask about the baby. Why I thought the baby must have died too, I can't explain. The doctor had been so angry, telling me we had been stupid, that I just assumed the baby had died too.
Well, she hadn't. She had lived. More than lived. She was a big, round baby with dark hair all over her head. She wasn't as healthy as she looked, though. What had been wrong with my wife had given the baby a problem too. She had to be in an intensive care unit for nearly two weeks. My wife's mother, Francine, came every day and sat with her, holding her hand, crooning to her. I stayed away, certain that she, like the doctor, would tell me how stupid we had been, not going to the doctor every month.
I had a good excuse for staying away. At least I had a job, and I had to get to that job every day, because if I didn't, I didn't get paid, and if I didn't get paid, I would lose everything we had both worked so hard for. Besides, working kept my mind busy, so I didn't keep yelling at myself for what we didn't know.
I told Francine how much I appreciated her care for the baby, explained that I had to be at work, and she seemed to understand. But one day I got there and she said that the nurses had been very upset that the baby didn't have a name, so she had told them to name the baby Jonquil.
"Jonquil? What kind of a name is Jonquil?"
"It's a flower, David. Like a daffodil. You know, those yellow spring flowers that look like they have trumpets for faces. I thought it was a pretty name. And you didn't seem to think of any names, so I had to." Her face was set, red, with a vein throbbing at her temple. I panicked, and left the room, the hospital, and walked the three miles home to our apartment.
I found that the long walk made me feel better. I was more relaxed when I got home. I seemed to have left the fear and guilt behind me as I strode down the street. That night, for the first time since Jonquil -- what a stupid name! -- had been born, I slept through the night. So the next morning, instead of stopping at a bus stop, I walked to work. I was a little late, because I hadn't thought about how much longer it would take me to walk than riding the bus, but my boss was pretty cool about it.
That night, I walked about half way to the hospital right after work. I was getting a little shaky, so I stopped for a Coke and a burger and fries on the way. Then I walked the rest of the way to the hospital. I was almost too late to see my baby, because I hadn't realized how much time it had taken me to get there. But the nurses were nice and let me stay past visiting hours. I even got to hold my baby for a long time, sitting in a rocking chair, just rubbing her tiny fingers and looking at her fluffy hair. I fell asleep holding her, woke up when the nurse took her out of my arms, afraid I might drop her.
That made me mad. Well, afraid too. I shouted at the nurse, "I wouldn't hurt my baby. She's all I have any more! I wouldn't hurt her!" The nurse looked a little frightened, then fierce. She warned me that if I shouted, waking all the babies, I would have to leave.
That made me even angrier. I stood up, and she backed up a step, still holding my daughter, the only thing I had left in the world. I reached for my girl, and that nurse, she turned around so I couldn't get hold of my baby, and she called for help! I wasn't doing anything, I didn't want to hurt her or my baby, I tried to say so, but everybody was milling around and the guard was grabbing my arm, and they kept telling me to "keep it down" and I had no idea why they were pushing me away, down the hall, to the parking lot outside. The last thing the guard said to me was, "Come back when you're sober." Sober? I don't drink. I don't do drugs. I was sober! I couldn't figure out what was going on.
I walked home but the thought of going inside, where I had no wife, no baby -- I couldn't stand to go in there. I just kept walking. I figured I'd get tired, like before, and then I could go in and go to bed. I decided to walk over to the park, the big one about a mile away, and I walked up and down the path beside the lagoon. It was a dark night, with splotches of yellow light where the streetlights were, and I stumbled and fell over a tree root. By that time, I didn't feel like I had the strength to stand up, so I just went to sleep right there.
Sometime after the sky got light, I woke up and walked to work. I got there right on time, but my boss said I was dirty and didn't look good. He put me in a cab and sent me home to "get cleaned up, maybe get some rest," and I did. I slept and slept, and then got up and went to the hospital. But they wouldn't let me hold my baby. They said Francine had taken her home. So I went home too.
But the baby wasn't at our apartment. She was at Francine's. When I went over there, she told me I was filthy, I couldn't hold the baby. And then the police came and took me to jail, where I stayed overnight. The judge let me go but told me to stay away from Francine and the baby. How could I do that?
So one thing led to another, and I spent thirty days in jail. When I went back to work, I had no job. No job, no paycheck, no apartment, no wife, and a baby my mother-in-law had stolen. I was sleeping in doorways, scrounging for food, walking, walking, walking. I had no hope, not a prayer, no memory of yesterday or even an hour ago. I was lost, frightened, and I guess frightening.
Frightening to everybody but this nun I met. She walked the streets at night, handing out blankets and sandwiches and cups of coffee she kept in a grocery cart. First time I saw her, I thought she was a street person. But she had a place to go, a bed to sleep in, unlike people like me.
Because I had become one of those crazy people on the street, mumbling to myself, hungry and dirty and tired. Beaten by life. But she saved me. She didn't just give me a blanket and go away. She sat and listened while I babbled, at first incoherently, but then as she asked questions, I was able to tell her what had happened to me. What I had lost. What scared me the most. What I wanted. What I needed. She sat on the sidewalk with me, drinking coffee, and listening. And then she offered me a bed, shelter. Did I want to come back inside?
I wasn't sure. I'd been on the street a while. I could survive.
"But that baby of yours," she said, "don't you want to see her again? You'll have to clean up. Nobody will let a dirty man hold a tiny baby."
I nodded. I sat. I thought about it. "Will they let a crazy man hold his baby?" I asked.
"Maybe once you're clean and rested and not hungry anymore, you won't need to be crazy anymore. Is it worth the risk to you?"
"Well," I said, "it might be worth a try."
And that was the day I stopped being crazy. It took me a while to get my feet on the ground. "Nothing happens all at once," she would tell me. She held me up, got me well, helped me find a new job, a room, my mind. And my baby, though it took a while to get Francine to trust me. But that day came too. I owe it to God, and the nun who works for him. Thank you, Lord!
A Song of Lament
by Sandra Herrmann
Psalms 42 & 43
Lois couldn't remember when it had started. There was no big event; she had been retired for a few years and had built a good life of volunteering mixed with a part time job that she enjoyed -- no recent changes. No one dear to her had died. Her children were long grown up, and kept in touch, so no empty nest syndrome. She and her husband lived in their own home, the same one they had lived in for thirty years. In short, she had a good life. One she should have been grateful for. And if she had any other ideas about her life, her sister would correct her. Had told her, repeatedly, to snap out of it, because anybody they knew would trade places with her in a minute. But knowing and feeling are two separate things, and her heart refused to respond to reason.
Her friends at church didn't know much of what she was going through. She didn't need for any of them to ask her what was wrong with her faith. Didn't she trust God? The only person she had told about her current state of mind had said, "Just lean on the Lord," Eloise had said. "He'll make everything right." Lois sighed. What could she possibly say to that? But prayer had become a burden, not easy as it had been for her for years. She would fold her hands, intending to talk to God, and her tongue seemed to go numb. No words could express what she was feeling, and even if she could put those feelings into words, how could she tell God that she was tired all the time, and she wasn't sure she could trust him anymore. Wasn't despair the ultimate sin?
In fact, her prayer life had taken on a single theme: "How long, O God? How long before my life on earth is at an end? How long must I wait until I can join my Savior at the banqueting table in heaven?" She expressed it as a hope and something to look forward to. "How can I not look forward to seeing my parents again? And the older women and men I've lost already? And to meet Jesus? What could be better than that?"
Her husband looked worried when he overheard her saying this to the members of her Adult Sunday School Class. On the way home from church, he teased her about it. "Getting ready for your final exams a bit early, aren't you?" he asked.
She tried to laugh with him. "Oh, it's like planning a vacation. You know how many brochures I got for cruise lines before we took that Caribbean trip."
"Do we need a vacation trip?" he had asked. "We could go see the kids in New Mexico. They're always after us to come down any time." His voice wasn't exactly troubled, but he was clearly concerned for her happiness.
No, she thought to herself. Too much trouble -- all that packing and getting the paper and mail stopped and getting someone to water her plants. Not to mention boarding the cats. It just was too much for her to even think about doing. Out loud, she said, "Oh, no, I want to get some plants in, and if I do that before we go, there's no one to watch them. And if I do that when we get back, it will be too warm for them. Let's just enjoy the spring weather here."
Frank didn't say anything, so she assumed she had given him an answer he could accept. Meanwhile, she stared out the window, wondering why planting her annual flower beds didn't perk up her soul like they always had in past springs. She had never been like this before, she thought. Spring catalogs would arrive in February, and she would spend two months pouring over them, marking everything that appealed to her. The hardest part was crossing out what they couldn't afford or find places for in the yard. Even the bloom of the forsythia bush and the varied colors of the tulips all around the foundation of the house couldn't get her interested this year. Of course, it had been a dismal, cloudy spring, with several cold snaps that called for garbage bags to be thrown over her most tender flowers. Maybe that was all that was going on with her. A cold spring.
"Maybe a weekend trip," Frank was saying.
Startled, she asked, "A weekend trip? Where?"
"Maybe up to Wisconsin. We could go up to Door County, see the cherry blossoms, stay at that inn we liked so much, take walks on the beach, through the woods."
Lois thought about it. Lake Michigan would be rough, this early in the year, probably spraying up to their favorite spot to walk, along the top of cliffs that overlooked a rocky section of coast. That would certainly match her mood. And she had always said she felt closest to God in the woods. She turned to her husband with a bit of hope and said, "Let's do that. It certainly can't hurt." He raised his eyebrows at her attempt at a smile, but then he nodded. "We need to make some phone calls," he said, just make sure we'll have a room when we get there."
"Hmm," she nodded, "that's smart."
"Super!" Frank pounded the steering wheel rhythmically. "I'll get on the phone as soon as we get home." He accelerated, turning toward home.
"Just a minute, Superman," she replied. "I require lunch before I work."
He smiled at the road and mentioned their favorite buffet. She even smiled back. For a little while, she even felt good. That good mood gave her the energy to get packed, call the cat sitter, and ask the neighbor to pick up the papers and the mail for a few days. They were on the road the next morning, cruising north in the early morning.
About noon, they pulled into the check-in lane in front of their favorite inn on the peninsula. They unloaded the car and went to their suite. Lois went to the window and pulled aside the drapes. Light flooded the woods outside and glittered on the lake below. She took a deep breath and said a brief prayer of thanks. Maybe this trip would be the thing to stabilize her mood. A good, long walk, a pleasant dinner, who knew?
They did it all. They walked along the cliffs, hand in hand. They had a boiled fish dinner, the specialty of the house. They retired to their room, where she fell asleep in Frank's arms. The next three days sped by as they admired a cherry orchard and walked through the woods (and found themselves watched by a young doe, peering at them around an apple tree in an old orchard). While most of the tourist attractions were closed, they stopped at a few artisans' shops. Frank bought Lois a pair of earrings that were engraved in the shape of a labyrinth. The artist explained that the labyrinth was a tortured circular path that seekers after God would walk to remind them that the path to God is never altogether straight, nor can we always see the end of the path until we get there. Lois put them on at once and later said to Frank, "It's a good reminder, isn't it, that even if we cannot see our way, we know that in the end we will be in the presence of God?"
Frank put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, and they walked back to the car together, both of them smiling. When they were driving back home, Frank said, "Let's try to remember that even when we're retired, we still need time away to keep ourselves steady." Lois could not have agreed more. She was feeling at peace for the first time in how long.
Lois had thought that this peace would last, but once back home, her mood began to shift downward again. She had a bit more energy than before their trip, but when she went out to work in the garden, she was tired before she had gotten any kind of a start. She came back in the house, leaving her garden gloves and small tools on the kitchen table, and went back to the bedroom and laid down. With Frank out of the house, she could get a nice nap without worrying him.
She woke up when the bedroom door closed softly. How long had she been sleeping? With relief, she saw that it was barely four in the afternoon. She got up, washed her face, and put on a bit of lipstick, deciding against doing any more makeup. She fluffed her hair a bit and tried on a smile at the mirror. It didn't fool her a bit, and she doubted it would fool Frank.
She was right. Frank wasn't fooled and in fact looked worried when she came out onto the patio. "Are you all right?" he asked.
"Oh, sure. I just needed a bit of a nap. Did you have a good afternoon?"
He didn't pry further. Lois was grateful and kept up her end of a meaningless chat. Frank suggested dinner out, and she agreed with gratitude. "Standing up at the stove isn't too appealing tonight."
On the way home, Frank pulled into a local ice cream parlor. "Want a cone or a sundae?"
Over their ice cream cones, Frank suggested that maybe Lois should see their family doctor. Though Lois protested that she wasn't sick, Frank insisted that her ongoing depression needed something more than walks on the beach or lovely dinners out. He pointed out her tiredness, sadness, and lack of interest in anything that normally engaged her. He pointed to a serious depression that might need medication or therapy.
"I'm worried about you, honey," he added. "It's not like you to be like this. And you don't have to be down like this."
"You think I need medication?" she exclaimed. "Am I that bad?"
"Honey, you're never bad. You just aren't the person you usually are. I just want the best for you, Sweetie. Please let me make an appointment with the doctor." He peered at her over his cone and waited.
"Well, okay. I'm not sure it will do any good, though."
Frank looked relieved. Lois sighed. She promised that if he made the appointment and went with her, she would talk to the doctor.
She was shocked when the doctor immediately made an appointment for her to see a psychiatrist. She protested. Surely she wasn't that bad off?
"Lois," her doctor responded, "you show every sign of a deep depression. You're not eating well, are you?" At her surprised look, he went on, "You've lost fifteen pounds since I last saw you. And you didn't need to lose any weight. And your face is much more lined than usual." When she tentatively touched her cheek, the doctor reached for her hand. "Trust me, Lois. This is not a bad thing, seeing a psychiatrist. He can prescribe an antidepressant. Once that kicks in, I think you'll understand what the depression has been doing to you."
Within days, she was in the psychiatrist's office, answering his questions about what she could and could not do easily, what her interests were and how often she did them in the past compared to recently. She was amazed when he very briskly pronounced that she was "just" depressed, and that a pill could change all that.
Three weeks later, she bounced down the deck stairs to the garden, garden tools in both hands. "Thought I'd better get at those weeds around the roses today," she told Frank. She laughed at the widening of his eyes. "Well, you were the one who said I needed a doctor. Don't look so surprised that you were right!" She kissed him as she went past the picnic table. "But don't think that gets you out of taking me out to dinner tonight."
As she worked in the garden, a hymn came to her, and soon she was singing praises to God: "I come to the garden alone/ while the dew is still on the roses," she sang as she pulled weeds and laid mulch around her favorite flowers.
Sandra Herrmann is a retired United Methodist pastor living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
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StoryShare, June 23, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
