Christian Clarity Review

It hadn’t rained in months.

A few sprinkles here and there had cooled things off. But no serious, steady rain had come in over sixty-three days.

Even as he watched it fall, hour after hour, it took most of the afternoon for Ken to realize the rain wasn’t worth hating and that standing in the rain knowing something was wrong with the world didn’t help him or the world. It made an impact on him the same way the air got heavier but didn’t keep him warm. He gave up standing and walking in it as way of understanding it with the same stoic grimace as when he finally stopped chasing the feeling he heard on somebody else’s guitar over the radio and packed his own away.

He went inside and changed.

When it did finally hit him that the weather wasn’t an interruption but a replacement of his plans, he sat down on the porch steps watching the water fall in steady thunder on the roof and searching for another reason to get away. At least for the next week, watering the garden wasn’t necessary.

It was almost four o’clock.

He didn’t care about getting wet. But there needed to be an efficency in the reason.

In just a little while she would be home. Something would start it up and she would be yelling again. She wouldn’t stop until she fell asleep.

Even though he knew at the bottom of it all he was just getting away from her words, still he wanted there to be a genuineness in his absence, a reality to hold up in the stead of the honesty she would use as more wood for her fire. If you was a man you wouldn’t be scared o’ me.

She never stopped.

He looked at his watch. Ten minutes.

The rain hadn’t slowed since it began. That was good. They needed the rain; even desperately.

Without another thought he stood up, put on his hat and walked out into the rain, straight ahead and into the puddles forming in the dirt driveway. Soaked almost immediately, his overalls taking on the dark of wet and sagging with the weight, he headed toward the road in the opposite direction from which he knew she would come.

Lightning spread in crooked fingers all around him, crashing in thunder that rolled from what seemed arms length away into the distance. Car lights from up ahead appeared through the rain.

He walked on.

A few minutes later a truck went by, lumbering down the dirt road behind him and sloshing the water out of the ruts in the clay. He stood to one side and watched it disappear in the rain again.

The water in the ditches crept out over the road and onto the fields on either side. Weaving in and out of rushing water that ran down the ruts, he walked on wondering if he was only a quarter of a mile away by now and hoping it was a half a mile.

He topped the hill and started down the other side, knowing that if it stopped raining she couldn’t see him even if she looked this way.

He wasn’t walking out.

He was just going for a walk without making a point of it. Somehow he would know when it was over. Maybe it would be her voice, or an event unknown as yet. But one way or another he would be back with her. And her voice.

He stopped suddenly and looked at his watch. It was four-thirty. It seemed no time at all since he had taken the first step. He remembered the water, the puddles and the truck. They were no reason at all.

He walked on in a stumbling gait on the slippery road, holding his hand up now and then to see what was ahead.

A car had been abandoned. He could see both rear tires were buried in the mud. There wasn’t anyone inside.

He walked on.

Bobby Williams drove up in his big, new truck. Carol Lintel was sitting beside him. The radio blared country music. Bobby rolled the window down. “You need a ride, Ken?”

Ken didn’t answer, just stared ahead and then back at the truck.

“What are you doin’ out here? Get in! I’ll drive you home.”

Ken searched Bobby’s eyes for a reason and saw Carol frown.

“No thanks. Ya’ll go ahead.” He waved a thank you, turned and walked on.

The truck sat there a moment and pulled slowly away.

Later, several hills later and down by the bridge, he played the scene over in his head. Bobby would surely stop by and tell her where he was. Bobby would ask if something were wrong–which would only add fuel to her fire. He could hear her already. You embarressed me! How dare you! Bobby and that new woman of his –who just divorced Ed Jenkins by the way!–stopped by here and told me you were walking away..in the RAIN! Do you know what that makes me look like! Me!? You ain’t even got a job, I’m supportin’ the both of us and now I’m the one made to look bad?! No sir! No way! You’re gonna….

She would go on for hours and not even take a breath. Jesus would come up. He would of course agree to everything she said and if He was present would’ve added more besides.

He leaned on the bridge wondering why God let people do that. They used the name of Jesus for every heinous thing imaginable and it seemed God never said a word about it. If God was the one everybody appealed to ultimately, why did He let this go on? Sometimes it seemed as if God was against Himself through other people. If that was true…

He dispaired of understanding. Without understanding, nothing would change. It would just go on and on and no one would stop. He thanked God for the rain and prayed for understanding before he got home.

The wind picked up. He closed his collar and sat on the rail, watching the water rush by beneath.

A while later, he hopped down and walked on. Tiptoeing between ruts with a hunched back and exaggerated step, and avoiding the small puddles like a victory, he didn’t hear the car until it parked behind him. He turned to say no thanks when he saw it was her.

They stared at each other through the window.

He searched for a reason, or at least a little softness in her eyes.

But she was angry, irrespective of her uncertain smile and wave to get in the car.

He disliked her for a moment, even as he loved her. She didn’t know how to be real. Everything she did was to prove she knew what other peoples love was: every movement a probe, a test to get the same reaction the other people got when they used words like love and marriage. I’m doin’ it right. You ain’t got a clue.

How could she not know that?! She was the one.

He knew how to give the reaction she wanted to prove she was doing love. It was easy. If he did it just right they would make love tonight and there would be quietness for a day or for an hour.

He couldn’t fake it, at least not now. Not any more.

She rolled down the window an inch. “Get in!”

“I ain’t done yet.”

Lightning struck a tree on top of the hill. The thunder boomed across the field and over them, shaking the bridge.

“What are you doin’ but gettin’ wet?! Get in before you get sick! I can’t take off work to take care of you! We can’t afford…”

He turned and walked down the bridge, starting in a hesitant stride. She was like a magnet for him; always had been.

She was the one.

But not like this.

He walked on.

She grabbed him from behind and whirled him around. “You leavin’ me?!”

“No. I’m just goin’ for a walk. I’ll come home when I get home.”

She wiped her hair out of her face. “Bobby stopped by with his latest woman. Said you looked sad.”

“Get in the car before you get sick. I’ll be home later.”

“I love you.”

He turned in exasperation. “No, you don’t. You try. I know you try. You get as close to what them other people say is love as you can. But that love is just somethin’ to hold up in front of those other people…like a trophy from the fair. It ain’t got nothin’ to do with me.”

“I love you no matter what you say. I love you. That’s it. I don’t need your say so.”

“Go home. I’ll…be there later.”

“I want you there now.”

“That ain’t gonna happen.”

She stood there searching for what to say next. She thought of books and poems and Shakespeare and the women on TV. She thought of Jesus and the preacher and what they would say. She started several times to say something.

He disappeared in the rain toward the top of the hill.

She turned around on the bridge and drove toward home, fidgeting at first with the radio and then turning if off. The squeak and whump of the wipers timed his walk away.

He walked on searching for why he missed her when she wasn’t there. When he was engaged he would have said it was her simple laughter. A few years back it would have been her quiet assurance of things being right. But he had work at the mill then.

The rain slowed down to a drizzle and a breeze picked up. Shivering slightly, he finally turned around just shy of the old iron stob that everyone said was the old surveying landmark and that the surveyors said no one used any more. Even covered in weeds and mud it was its own spot just by reputation, situated on the other side of the ditch; three quarters of a mile from Johnson’s store.

Three steps back and he remembered what had happened. Somewhere, somehow she had gotten a new sense of humor. It had come from church and from work, from her folks and from his. It had come from him. It had taken him all this time to see it. Something invisible had come and stolen her while she was still standing there.

He nodded as he sloshed through the mud, the sound of birds once more filtering through the dusk. Nothing last forever, not even drought.

The more he knew God the more he was aware. There had been a promise of her, of everyone never fulfilled in all these years. They all pretended it was the humor and that the humor fulfilled all the promises. But as he walked he knew one day that real joy was coming, like a rain with hands and break the back of humor.

Turning back again he hopped the ditch and made his way through the soggy grass to the old iron stob. Taking out his pocket knife, he began cutting the grass and weeds away from it in a wide circle, beating back the onslaught of weeds that threatened a reputation; a promise.

Staying put was a defeat for him in her system; running away was worse in his. He knew God wouldn’t let him leave and yet had held her in ignorance that set her against him.

And Jesus is Christ; upright. God is perfect; holy.

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Psalm 22:1-5 To the chief Musician. Upon Aijeleth-Shahar. A Psalm of David.

My *God, my *God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou far from my salvation, from the words of my groaning? My God, I cry by day, and thou answerest not; and by night, and there is no rest for me: And thou art holy, thou that dwellest amid the praises of Israel. Our fathers confided in thee: they confided, and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee, and were delivered; they confided in thee, and were not confounded.

And Job said: Job 9:20-24 If I justified myself, mine own mouth would condemn me; were I perfect, he would prove me perverse. Were I perfect, yet would I not know my soul: I would despise my life. It is all one; therefore I said, he destroyeth the perfect and the wicked. If the scourge kill suddenly, he mocketh at the trial of the innocent. The earth is given over into the hand of the wicked man ; he covereth the faces of its judges. If not, who then is it?

Job 42:7 And it came to pass after Jehovah had spoken these words to Job, that Jehovah said to Eliphaz the Temanite, Mine anger is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends; for ye have not spoken rightly of me, like my servant Job.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen