[Faith-talk] Chapter 12 of my novel

[Poppa Bear]

Hello to those who are still tuned in to the story of Luke, Ed, Ben, Alli
and the Good Shepherd community Church of Anchorage Alaska. Here is another
chapter. I have one more after this and then I will see what the Lord Leeds
me to do at this point with this work. Enjoy. Chapter 12

When Luke stepped back into the church his eyes fell upon a slight little
woman seated in the foyer. She looked to be in her 70's with big brown eyes
and a warm smile. She wore a loose fitting dark blue dress that went well
past her knees, with a knitted brown over coat and some brown leather shoes.

    Luke went over to her and extended his hand and said, "Hello, I am Luke.
I am the acting pastor here for a while. What can I do for you?" "Well, I
hope to do something for you Pastor Luke." This was said with a small
twinkle in her big brown eyes.

    She looked past him and then to the left and right of him, taking in the
surroundings of the foyer. Her eyes landed on the windowsills which were
noticeably caked with dust. She then glanced along a book shelf of hymnals;
some were lying on their sides some flipped upside down, while others were
sat on top of the book shelf and not even in the rows on the shelves. Then
her eyes landed on a forlorn looking desk in a corner with stacks of papers,
brochures and boxes of various sizes tilting precariously on the rear of the
desk.

    The survey she made of the room was not lost on Luke. "Well Pastor, my
name is Nadine Brown. I am retired, a widow, gave birth to 5 children,
berried one and the rest are all grown up and moved on to warmer weather."
Luke was opening his mouth to say something when she piped up again, "I have
noticed that this place looks like the home of a first year rooky wife and
it has been giving me the worst kind of rub. I come down here to propose to
make my services available to you."

    She reminded Luke of a farmer's wife. He thought that she must be from
the south, though her accent had been somewhat dulled, probably by living up
north for so long, never the less she had the gumption that characterized
many older women from the south. He wouldn't be surprised at this point if
she pulled out a basket of hush puppies and a pitcher of homemade ice tea.

    "Well, Mrs. Brown it is wonderful to meet you." He put out his hand and
she laid her aged and tiny hand in his and gave his hand a squeeze that
spoke of hard work and sinewy strength. She stood at about 5-2 and couldn't
be more than a hundred pounds. In spite of her small stature she looked like
she could expand into a tornado if she got wind of something wrong.

    Luke tilted his head to the side slightly as he looked at her with a
thoughtful expression and then spoke, "Mrs. Brown I will try to be as frank
as I can with you without disclosing any personal church matters. I would
like to take you up on your offer, but there are some areas in the budget
that need to be attended to before we could even think about being able to
obtain your services."

    At that point, Mrs. Brown who had had an attentive look on her face,
opened up her eyes even wider than they were and a large grin spread across
her face. "If you think that I am coming to look for a few extra penny's to
rub between these old fingers then you must have fell out your bed this
morning and bumped your head young man. Son I don't recall old Marry and
Martha charging the master to be a service to him! If I'm here offering my
services, it is because the good Lord led me here and that is the simple
Gospel of the matter."

    Now indeed it would seem that she had been led to the Good Sheppard
Community Church. About 6 months before this scene took place, little Nadine
had felt a growing restlessness in her Spirit. She strongly felt that God
was trying to show her something as she started to have frequent episodes of
waking up in the middle of the night with a restlessness upon her. During
those long hours she would go back and forth between trying to figure it out
and praying in Ernest that she would know if the Lord wanted to show her
something. She would pray for her family during the sleepless nights, the
homeless, people in the hospitals, her neighbors and even people she hadn't
talked to for over 30 years.

    She had been attending a church on the East side of town for 20 years
now; she loved the Pastor, the body of believers and hadn't missed more than
5 services in all those years. She figured she would attend the church until
the Lord called her home, but to her surprise, about 2 months before she
ever set her old brown eyes on Luke, she was at a city event at a park
across the street from the Good Sheppard Community Church. Her attention
kept being drawn to the cross that sat atop the church. It seemed like her
eyes were super naturally being pulled towards the building time and time
again. She was almost hypnotized once or twice by the building, causing a
few people to ask if she was feeling ok as she seemed to completely tune out
conversations that she was part of.

    Later on that day she kept thinking back to the unnatural feelings that
she had during the day. She concluded that it had something to do with that
church. That night when she went to sleep she resolved to go by the church
during the week and see if she could find out why it kept sticking in her
mind. That night she slept sound as a baby and gave the Lord thanks for the
good night sleep, even more sure that that old church had something to do
with her pot of soup. That is what Nadine would say about her life, it was a
big pot of soup and the Lord put all kinds of ingredients in it and no
matter how bitter the herb, or how sweet the berry, it always tasted just
the way the Lord wanted it to because he was the head cook and she was just
the pot of soup.

    That same day she decided to jump into her old tan Buick Regal and go to
the church. When she got there the parking lot was clean empty and she shook
her head. "Lord how is a church of the living God going to be sleeping when
that old Devil never sleeps." She went up to the Dore and sure as a clam it
was locked up. She cuffed her hands and looked into the window and clucked
her tongue at the things that many might not notice, but to her keen eye the
little areas of neglect were sacrileges in the house of God. She said to
herself as she looked into the window, "Can you imagine, that waist basket
looks like it aint been emptied since the 6th Sunday of last month." Looking
at the schedule on the door she decided to come by on Sunday for services.
She went to bed that night and received her second night of peaceful sleep. 

    That Sunday when she made her way through the foyer of the Good Sheppard
two things stood out to her, it wasn't the color of the parishioners or lack
of color, it wasn't the dress of the women, and it wasn't even the lack of
inviting smiles. More than anything, she noticed that there weren't more
than a few children present and as for the elderly, she could have been the
oldest in the congregation with the exception of two other older looking
men. 

    The two older people that she did notice were Ben and Ed. Ed looked to
her like he had descended from the old crows that pecked away the cake in
the dream of Faros cook that young Josef interpreted. He wore what looked
like a painted grin, except for when no one was looking, then he looked like
he swallowed a lemon and he was trying to get the sour taste out of his
mouth. The other was Ben, to her he looked like a bleary eyed mess of a man,
he reminded Nadine of a old St Bernard that had been chained up in the back
yard his whole life and was about ready to be put out of his misery. It was
a sore site to her big brown eyes.

    Once she sat down for the service it didn't take long for her stomach to
start twisting and turning. The man she had noticed earlier with the crow
like features stood up and said a few introductions and without even saying
a prayer or mentioning the name of the good Lord passed the stage onto some
pretty looking fellow who looked like he could have been an airline pilot. 

    He grabbed the microphone and started to sing. When the music started
she about had a heart attack, it sounded like she was at a full blown
concert. She looked up in the corners of the sealing and saw speakers that
had to be bigger than her refrigerator. "How much them giant things cost?"
she thought to herself. "If one of them there music boxes fell I bet they
would be a lot heavier than the manna that came down from heaven and they
would probably take out about a dozen people." She resolved that in the
future to not be caught dead standing under one.

    Next thing after the musical performance, which didn't resemble anything
like a worshiping of God to her, a man approached the podium looking like a
hippy with a goT, thick sideburns, a thin ponytail and started talking. She
thought she was in a parallel universe. She didn't know if she was in a
church or listening to a feller in a coffee shop wagging his tongue about
some utopia that was based on socialism, communism and 10 different other
hell bound religions. When she left the church she was in a daze.

    That night when she lay down she vowed not to step foot back into that
God forsaking building where they didn't bring children, or have room for
old folks ever again. But that night the restlessness returned. It came for
the next 3 nights. Finally she said, "God I can't figure out why, but it
seems like your bent on having that there church be in my pot of soup and
all a body can do is submit to your will and trust in thy ways even when we
can't see further than the nose on our face."

    On her fifth visit to the church she noticed a young man approach the
podium. At one look she could see that this youngens had a mind to say
something. His eyes were as clear as her mommas old crystal cups that she
only set out on special occasions and his face shown bright like them three
Hebrew boys that came out that old fiery furnace bold as lions an as fresh
as lilies.

    After she heard Luke's message on the Good Sheppard, she felt like she
had just been at a revival. She couldn't have been held back from that
Church by a 20 foot high fence with bob wire as long as that young preacher
was there and God was drawing her heart strings. The result was that after
an evening of prayer and supplication she woke up with the resolve to try to
serve that body of believers with the gifts that the Lord had provided to
her, an eye for dirt, hands for cleaning and a Spirit of a mother's mother.

    Luke couldn't think of a reason that this elderly woman couldn't serve
in the capacity she was requesting. He didn't want to undermine any
protocols by having her become a volunteer though, so he, not wanting to
extinguish her zeal by putting her off for longer than was needed, said, "I
am going to take a minute and give a call to one of the elders to run it
past him and I will give you an answer. I will be right back."

    As Luke left the foyer to make the call Nadine's head started
mechanically swiveling back and forth taking in the contents of the room
like she had built in radar that was programmed to detect dirt and clutter.
Walking over to the book shelf she wiped a bony finger across the edge of
the top shelf and a thick layer of dust covered her pointer finger. The look
on her face became one of determination and battle. Next she walked over to
the cluttered desk in the corner and sat her purse on a chare against the
wall.

    When Luke returned to tell her that it would be a go ahead he had to
clear his throat to get her attention. She was so intent on whipping and
wiping down the bookshelf, dust a flying, and thunderous denunciations
spewing from her mouth against every particle of dirt, she didn't even
notice Luke standing there. As soon as she heard him she popped her head up,
but her hands kept moving right along, determined to slay the dust.

    Before Luke even spoke she said, "I told you that the Lord sent me here,
so you don't even have to tell me that I can stay, I all ready know." Her
statement was so matter of fact that Luke couldn't help but to chuckle at
her bold bluntness, faith and character. She didn't even wait for a response
from him; she just returned back to the battle and by the looks of things,
the tied was definitely in her favor. Luke almost felt bad for any dirt that
might happen to cross Nadine's path.

    Ben had been the one to give the thumbs up to Luke about Nadine. When
Luke called him and told Ben the situation, Ben was elated. It had been
years since anyone had asked to volunteer at the church. Even as Ben gave
his consent there was an almost unspoken understanding that there would be
disapproval from Ed. Even though his name was not mentioned, to Ben Ed was
beginning to seem like a gargoyle looming in the shadows when it came to the
church.

    Nadine didn't leave until 5:30 that evening. By the end of the day she
had conquered much of the foyer, made her way through all the bathrooms and
started in on the Kitchen. She left no waist basket unturned and no scrap of
paper untouched.

When she stepped into the kitchen, an Oder smacked her in the face like a
wet moldy box with a dead dog in it, causing her to stop dead in her tracks.
Her super natural since of smell came alive as she stood still in the middle
of the kitchen and then started sniffing back and forth to find the
disreputable sent that was assaulting her nose. Slowly and methodically
making a grid pattern around the kitchen to cover the whole room, she
eventually  stopped in front of the stove. She was like a bird dog on the
trail, her nose went straight to the oven door, gave an extra sniff or two
to be sure, and then without a doubt she knew that the stove was the
culprit. 

    She squared herself off in front of the stove like a gun fighter in the
old west. Standing with her little legs wide apart, her hand lunged forward
with lightning speed and she yanked the oven door open. "Good Lord have
mercy!" Her large keen owl eyes bulged out of disbelief, and then they
narrowed and her lips pulled back, showing her coffee stained dentures as
she took in the site of numerous filthy pans that had been conveniently
shoved in the oven without being washed, or even rinsed out. She had to slam
the oven shut as quickly as she had opened it, for one the sight and smell
were too offensive to her senses and secondly, flies were actually coming
out of the oven as she stood there.

    She was completely and thoroughly incensed with the scandalous spectacle
sitting before her, looking ponderous, rude and all together mocking. Her
chin jutted out towards the stove, she crossed her arms and set her face
towards the appliance determent to whip it like a cow sneaking into the corn
field on her granddaddies old farm.