C. Morgan - All the Living

I know you mean good, Orren said as he himself moved away, turning from her to face his withered fields. Most of the time, he tossed over his shoulder, stepping out of the barn.

On the steps of the church on Sunday morning, Bell greeted as he always did, but when it came time for the service to begin, he walked to the front of the church and sat in the front row before the lectern. He leaned his head down, resting it on one hand, his fingers splayed across his temple and hairline so Aloma could not see his face from where she sat. An old man rose from a front pew in his stead. He rolled an easy, familiar patter of prayer and supplication, but there were no calls from the pews. Those gathered were distracted and they watched Bell, or at least the curve of his long back as he sat before them, with them. In the silence following his prayer, the old man moved slowly back to his seat. When he did, Bell sat up straight, and appearing to stretch as he extended himself to his full height, he stood. He did not carry a Bible up the three steps and when he stood behind the lectern, he remained there only long enough to draw a breath before he abandoned it and returned to the first step of the landing. He raised his eyes, they had been cast down.

I’m not fixing to preach on something other than what’s troubling our minds, so I got to preach on rain, have to preach on rain, he said and he sounded as if he were speaking in a much smaller room than the one that held them all, his voice was so low. But I ain’t got a lot to say on it, all I got is prayers. So maybe today this is less a sermon and more a prayer group, because we need the rain, brothers and sisters, we need rain. Most of us got a harvest that’s got to come, because that’s how we’re fed, it’s our bread and butter. And it’s not coming and we’re wondering why and what we’ve done and what we can do.

Bell paused and gazed out over them and Aloma felt that his eyes found all of them, though this could not be so, as he was only one man and there were so many of them. He did not smile when he looked over them, his mouth was a line.

I can’t read you the meaning of this dry spell, he said. I suspect there’s no kind of meaning at all. I got to be honest, he said, I don’t see God’s hand in everything. Well, I do and I don’t, it’s hard to reckon. Maybe his hand is on everything, but maybe it ain’t in everything, the Scripture gives it to us both ways, so I don’t know, I don’t know. For who is like the wise man and knoweth the interpretation of a thing. That’s written, that’s written. I can’t read the meaning. Maybe it’s a test, but I don’t know I believe in tests. I know some of you do, but I don’t. Maybe we can work that out later when we’re pearls in heaven, I don’t know. I don’t suspect God is tricky like that, but I can’t say for sure. Can you? And that leads me to despair. He rested his hands on his hips and looked out into the faces that waited, some that were lifted up and some that were tilted toward the floor, and he stepped forward off the last step so that he stood at the first pew’s knees.

And I know you are despairing too, he said and grinned with a sad corner of his mouth. What looks like patience tastes like despair. I feel it and I know it not just in my mind but in my heart too. God laid despair on my heart and it learns me yours, he said, and he placed his palm flat over his heart. And the thing is, the dust bowl wasn’t so long ago now, was it, Mother’s and your all’s folks lived through that, some of you too. It was bad enough here with the burley, but it was worse out West. The rivers dried up and the animals died. And when those people saw it happen, they despaired — and I believe we would too — and they said to themselves, the fate of the animals and the fate of the humans is the same; as one dieth, so dieth the other. They all take up the same breath and humans got no rightful advantage over the animals, and listen to me, I am not blaspheming, brothers and sisters, it’s written: who knoweth whether the human spirit goeth upward and the spirit of the animals goeth downward? That’s what they asked. It’s written and it’s despair that wrote it and God forgives it or he wouldn’t a let it to lie here — and he lifted the Bible right off the lap of the woman before him and held it up so its gold lettering flicked in the light. He said, He forgives despair. God says it’s alright to grieve and wonder, brothers and sisters, and we do. We grieve and wonder how come the rain won’t fall and we know there’s a answer to that despair, because that despair is a question, it ain’t a answer, that’s what we got to remember: God is the answer, the four gospels is a answer to that despair and to where our spirits go. And yet — he paused, breathed, and said — man will be to suffer. And his voice fell to nothing for a moment as he ruminated and placed one hand in his pocket, and then removed it and shook it against his thigh as if he were rattling a tambourine against his thigh. He looked up and smiled. He gripped the Bible tighter. He waited a moment, just smiling, and then he said, But, hallelujah, it’s going to rain. He handed the Bible back to the woman in the first pew and the amens thundered out and he let them fall before continuing, It is going to rain. It is going to rain and God says so and I’m only preaching it to you now because he invested me with the body to say it to you today. Brothers and sisters, the upright abideth in the land, it’s written. It is going to rain, but I’m not telling God that, God’s telling me that. I’m not demanding — but then Bell’s voice rose and he demanded — but it will rain. That ain’t arrogance. It’s just if there’s one thing I know, it’s that the land is going to last. Not me, not you. We are the spirits that ascend. But the Word cannot ascend, because the Word always was. No, I promise you here it’s going to rain, and the reason I know it is because the land is His, the land is God’s, the land is God’s own declamation, he said. The land is God’s… He did not finish his sentence but closed his eyes and let his voice drift and they waited and when he did not open his eyes and began rather to pray in the same deep bell tone that he ended, they bowed their heads and prayed with him. And even the children who had remained up front looking around and swatting one another regardless of the drought that blew hot and dry on their parents and their homes, they also bowed their heads and quieted themselves and prayed.

In the parking lot, under the sun, they did not leave. They stood sweating and swatting at the flies, yet not a single car drove off, and it seemed that when Bell turned away from one eager face there were ten more waiting and they all wanted to speak to him — about what it didn’t matter — because at home were only their farms and themselves. So they stood in slowly milling circles that opened and closed but did not disperse and they watched Bell. Aloma too could not face the thought of returning alone to the house and she sat instead on a bench just beyond the people, half turned toward her truck as if thinking of something far away but listening close to the Sunday clamor. After fifteen minutes, Bell climbed the three church steps, raised his hands, and in a loud voice said, Well, since nobody’s making to leave, let’s have a impromptu picnic down at the ballpark on Estill. How about in two hours, at two-thirty, everybody just bring something to eat down there. Does that give the ladies enough time — he looked down at his mother beside him and she nodded and he nodded too, looking into her eyes, and continuing, Alright, alright, and he clapped his hands twice like a bandleader. And those were the words that delivered them. In twos and threes they drove off, all of them and without delaying further, though Aloma sat where she was for a few minutes and watched them go, and watched Bell.