Min Lee - Pachinko

“Yes.”

“Good, good.”

The elder pastor spoke at length about the troubles the churches had been facing. More people were afraid to attend services here and in Japan because the government didn’t approve. The Canadian missionaries had already left.

Although Isak knew of these sad developments, he felt ready to face the trials. His professors had discussed the government’s opposition with him. Isak grew quiet.

“Are you all right?” Shin asked.

“Sir, I was wondering if we could talk. Talk about the Book of Hosea.”

“Oh? Of course.” Pastor Shin looked puzzled.

“God makes the prophet Hosea marry a harlot and raise children he didn’t father. I suppose the Lord does this to teach the prophet what it feels like to be wedded to a people who continually betray him. Isn’t that right?” Isak asked.

“Well, yes, among other things. And the prophet Hosea obeys the Lord’s request,” Pastor Shin said in his sonorous voice. This was a story he had preached on before.

“The Lord continues to be committed to us even when we sin. He continues to love us. In some ways, the nature of his love for us resembles an enduring marriage, or how a father or mother may love a misbegotten child. Hosea was being called to be like God when he had to love a person who would have been difficult to love. We are difficult to love when we sin; a sin is always a transgression against the Lord.” Shin looked carefully at Isak’s face to see if he had reached him.

Isak nodded gravely. “Do you think it’s important for us to feel what God feels?”

“Yes, of course. If you love anyone, you cannot help but share his suffering. If we love our Lord, not just admire him or fear him or want things from him, we must recognize his feelings; he must be in anguish over our sins. We must understand this anguish. The Lord suffers with us. He suffers like us. It is a consolation to know this. To know that we are not in fact alone in our suffering.”

“Sir, the boardinghouse widow and her daughter saved my life. I reached their doorstep with tuberculosis, and they cared for me for three months.”

Pastor Shin nodded with recognition.

“That is a wonderful thing they did. A noble and kind work.”

“Sir, the daughter is pregnant, and she has been abandoned by the father of the child. She is unmarried and the child will not have a name.”

Shin looked concerned.

“I think I should ask her to marry me, and if she says yes, I will take her to Japan as my wife. If she says yes, I would ask you to marry us before we go. I would be honored if—”

Pastor Shin covered his own mouth with his right hand. Christians did such things — sacrificed possessions and their own lives even — but such choices had to be made for good reason and soberly. St. Paul and St. John had said, “Test everything.”

“Have you written to your parents about this?”

“No. But I think they would understand. I’ve refused to marry before, and they had not expected me to do so. Perhaps they will be pleased.”

“Why have you refused to marry before?”

“I’ve been an invalid since I was born. I have been improving the past few years, but I got sick again on the journey here. No one in my family expected me to live past twenty-five. I am twenty-six now.” Isak smiled. “If I’d married and had children, I would have made a woman a young widow and perhaps left orphans behind me.”

“Yes, I see.”

“I should have been dead by now, but I am alive, sir.”

“I’m very glad of it. Praise God.” Shin smiled at the young man, not knowing how to protect him from his wish to make such a grand sacrifice. More than anything, he was incredulous. If it hadn’t been for the warm letters from his friends in Pyongyang attesting to Isak’s intelligence and competence, Shin would have thought that Isak was a religious lunatic.

“What does the young woman think of this idea?”

“I don’t know. I have yet to speak with her. The widow told me about her daughter only yesterday. And last night before my evening prayers, it occurred to me that this is what I can do for them: Give the woman and child my name. What is my name to me? It’s only a matter of grace that I was born a male who could enter my descendants in a family registry. If the young woman was abandoned by a scoundrel, it’s hardly her fault, and certainly, even if the man is not a bad person, the unborn child is innocent. Why should he suffer so? He would be ostracized.”

Shin was unable to disagree.

“If the Lord allows me to live, I shall try to be a good husband to Sunja and a good father to this child.”

“Sunja?”

“Yes. She’s the boardinghouse keeper’s daughter.”

“Your faith is good, son, and your intentions are right, but—”

“Every child should be wanted; the women and men in the Bible prayed patiently for children. To be barren was to be an outcast, isn’t that right? If I do not marry and have children, I would be a kind of barren man.” Isak had never articulated this thought before, and this surge of wanting a wife and family felt strange and good to him.

Shin smiled weakly at the young minister. After losing four of his children and his wife to cholera five years ago, Shin found that he could not speak much about loss. Everything a person said sounded glib and foolish. He had never understood suffering in this way, not really, until he had lost them. What he had learned about God and theology had become more graphic and personal after his family had died so gruesomely. His faith had not wavered, but his temperament had altered seemingly forever. It was as if a warm room had gotten cooler, but it was still the same room. Shin admired this idealist seated before him, his young eyes shining with faith, but as his elder, he wanted Isak to take care.

“Yesterday morning, I had begun the study of Hosea, and then a few hours later, the boardinghouse ajumoni told me about her pregnant daughter. By evening, I knew. The Lord was speaking to me. This has never happened to me before. I’ve never felt that kind of clarity.” Isak felt it was safe to admit this here. “Has that ever happened to you?” He checked for doubt in the elder pastor’s eyes.

“Yes, it has happened to me, but not always so vividly. I hear the voice of God when I read the Bible, so yes, I suppose I understand what you felt, but there are coincidences, too. We have to be open to that. It’s dangerous to think that everything is a sign from God. Perhaps God is always talking to us, but we don’t know how to listen,” Shin stated. It felt awkward to confess this uncertainty, but he thought it was important.

“When I was growing up, I can remember at least three unmarried girls who were abandoned after becoming pregnant. One was a maid in our house. Two of the girls killed themselves. The maid in our house returned to her family in Wonsan and told everyone that her husband had died. My mother, a woman who never lies, had told her to say this,” Isak said.

“This sort of thing happens with greater frequency these days,” Shin said. “Especially in difficult times.”

“The boardinghouse ajumoni saved my life. Maybe my life can matter to this family. I had always wanted to do something important before I died. Like my brother Samoel.”

Shin nodded. He had heard from his seminary friends that Samoel Baek had been a leader in the independence movement.

“Maybe my life can be significant — not on a grand scale like my brother, but to a few people. Maybe I can help this young woman and her child. And they will be helping me, because I will have a family of my own — a great blessing no matter how you look at it.”

The young pastor was beyond dissuading. Shin took a breath.