The Rock Orchard by Paula Wall

Author:Paula Wall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Published: 2005-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 25

REVEREND THOMAS JONES’S wife always prayed before bed. Kneeling beside her husband she folded her hands over his and called out, “Lord, be present! Forgive my husband for his filthy disgusting desires and raise his thoughts to purer goals….”

Needless to say, by the time she finished praying,Thomas had lost his focus. A religious man has trouble making love with a cat looking on, much less the Lord.

As the years went by and children did not come, the congregation’s hearts went out to the minister and his wife. Prayer meetings were held and a laying on of hands. While Reverend Jones firmly believed in miracles, he seriously doubted that even Jesus Christ could get his wife to uncross her legs.

“What a good woman she is,” people said, in a way that implied he wasn’t a good man.

The Reverend had built his Lord’s house on a foundation of guilt. He could give a sermon that made little old ladies, whose only sin was coveting their neighbor’s fruitcake recipe, weep with remorse. He could make children have nightmares of hell.

But now, his sermons began to blaze with condemnation. He looked out at his congregation, and when his eyes landed on a man, the man froze with fear. Pointing his finger, the Reverend cried out, “Damned is the man who gives his soul to drink … gambling … lust … lying … stealing! Repent!”

And the man would. Until the next time.

Little by little, the Reverend’s wife spent most of her days and all of her nights bent over her Bible, eyes red and fingers crawling across the page. She ate only bread and water and countered every comment with Scripture. Her eyes shined with suffering and the congregation went from feeling awe in her presence to feeling awkward.

“I wish my hands would bleed,” she said, staring at her palms.

Thomas stared at her in horror. She smiled at him with pity because he did not have her devotion.

“My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken us?” the Reverend thundered from the pulpit.

Filled with the fear of a vengeful God and eternal damnation, his congregation clasped their hands and pleaded for salvation. But the Reverend couldn’t save himself, much less anyone else. On his way to finding religion,Thomas lost God.

Then one day his wife took to bed.

“I’m dying!” she declared joyfully, head resting on the starched white pillow.

The doctors could find nothing wrong with her. Thomas knew they were looking in the wrong places.

She lay in bed for two years before her prayers were finally answered. At the funeral, people could not conceal their relief.

“She was not of this earth,” they said, as they offered him their condolences.

Thomas watched it all from a distance. He could feel nothing.

A year passed, maybe two. One day is the same as the next to a man at the bottom of a well.

“Start over,” they urged. “A new town. A new church.”

They sent him to a place he could not find on the map.

“I seem to be lost,” he said to the gas station attendant.

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