Of Time and Eternity: The Diary of a Clergyman of Our Time

By Benjamin W. Farley

Set in Tide water Virginia in the early 1970s, Of Time and Eternity unfolds with artistic resonance and gripping realism. Across a period of three seasons, Farley traces the story of David Kirk (a Protestant minister), whose diary records the ministers private thoughts and daily events that consume his days. Uppermost, Kirks diary records his evolving love for one of his parishioners, an artist and assistant director of a gallery in nearby Norfolk. Suzanne, lonely and attractive, has equally fallen in love with David. Soon their counseling sessions lead to her home in the quiet countryside, where their yearning for each other develops in earnest. How to reconcile the affair with his genuine love for Joan, his wife, rises constantly as a whisper in the silence of his troubled heart.

Both enriching and complicating the story are Davids other commitments: to a fellow minister, who struggles with his calling in search of a more honest career; to Rheba, a black woman whose son David has pledged to help; to his congregation, whom he seeks to guide and inspire in spite of his own crisis.

Hardly a preachy book, Of Time and Eternity is a story of high literary quality, engaging dialogue and drama, self-discovery and redemption at the profoundest levels of the heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 8, 2004
• ISBN: 9781414056326

Benjamin W. Farley

Benjamin W. Farley is Younts Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Religion, Erskine College, in Due West, SC. He is the author of Jesus as Man, Myth, and Metaphor, In Praise of Virtue, The Providence of God, Fairest Lord Jesus, and numerous other scholarly works.

Book preview

Of Time and Eternity

a Novel

The Diary of a Clergyman of Our Time

By

Benjamin W. Farley

This book is a work of fiction. Places, events, and situations in this story are purely fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

© 2004 by Benjamin W. Farley. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

ISBN: 1-4140-5632-X (e-book)

ISBN: 1-4140-5633-8 (Paperback)

ISBN: 1-4140-5634-6 (Dust Jacket)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2003099834

1stBooks-rev. 02/26/04

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Epilogue

Appendix

About the Author

for

Alice Anneandthe many philosophyand religion studentsit was an honorto teachacross the years

Other works of fiction and of related interest by the author

Corbin’s Rubi-Yacht

The Hero of St. Lo

Mercy Road

Son of the Morning Sky

In Praise of Virtue

Tidewater Virginia

1970s

Chapter One

The welcome rays of the November sun felt pleasant through the cold windshield. An amber filament of dust floated in the air and coated the wooden-framed houses with rivulets of sparkling sediment. Overhead, the white limbs of sycamore trees formed languid archways across the street.

It was mid-afternoon. Scot and I had driven to Richmond, Virginia to investigate a pulpit vacancy that a professor from Scot’s seminary has been urging him to consider. Treillings, who is quite tall, sandy-haired, and the Associate Pastor of Eastville’s Baptist Church, sat beside me.

Scot’s contract is due to expire this June. We drove up to look over the Hillvale Baptist Church, located in a quaint but blighted section of the city, east of the James, near one of the battlefields where Longstreet’s brigades repelled McClellan’s troops.

The church building itself appeared more than adequate. The surrounding neighborhood, however, hinted of heartbreaks and lives cast aside along life’s journey that sent a shudder through my own soul. The church was located in a historic but dilapidated quarter of town. The putty-colored houses were small and dingy, mostly frame. Many needed painting and new roofs. The dwellings were cramped together in monotonous rows. Yards had long ago deteriorated; many were fenced in. Rusting appliances and fallen tree limbs cluttered the bare ground. Together, we counted five brick houses.

I’m not ... prepared ... for this, Scot said. That’s an incriminating thing to acknowledge, isn’t it? I’d hate to get stuck in a caretaker ministry. I want to be involved in change. An activist. God forgive me, but I do.

I understood and could detect the disappointment that welled up in his heart. I thought of Hölderlin’s line:

What are poets for in a destitute time?

May not the same be asked of pastors? What are shepherds for in a destitute time? What are their parishes for? What use their steeples and shining crosses that point to heaven in a destitute time?

In contrast to the neighborhood, the parsonage was quite ostentatious. It stood a block from the church, two-stories high, a bright, red-of-the-lamb brick, empty, its windows curtain-less; the grass had grown up in the yard. We could see the bookshelves in the pastor’s study. The room had a private outside entrance.

That’s the parsonage, all right.

What a place to play God from! Scot sighed. Can you imagine what the people must think who pass by here every day? No wonder the pulpit’s vacant.

What are shepherds for? As Hölderlin answers, they are

The wine god’s holy priests

Who wander from land to land in holy night.

We drove back into Richmond, past several new apartment complexes and pink, green, and beige pastel-tinted townhouses. We stopped at a mall, whose windows and emerald tiles glittered in the sunlight.

We walked from one end of the mall to the other. Midway back along the central aisle we passed The Christian Family Bookstore. Its main feature appeared to be a series of how-to books. How to Pray as a Family. How to Find God Together. How to Share Jesus With Your Children. How to Build a Christian Home.

The titles were more than Scot could bear. Where are the real how-to books? he blurted. Where are the real how-to theologians? Why aren’t they displaying Bonhoeffer, Tillich, the Niebuhrs, Moltmann, or Kung?

He went on to list other contemporary theologians, but my mind had drifted. Two years ago my youngest cousin’s marriage ended in divorce. I can still see her tear-marred face, the swollen shadows around her eyes, her little daughter’s empty and frightened stare.

Scot, I hate to be cynical, but what if just one person found grace on just one page in one of those books? Would you knock them then?

Scot looked at me with disgust. That’s not the point. They could at least advertise Cox or Cone or something by the Pope.

I would settle for Augustine and Luther. Or a little Calvin and Barth, or maybe Rilke and Shakespeare. Or C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed. Now, there’s a book worth reading! Or Hölderlin and Goethe.

I don’t care for Lewis, he said, lowering his voice, his words trailing off in a whisper.

So, we came home. We returned to Eastville. We drove back with Scot disillusioned, with his still not knowing where he will go in June or where he should look next or what he should dare to dream.

I wanted to say, "Scot, give yourself time. Give God a little time. Enjoy these last days of the Trinity Season. Advent is coming soon. Christmastide is near. God is breaking in once more upon the world, as He has always broken in and always will. Advent is at hand. God is coming, Scot. Even to you and to me. Yes, even to us. Isn’t He here with us now? Immanuel. God with us."

But, of course, I couldn’t say that. Not in so many words. Besides, Scot was in too much pain to be consoled, especially like that, by me. And, in all honesty, I too have my doubts and struggle with them every day. What minister doesn’t? Wouldn’t even Kierkegaard be shaken in our time? Or Pascal terrified once again by the eternal silence of the infinite spaces that have preceded us and will return again after our lives are gone?

***

While working at the office this afternoon, I was startled to look up to behold Rusty Lammier, Eastville’s former mayor and now a city manager near Yorktown. He was standing fewer than ten feet from the end of my desk.

You fastidious rascal! he smiled.

He was dressed in dark trousers and a long-sleeved, white Oxford shirt, unbuttoned at the neck, sporting a loosened but rich, cream-colored tie. He had thrown his coat casually over his right shoulder.

Are you still peppering your people with civil rights sermons and irrelevant quips from the great writers? he added with a devilish grin.

I shook my head with a definitive, It can’t be you, and rose to shake his hand. Sit down and regale me with your latest shenanigans.

Why not! he signed, as he slipped his jacket over the back of a chair and pulled it up near my desk. I still haven’t gotten over her, he said, drawing out his words with prolonged sadness. Damn, but she was beautiful.

You know, I only saw her once or twice before you and she left town and knew nothing of your relationship until months later.

You mean ‘affair!’ Go on and say it.

Whatever.

The Council voted to keep me, you know, but I couldn’t stay. Not after Angeline left and booted me out of her life.

Were the two of you ever able to get back together? Everyone hopes so.

No. Her last words to me were devastating: ‘You were too easy to entice and conquer,’ she said. We were lying on the floor of her apartment. I’d already left Elisha for her. The divorce was less than three months away, final. And that was my reward.

Forgive me, Rusty, but how did it ever start? How did it begin? You and Elisha seemed so happy?

Who really knows? She was the associate director of parks and recreation, the town’s liaison with the mill and other industries and God knows what else. We were always having to consult with each other and go over county papers. Always in the office together and frequently ate lunch together. Then one day, when Elisha and the girls were out of town, she said, ‘Why not come by my place tonight for a little wine and relaxation? We owe it to each other,’ she smiled. ‘I’ll fix you dinner. ‘ And damn, I knew quite well what might happen, but went anyway. The truth is, I had already fallen in love with her and wanted to have sex with her. It had become an inordinate obsession. I couldn’t be in her presence without getting aroused.

He looked at me with profound sorrow, yet with a prankish twinkle in his eye.

"So I went. She met me at the door. She was wearing a man’s unbuttoned white shirt. Her breasts, which were voluptuously shaped, were visible, and her black panties revealed her freshly shaven pubic area. ‘Wouldn’t you like to get into something more comfortable?’ she asked. And David, damn if I didn’t claw my clothing off, right there in the hall, and race back with her to the bedroom. I caught her buttocks and, as she turned and kissed me, we fell back on the bed. And we did it, right there on the edge of the bed, and then in the bed and on the floor.

"That night when I went home, I knew I had crossed the threshold into Hell, but her lips tasted so sweet and her breasts were so soft and warm that I thought, on the contrary, I had just entered the Garden of Paradise before its Fall.

"For a whole year we saw each other like that. Slipping away here, booking out-of-town conferences in North Carolina and elsewhere. Deceiving ourselves and Elisha. Then someone found out about it. Spotted us at a motel, near the airport in Charlotte, and threatened to make it public. They told the city manager, who came to me on the side. ‘Rusty, you gotta stop this,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t look good. You gotta give her up.’

"Angeline begged me to leave Elisha and at least make it look clean from the outside. She promised she would marry me. We clinked our wine glasses together, and I agreed. So I left Elisha and the girls. Then the Council fired Angeline. Gave her two weeks to pack up, with severance pay. That night when I came to her apartment she was smashing mementos we had bought and was drinking wine straight out of the bottle. ‘You feckless abomination!’ she greeted me. ‘Why didn’t they fire you? You’re as up to your can in this as I am. Get out of here!’ ‘Angeline, I love you,’ I protested. ‘I worship you. I left Elisha and the girls for you.’ ‘Big deal!’

’But you promised!’ I reminded her. ‘You said you’d marry me.’ She put the wine bottle down and sauntered up sassily in front of my face with a smirk. ‘Couldn’t you tell those were the words of a drunken whore?’

With that, the sparkle seemed to drain out of Rusty, and he slumped in his chair. O what the hell! he finally sighed. Forgive my vulgarity.

There’s nothing to forgive there. But what about yourself? What about Elisha?

She won’t take me back, though I see the girls from time to time. They’re eleven and fifteen. Hard ages for girls.

And a hard age for their dad.

Dammit, David, he moaned. There was a catch in his voice. He put his face in his hands and wept.

I sat there in silence and let him cry. A long moment passed before he spoke.

Tell me that poem you recited once of Goethe’s, the one about eating your bread in tears. You quoted it at a funeral. Remember?

"Yes. It was at Mr. Yancey’s. His wife wanted it quoted. She was in severe depression. It goes something like this:

Who never ate his bread with tears

Nor cried himself to sleep at night

Knows nothing of the Heavens’ might.

Alone you will live out your life

Impoverished all the more.

No Comforter to share your pain

Nor Savior of your soul.

The man was a realist, wasn’t he?

I think so.

Will you pray for me, David, when you say your prayers?

"Why not do it now? Rusty, at some point you’ve got to forgive yourself.

Remember what Christ said about the prostitutes and publicans entering the kingdom of heaven before the righteous?

I know, but they were penitent and full of sorrow.

Your time of contrition will come. Have you thought of seeing a counselor?

I already have. That’s why I came. I’ve been seeing this psychologist, and she suggested I come here. To take a good look around, talk to a few friends, and move on. You’ve been gracious to receive me.

He rose slowly, wiped the remaining tears from his face, slipped his coat on, and shook my hand. Together we walked to the door, then I came back and sat down at my desk. I wondered if that is how David felt when Nathan caught him in adultery and accused him of murder, and later how he wept when his and Bathsheba’s little child died? A broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise, he prayed.

As the Greek playwrights used to say: So hath it fallen here.

***

Monday, Bill Zwecker (the chairman of our witness committee), Dixie (his big-boned, blue-tick hound), and I went squirrel hunting on Sumner Doughty’s farm. Sumner owns the Eastville Construction Company and lives in a Georgian mansion, hidden behind sprawling water oaks and surrounded by tall southern pines laden with purple wisteria in the spring. Beyond his lawn, a sandy lane leads to the banks of the Tidewater River. We drove down Sumner’s lane, passed his house, and parked Bill’s station wagon by the edge of a swampy woods that borders one of Sumner’s cornfields.

All right, Frank Buck, Bill grinned, as we emerged from the car. He was referring to my hunting gear. I carried enough shells in my vest to kill a score of anything. My khaki hunting pants are new, too, and the glossy, brown briar shields are still smooth and unscratched. Let’s go, said the swarthy man.

We walked along the edge of the woods toward the river. Dixie loped on ahead of us, chasing up yellow flickers and field sparrows. I entered the woods about fifty yards from the car. Bill and his hound entered farther down by the river.

Where I went into the brush, the woods descended a steep embankment, then leveled off into a swamp. I sat down on the bank near a patch of dense, dark green honeysuckle and gazed out across the still waters. I glanced around. There were many oaks, hickories, and gray cypress trees about. If there were any squirrels, I should get one, I thought.

I could hear a rifle report. Someone was firing the piece far off in the distance. The sound carried across the swamp in faint crackles. The wind rattled the dried leaves on the oaks. A woodpecker drilled away noisily somewhere in the swamp. The afternoon sunlight filtered through the woods and cast the trees’ long shadows across the dark, tea-colored water.

I lay back against the leaves and stared up at the blue sky through the trees.

For the beauty of the earth

For the beauty of the skies.

I felt very much at one with the forest,