September was manic.
In a weak moment, which she now regretted, Esme had agreed to take on the management of the annual circuit service at the beginning of the Methodist year. She had invited the guest preacher a year beforehand, but now came the plethora of details to be settled as the event drew near. Esme had to weave into this annual event a moment of stardom for everyone concerned. All the areas of work in her circuit—a sprawling territory with fifteen chapels and a Methodist geriatric residential home, four pastors, and a lay worker—had to be represented. West Parade Chapel boasted a professional musician who had attracted a first-class organist and organized a stunningly good choir considering the raw material the choir mistress began with. In her chapel at Portland Street the congregation had a worship band with guitars and a contentious drum kit (this drum kit never found a happy niche in worship, being always just loud enough to antagonize the traditionalists and just quiet enough to frustrate the drummer). The teenagers from the various chapels had organized into a loose-knit youth fellowship that deserved a voice at any circuit event. The minister in pastoral charge and the lay worker were each expected to have their special area of responsibility in the service. The superintendent had to be allowed to make a speech of welcome at the beginning, but under all manner of threats be required to stick to his time limit, as the mainly elderly congregation didn’t like to be kept out late in the evening, the pews were uncomfortable, and if the guest preacher missed the 8:55, he wouldn’t get his train back to London till 10:20 on a Sunday night.
Esme sat with a pad of paper charting out the balance of traditional hymns with choruses, choir items with congregational singing, and apportioning the readings (chosen by the preacher to support his theme) and the prayers to the staff and circuit stewards. She hesitated over the offering. There had been a row last year because the youth fellowship had been invited to take up the offering, much to the chagrin of the West Parade stewards who had a “system” and said it hadn’t been carried out properly. She hesitated also over the readings. The guest preacher had requested a modern translation of the Bible, which meant not using the special lectern King James Bible recently dedicated at West Parade Chapel in memory of the senior steward’s wife, who had died after a miserable and protracted illness the previous year.
Then she remembered that she had ages ago invited a youth leader from Brockhyrst Priory to sing a solo. This secured the loyally supportive attendance of a number of leaders from the guides and scouts, but also put a greater weight to the desirability of a relevant, accessible act of worship, which didn’t matter so much if no one was coming except the Methodist diehards who simply wanted to sing some rousing Charles Wesley numbers and enjoy the visit of a dignitary from London.
Esme sat at her desk with her head in her hand, trying vainly to think of ways to fit it all into an hour-long act of worship. Eventually, in a fit of temper, she screwed up her sheet of paper into a tight ball, threw it across the room, and went out to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. While the kettle boiled she ate a flapjack. She knew how many calories they contain, so once the coffee was made she restricted herself to a plain biscuit to go with it. And a second one to save her coming back for another, knowing perfectly well she’d have finished the first one before the coffee had cooled enough to drink.
She returned to her study. The most difficult part about organizing the circuit service was that the draft had to be submitted to the superintendent, who would ask for a multitude of minor details to be adjusted, and then ask to check the redraft and make further alterations before she could type it up and print copies.
Esme made a list of the people to be phoned. The youth fellowship wanted to do a drama but could only manage one they’d practiced already, which wouldn’t necessarily relate to the overall theme. Nonetheless, their title should be on the printed order, whether or not they changed their plans at the last minute. The choir mistress, she knew, would be ready with a list of beautiful but obscure and highbrow music—anything from Byrd to Birtwistle if the last two years were anything to go by—for Esme to dispose around the various liturgical moments of introit, offertory, anthem, recessional, and anything else she could think of. And she had to check the availability of her proposed readers, intercessors, and stewards.
And, Esme reflected, she’d better get on with it because it was happening in three weeks time, and as it was late this year, she had three church council agendas to put her attention to at the same time, as well as the pastoral committees, the finance and property committees, the mission and neighborhood committees, and the stewards’ meetings for all three chapels. Then, she suddenly remembered Portland Street had decided to hold their covenant service in September instead of January this year, and she had undertaken to make the necessary phone calls and publicity fliers to elevate it into an ecumenical occasion.
Her phone rang. Marcus asking if she was ready with Sunday’s hymns yet—no, she wasn’t, she said she’d phone him back. As soon as she’d replaced the receiver it rang again. One of her pastoral visitors from Portland Street—had she heard that Mrs Whitworth’s sister-in-law had gone into hospital for an operation on her varicose veins? No doubt Esme would be grateful to know. No, I’m not, Esme felt like saying. The woman doesn’t even come to church and doesn’t know me from Adam, and now you’ve phoned me, I’ll have to go and visit her, as if I hadn’t got enough to do already.
“Oh, right, thanks so much for letting me know,” she heard her voice saying cheerfully. “With a bit of luck I can get up to the hospital this afternoon. Which day did you say her op is scheduled for?”
As she made a hasty trip to the hospital toward the end of the afternoon, logging her mileage for her expense sheet, Esme noted with amazement the distance she had traveled since last her car had been serviced. In a circuit straggling along the south coast, journey distances mounted up astonishingly, and she made the fourteen miles round trip from her parsonage in Southarbour out to Wiles Green often enough to make an appreciable difference.
Sunday came before she drove out to call on Jabez and Ember that week. By Sunday evening she felt frayed and bad tempered. The week had been too full, and she was exhausted. She preached at Brockhyrst Priory in the evening, and then drove on to Wiles Green. As she turned into the track and stopped in Jabez’s yard, Esme felt a sense of profound relief. Spent and weary, she longed for the homeliness of the cottage and accepted hungrily the welcome that met her as she tapped at the door and let herself in.
Curled up in the corner of the sofa, as Jabez ascertained that she hadn’t eaten and went to make her an omelet and Ember lit the fire in the gathering dusk of the evening, Esme began to relax.
“I’ve been so busy, just so busy, running around like a headless chicken!” she said to Ember. “There hardly seems a moment to stop. I get up at half-past six, I crash out at half-past ten at night, and there’s hardly a minute unfilled. My garden’s full of weeds and my house is filthy. There’s a list as long as my arm of old people I haven’t visited, and don’t want to, and should have. When I’d been to do my hospital visits on Thursday, I called at the supermarket on the way home, and they’d done a huge swap-round of all their stock—nothing was still where I expected it to be. I was wearing my dog collar still—you know, minister, a professional nice guy—standing in the middle of the shop barking at the assistant, ‘Where are the ready-meals? Where are they?’ I was too tired and too short of time to go and look for them. I had to have my hymn list ready before choir practice and then fit in supper before a wedding rehearsal and the playgroup steering committee. There was no time for a treasure hunt in the aisles of the supermarket! Oh—thank you, Jabez; thank you so much.”
He held out to her a plate of steamed vegetables and an omelet cooked to perfection.
“I’m not volunteering for housecleaning, but I can have a little go at your garden if you like,” he said gently.
Esme looked at him and burst into tears.
“There’s never any time!” she wailed. “No time for anything important—life, love, walking in the beautiful woodlands! The world is torn by war and greed, and our country has a big part in that. But there’s no time to make changes, because changes take thought and time; and all the thought and time are taken up with churning out papers and satisfying expectations and meeting targets and millions of detailed thingummies that use up every single second—anyway, why can’t Mrs Whitworth’s sister-in-law’s own blasted people go and visit her? What’s the matter with her, hasn’t she got any friends?”
Jabez sat down on the sofa beside her and took the plate off her lap as she dropped her face into her hands and wept.
“Here. It is clean.” She felt a handkerchief being held against her hands, and she took it obediently and wiped her eyes and her nose.
“Come on, sweetheart. Eat your supper. I’ll make you a cup of tea. You’ll feel better in a minute.”
“I tell you what.” Esme looked up at Ember’s face, an odd mixture of sympathy and mischief. “Give me your visiting list, my love, and I’ll go and see ’em. I reckon we can soon cut it down.”
Esme had to laugh, as the vision of Ember as pastoral visitor sank into her imagination.
“Jabez makes a good omelet,” Ember added. “I’d eat that, my love, while it’s still hot.”
A great sigh shook Esme’s frame, and she began to eat her supper, feeling comforted and understood. It was delicious. Afterward, holding her mug of tea in her hands, she said, “When I very first came here, Jabez, you said this was a bit of a refuge, and so it is. It is for me.”
He nodded. “Well, it’s here for you.”
Esme pondered this thought for a moment, and then she said, “How do you do it, Jabez? How do you make it like this, a place of sanctuary? Everything feels calm and on purpose here. My life should be like this, peaceful and orderly and quiet; that’s what spiritual people are supposed to be like. My life should be like a candle burning, beautiful and recollected. Instead of that I’m just rushed off my feet and guilty and resentful, tired and cross with so much to—”
“Ssh, ssh. Calm down.” Jabez smiled at her. “One thing at a time. Can I pontificate for a minute while you eat your supper? Stop me if I annoy you. First thing: Right now, I mean right now this very minute, apart from being tired and a bit burnt out, what problems have you got? I mean, have you got a pain, or an appointment? Are you expected somewhere else? Are there any more deadlines to meet tonight?”
Esme stopped and thought about this, her fork in her hand. “No,” she conceded.
“Then be here. Don’t give away this time to tomorrow or let it be soured by yesterday. Time may come when you’re incontinent and diabetic and alone, frightened and hungry, riddled with osteoporosis or arthritis or cancer. Tonight you’re warm—I hope—and fed, and comfortable on my sofa, and with people who love you. That’s to treasure, I think. I’m certainly treasuring you being here. Tomorrow will come with all its tasks and demands, but it’s a way off yet. D’you know—Esme, am I wearying you? Tell me to shut up if you don’t want to hear all this.”
“I’m listening.” She smiled at him.
“My hat, that was an opportunity missed,” murmured Ember, resting her chin on the rim of her mug as she gazed into the fire.
“Well, what I was going to say—when they found the Cullinan diamond, the biggest one ever, they didn’t realize what they’d got at first. The chap who discovered it brought it into the office, and the story I heard was that the bloke in there laughed at him, said, ‘That’s not a diamond!’ and chucked it out the window. The thing is, a diamond is just a rock among rocks if you don’t look with a seeing eye. And moments are the same. Among all the dusty bits of rubble that make up the ordinary life, there’s a scattering of diamonds. The important thing is not to throw them out of the window when the miner puts them on your desk. Today was hard work and by the sound of things so is tomorrow. Don’t lose this little bit that comes in between. Keep your balance; stay poised on this moment. You’re here, with us; we love you, it’s peaceful. Chill out.”
“Okay.” Esme nodded. “You said that was the first thing. What’s the second thing?”
“Hang fire, how long is this list?” asked Ember. “Where’s me knitting?”
“The second thing is about simplicity. Simplicity is the key to everything.”
“Short and sweet, simplicity is,” Ember interjected. Jabez frowned at her.
“The whole thing about practicing simplicity is you got to mind your boundaries. Don’t let other people give you the runaround. They got expectations—so what? Let ’em keep them. You don’t want their expectations seeding into your patch. Expectations breed, grow like wildfire. Thanks but no thanks to anyone’s expectations. Don’t fulfill ’em and they’ll fade away. Expectations is like stray cats—don’t feed ’em if you don’t want ’em. In each day, attempt one thing in the morning and one thing in the afternoon, and leave the evening for peace when you can. Okay, you got meetings at night. Have a sleep in the afternoon then. Visit not so many people but spend more time with them when you go. Plan times to enjoy.”
Esme sighed. “It sounds wonderful, Jabez, but I wouldn’t get half as much done.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You’d get twice as much done, and it would be better quality.”
“Slow my life down? You know, I’ve noticed, when I go out and about on my bike, I see more people. I can stop easily, so I pause to chat and I go into the little shops and see the people that live near the parsonage. Perhaps I should get rid of the car—I seem to spend half my life in the car.”
He shook his head. “You got to be practical, Esme. You have responsibilities and a living to earn. Go on the bike when you can and use the car when you must. Don’t be all or nothing; give yourself a break.”
“Okay,” she said, with sudden resolve, rooting in her bag for her diary. “Give me some principles. When I’m rushed off my feet and I’ve no time to stop and think through it all, I need some principles. What are the principles you live by? Go on. Number one?”
Jabez laughed. “Esme, really, I don’t think—”
“Yes you do, you never stop thinking. Go on; I’m waiting.”
“Well, all right then. Number One: Simplify. Your home, your wardrobe, your possessions, your ambitions, your schedule, your whole life. Simplify. Everything. Number Two: Schumacher’s dictum—‘small is beautiful.’ Own few things, eat plain food in moderate amounts, avoid clutter. Keep meetings short. Avoid Southarbour High Street like the plague. Refuse to be a consumer. Buy what you must have from small, family businesses. Eat food grown locally. Brings me to Number Three: Cherish the living earth. Avoid buying things that have traveled a long way in manufacture and production. Remember the earth is our home—our life and breath. It’s to be held in deepest reverence, and loved and respected. Eat food grown by farmers who nourish it and live alongside the wild creatures in peace. Don’t use many chemicals in your household. Almost every manufacturing process wounds the earth, so recycle, reuse, and don’t buy much stuff in the first place.”
“Okay. Number four?”
“Bless the community where you live. Whenever you spend money, meditate on the journey of the coin you spend. If you spend it at a small local family firm, it will be reinvested in that local community. Big business carts money away in barrow loads and impoverishes the community like a cuckoo in the nest.”
“Got it. Five?”
Jabez thought for a minute. “Gandhi’s maxim—thinking globally and acting locally. A knock-on effect of doing business with small local family firms is that not only does our custom give us influence in local trade practice, but also it leaves other parts of the world free to do the same. We think the bad old days of slavery and the empire are all gone, but they’re not. We still keep slaves. Slaves make our clothes, our fireworks, provide our sugar and tea—but they’re slaves to a huge worldwide system of which we’re all a part. Cash crops and monopolies and big business are bad news the world over. Things like tea and coffee and chocolate and sugar that have to come from overseas, if we insist on having them, we should at least make sure they were fairly traded, so the people who produced them had a decent living and basic health care and education. Anyway, what goes around comes around. There is only one world. We’re all in it together. Sooner or later whatever we put out into this life will return to us. We reap what we sow.”
“Gandhi … think globally, act locally. And?”
“Watch your boundaries—what I said before; your soul boundaries, life boundaries. We live in a speeded-up, cluttered, exhausted, stressed society. People love fly-tipping their problems. If you got an empty hour, an empty garage, a space to think, someone with a cluttered life will be agitating to fill it up for you. You do them no favors if you allow them to extend their own disastrous agenda into your life. You’re a spiritual teacher, and you should be teaching peace by example, and peace comes by minding your boundaries and saying ‘no.’”
“Okay. Any more?”
“Well—choose what is handmade with love. Minimize the influence and involvement of machines in your life. Avoid mass-produced stuff, especially stuff produced by ruthless big business in places out of sight and out of mind. Things made in small numbers, by hand, with pride in the work have a soul quality beyond price. And if you make things yourself, at home—bread, your clothes, your supper, anything—it builds up the light intensity in your soul. Digging the garden, kneading dough, scrubbing the floor are activities all contemplatives prioritize. Zen monks sweeping the steps or Poor Clare nuns turning their compost, or hermits collecting firewood in the forest. Okay, they got computers and sewing machines these days, but they know the connection between spirituality and manual work, physical effort—and these people aren’t silly.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s the philosophy I live by. That’s it.”
“So: Simplify; small is beautiful; cherish the living earth; bless the community where you live; think globally, act locally; watch your boundaries; and choose what is handmade with love. Hmm. There’s a lot about where to do my shopping and nothing about quiet times and meditation. And I would have thought if I forgo my one-stop supermarket shop and start running around market stalls and farm shops, I’ll need two lives running concurrently. But you reckon, if I do these things, my life will run smoother?”
“Well … Yes, actually, I really do. Anyway, it’s wholeness. Attending to integrity in the ordinary daily things is what spirituality is. It is a meditation by itself. But the most important thing of all, to have in focus every day, is simplicity. It helps you create slow time, and sidestep all this rush and tear that’s wrecking friendships and families. Time was an ordinary bloke could do an ordinary job and feel a pride in his ordinary achievement. Give it five more years at the present acceleration of targets and clock-watching, and all the ordinary blokes will be chronically sick with shame and failure and depression, their multitasking wives will be full of hatred born of too many adrenaline toxins from running on empty, and there won’t be enough supermen to juggle the management and supervise the machines. Simplicity lets your soul catch up with your body. Prayer, making love, good conversation, gardening, home cooking, manual skills, quality of life; they grow only in slow time, which is created through simplicity. That’s me done, I’ve talked too much, I’m saying not another word.”
“Ember,” said Esme, “do you have things like that, that you live by? Was there anything you wanted to add?”
“Yes.” Ember laid her knitting down in her lap, and her small dark eyes winked like jewels in the lamplight. “Don’t eat food you don’t like. Don’t be deprived of firelight. Don’t take anything seriously. Don’t let the blackguards grind you down.”
Jabez smiled as Esme jotted this down in the back of her diary. “I don’t know why I bother,” he said. “That’s it in a nutshell. I heard a thing on the radio last week, it was a program about China, and they were saying, ‘Among our people, the old are respected for their wisdom’; and I thought, I like that, that’s how it should be.”
“Rubbish,” said Ember, in brisk contempt.
“Pardon, Ember? You don’t agree?”
She stared at him irritably. “How many old people do you know? If you know someone who’s old and stupid—and I could list you a few in this village alone, starting at the chapel—and you revere them for their wisdom, then you know one more stupid old man which would be you, Jabez Ferrall. Get a grip. In any intelligent society, the wise are respected for their wisdom. Goats, for example.”
Esme started to laugh.
“I feel completely different now,” she said. “I feel all keen and full of hope. I’m still tired, and I think I ought to go home to bed, but I feel sleepy-tired and relaxed. I don’t feel cross anymore.”
She looked at the list in the back of her diary.
“Simplify; small is beautiful; cherish the living earth; bless the community where you live; think globally, act locally; watch your boundaries; choose what is handmade with love; don’t eat food you don’t like; don’t be deprived of firelight; don’t take anything seriously; and don’t let people get you down.”
Ember looked at her curiously but said nothing. Esme snapped her diary shut and slipped it back into her bag, and then searched in its depths for her car keys.
“Right. I’m away. Tomorrow I’m doing assembly at the infants’ school and a funeral in the afternoon. In the evening we’ve got a circuit leadership team meeting. There seems to be one thing after another for the best part of three weeks, but I’ve no doubt I’ll be round before long—if only to complain about time-tabling all this extra integrity activity into my life.”
She stopped and looked up at Jabez and felt rather disconcerted to meet his brown eyes contemplating her. But as soon as she looked at him, his eyelids flickered, and his gaze shifted to the glow in the grate.
“Aren’t ready-meals a form of simplicity?” she said. “They certainly simplify my life.”
“What are the containers made of that they come in?” he asked.
“Well—plastic or metal, usually, with a cardboard or plastic film top and a cardboard sleeve.”
“And what happens to the containers when you’ve eaten the food?”
“That’s the simplicity of it. I just throw them away.”
Jabez nodded.
“Is it still simplicity if there’s no such place as away?” he asked quietly.
“I suppose one kind of simplicity precludes another,” Esme said. “I mean, going to one big shop instead of three little ones is simplifying in a way, isn’t it? And it’s simpler to get all the ingredients in one ready-made meal than to have to buy them all separately in their separate bags and packets.”
“Where do they come from, these meals?” he asked. “Who makes them? Do they make them there in that shop?”
“Goodness, no! I’ve no idea where they come from, or who makes them! Does it matter?”
“Well—it might. Look, Esme, I don’t want to criticize. You got a lot to get through and you can only do your best. Still, for tonight you had food cooked by me, with love: my hens’ eggs seasoned with herbs from Ember’s patch, cooked in Squirrel Farm butter, with Bill Patterson’s potatoes, and Mrs. Willard’s carrots and greens from the farmers’ market.”
“How about the tea?” She grinned at him.
“The milk in it came from Squirrel Farm same as the butter. The tea comes from Kenya, but it’s fair-traded, so is my sugar.”
He glanced at her, serious.
“I think it matters. To me, my religion, it’s not going to church, it’s the little things. Keeping faith with all else that lives. Their lives—your life—is entrusted to me, same as my life has to trust them, and you.”
“Okay, you win; I see you’ve more than thought this through. I’ll give it a try.” She got to her feet. “Good night, Ember.”
Jabez came outside with her into the yard, which lay bathed in moonlight.
“I love the earth and the moon and stars. I love the rain and the wind and the night air full of the fragrance of the plants,” he said. “Take time to love it. Good night, Esme. Go carefully.”
Driving slowly home, thinking about all he had said, Esme felt unsure if it would be of the slightest use to her. It seemed all very well, but it went against the grain of modern life entirely. She could see the point he made about simplicity; and the modern shortcuts of e-mail, text messaging, edge-of-town supermarkets, takeaways, and Internet news summaries seemed to be the way to bypass time-consuming traditions of going to market, cooking, writing (and buying stamps for and posting) letters, spending time with people, and reading newspapers. She wondered if it was just that Jabez was getting old, had time on his hands, and had been too poor and too out-of-date for the electronic revolution. Still, she thought she would bear it in mind. Some of his ideas seemed impossible—after all, where would she buy fairly traded coffee if she didn’t shop in a supermarket? Unless … I wonder … she thought, as she drove through sleeping Brockhyrst Priory and the country roads widened into the faster approach to the town … if someone at Portland Street—and maybe Brockhyrst Priory, too—not Wiles Green, Miss Trigg would never let us trade on a Sunday … but maybe, in the other two, somebody—Susan Marsh perhaps at Portland Street, maybe Margaret Somers or Annie O’Rourke at Brockhyrst Priory—would be willing to set up a stall as a Fair Trade rep, and we could make some money for chapel funds at the same time. I wonder …
Esme thought it could be very uniting, very positive, and help the congregation to find a clearer awareness of the world about which they prayed earnestly but were only hazily informed. Okay—well done, Jabez! she thought as she turned into the drive at the parsonage: I’ll check out the Web site after the leadership team meeting tomorrow.
As she went to bed that night, Esme found herself beginning to feel again for her work the hopeful enthusiasm and alert interest that so often fell casualty to the endless detail of administration, diplomacy, pastoral visiting, and liturgical responsibility that created a treadmill if she allowed it to. And it was hard not to, because all those things were so pressing, requiring so much attention that it was easy to lose the broader, more fundamental vision of Christian mission, the grounded, realistic outliving of Christ’s command to be known as his disciples by a life of practical love.
Inspired, she got up early and found the Web site of a supplier of electricity from sustainable, renewable resources, and the Web site of a bank who handled investments in strictly ethical projects—microcredit in poorer parts of the world, organic farms, self-employed craftsmen, social housing, and community ventures. She printed off the information from both sites, enough copies for everyone at the circuit leadership team meeting. We could do this, she thought: Our circuit chapels and parsonages could run on electricity from sources that respect the environment. Our deposit accounts could be shifted to investment in ethical enterprises. Jesus would like that.
Excited, she stapled the printed sheets into packs, slipped them into a wallet file that she stowed in her rucksack, and set off to cycle across town to her superintendent’s parsonage for the meeting.
The agenda, apart from essential routine business, was short. Esme asked for time under Any Other Business to present a suggestion. The main business item was circuit restructuring—beginning seriously to consider the future life of some small and shrinking country chapels, their viability now, and the implications of that for future circuit staffing.
The discussion was long, careful, and detailed. Her two colleagues with pastoral responsibility in outlying rural areas spoke of tentative plans for amalgamation or even simply closure in four of their chapel communities. Members continued faithful, hardworking, and supportive, but old age brought shrinkage by death, and three of the chapels had fewer than ten members, all over seventy and not all resident in the communities the chapels served. Closures seemed inevitable, such that next time one of the ministers was due to move on, instead of reinvitation being suggested, a cut in numbers of pastoral staff would be necessitated. It seemed desirable that the three remaining full-time ministers should care for the larger chapels, with possibly an active supernumerary or (had they had one) a homegrown minister in local appointment rather than a full-timer appointed in from elsewhere, to mop up the little rural causes while they still soldiered on.
The delicate question to be tackled—which of the staff would be the one to forgo reinvitation and move on—came next under consideration. Esme had two years to run on her present appointment. The superintendent’s reinvitation had already been agreed at the spring circuit meeting. One of her colleagues was nearing retirement and hoping to see out his active ministry without another move. The fourth minister of the staff had an elderly mother in a nursing home nearby, a husband who had only recently established and built up his own business, and children coming up to public exam years: So she was also anxious to stay as long as possible before moving. Everyone at the meeting sat and pondered in silence. The superintendent got up and put his head round the door to call his wife to make more coffee. Esme realized they were all waiting for her to volunteer to be the one to move on. She had no dependents nor was she tied by a husband’s work commitments. Although all three of the chapels in her section were still viable and in good heart, Brockhyrst Priory and Portland Street being positively robust, with impressive attendance figures, nonetheless she saw that she would have to be the one to go.
“Well,” she said brightly, “I expect a change would do me good.”
And smiles of relief all round the room rewarded her.
They spoke to her encouragingly about the positive benefits of frequent moves for gaining experience in ministry; about the wide range of possibilities—chaplaincy in schools or hospices or hospitals; overseas posts in Sri Lanka, the Bahamas, the Shetlands, or Malta—or opportunities in the central London offices or in some of the challenging inner-city missions.
Esme listened with mixed feelings. She had grown to care about her church members in the Southarbour circuit, but not so much that it would break her heart to leave them behind. She found the prospect of new forms of ministry exciting. When she honestly consulted her heart, she knew that she had just one serious reservation: She could no longer imagine life without Jabez and Ember. She could no longer imagine life without the refuge of Jabez’s cottage or the encouragement of their friendship always there for her. Yet, surely, this was what all ministers experienced when the time came for them to move on? And if she had been one of the ones to stay on, when after three years extension to her appointment the time eventually came for her to go, it would very likely be even harder to leave them.
Esme made a deliberate effort to put aside the misgivings that began to fill her mind and pay attention to the discussion about the redistribution of the sections in the circuit once the number of ministers with pastoral charge had been reduced. A new animation had entered the planning now that everyone knew which minister would no longer be continuing.
Eventually, when it was growing late, the superintendent began to draw the business to a close, pleased that the outcomes had been so harmoniously agreed so far, and relieved to have no ill feeling among the staff over the question of who should move on.
Glancing at the scribbled notes on his agenda, he suddenly remembered that Esme had given notice of something to raise under Any Other Business.
Esme took out her file with the notes on ethical investment and suppliers of electricity from renewable sources, but somehow the whole issue felt less relevant now than when she had printed them out this morning. She had observed in the past that issues of environmental or social concern were viewed as nonessentials, dilettante intellectual luxuries to be made the subject of a seminar and forgotten as quickly as possible. She had been at synod and witnessed resolutions passed determining that all Methodist church members would do their best to affirm and promote fair trade and social justice—which made everybody feel good and committed them to nothing. Even as she spoke about the importance of caring for the living earth and in our practice and choices working positively for a more equitable world, whether or not that was less financially rewarding than following the crowd, she knew she was wasting her breath. The chance of the circuit stewards getting their electricity from any supplier but the cheapest or lodging the advance fund with any bank other than the one offering the highest interest, was slender at any time. Today, when their minds buzzed with administrative and pastoral restructuring, only politeness made them pay any attention at all. They did not even turn over the pages of the notes she distributed. Esme saw it was not going to happen and closed the matter in her mind without pushing for any real consideration of the issues, too disappointed to allow herself to dwell upon it.
Later in the week, as she prepared to meet with her chapel stewards to draft the business of her church councils and break the news of the changes ahead, she wondered whether it would be worthwhile now to put the suggestion of beginning a stall for fairly traded goods. Would it be better simply to let that go? After all, there was very little more than eighteen months left before she would be leaving.
Esme thought about it, gazing out through the window into the front garden of the parsonage as she sat at the desk in her study. Undecided, she took a break from thinking to make herself a cup of coffee. I suppose, she thought, reaching absentmindedly for the biscuits as the kettle boiled, that it would be a start to buy fair-traded coffee for myself. I wonder if they do biscuits, too.
As she returned to her desk, she opened her diary to the memoranda pages at the back. BIKES Jabez Ferrall, she read with a smile, and, turning a few pages further in, past hastily jotted details for funerals and contact numbers for wedding couples, she found and read again Jabez’s list of principles. Think globally, act locally. She remembered him saying, “I think it matters. To me, my religion, it’s not going to church, it’s the little things. Keeping faith with all else that lives.” And she thought, Oh well, why not? Let’s go for it. There’s still time. She added to her stewards’ meeting agendas for Portland Street and Brockhyrst Priory a note to propose the commencement of fair-trading. As she sat reading through the notes she had made, it occurred to her that at Wiles Green, apart from Miss Trigg who would certainly oppose it, the congregation would most enthusiastically introduce and support a Fair Trade stall. She frowned thoughtfully at her agendas. To avoid conflict and confrontation in general seemed only wise, but she felt her life being directed and reshaped by Miss Trigg’s convictions and prejudices. “Mind your boundaries,” Jabez had said; “don’t let other people give you the runaround.” She added a note to her Wiles Green stewards’ meeting agenda—“Fair Trade stall and rep.” She reflected that she might as well have written down “Cause trouble” and accepted the necessity of some kind of a showdown with Miss Trigg.
She liked the principles of life Jabez had outlined, but at the same time she felt conscious that contemplating them created dissatisfaction with her choices; she was a minister of an institutional religion. Is it ever possible for an institution to express simplicity? The restlessness that disturbed her soul intensified as she thought about the gulf between the way Jabez had sketched for her and the inescapable requirements of professional ministry.
Several times that week, Esme came into the parsonage at the end of a long evening meeting, switched on the fluorescent light in her tidy, impersonal kitchen, made herself coffee, and took it into the sitting room to drink in her armchair beside the gas fire, turning it on low to dispel the chill of the evening. She looked at the deep-pile, grey-and-purple nylon carpet—a generous choice by the circuit stewards who had furnished the parsonage and had selected similar tones in the easy-care polyester curtains and inoffensive wipeable, embossed wallpaper. It had been kindly done by practical and thoughtful people; but her mind wandered to Jabez’s cottage among its apple trees, the smell of wood smoke, the simple pine table his father had made, and paper sack doormat in the kitchen, the floorboards more or less covered by an ancient rug of faded pattern in the living room with its low ceilings and shabby furnishings illuminated by lamplight and firelight. That’s where I’d like to be, she thought. Somewhere like that.
Her drink finished, she checked all the windows were fastened and the doors locked, and made her way up the stairs, past the closed doors of the three empty bedrooms. Behind the parsonage, through the gap next to the house whose garden backed onto hers, and just beyond the low garden wall in front, streetlights shone all night, so that it was never really dark inside, and outside it was possible to see the moon but very few of the stars. In the corner where the ceiling met the wall, the sleepless red eye of the security alarm system flashed and winked as she moved about the bedroom.
Very tired and somehow dispirited, Esme climbed into her cold bed. She felt too tired to read and too tired to relax. The Methodist church, chronically addicted to incessant bureaucratic change as one of the less helpful outcomes of its democratic structure, had altered its stationing procedure twice since Esme had last gone through the process of appointment and come to Southarbour. She had asked her colleagues what the new system was, without very coherent result. She thought she’d better get in touch with her district chairman for advice.
Every night that week, she lay for a little while waiting for the bed to warm up, wondering what the future might hold and what she was supposed to do next. She thought about her colleagues and her congregations. She thought about parsonages and about how long it takes to get to know a new neighborhood. She thought about what makes a house feel like a home. She wondered about the possibilities of her churches espousing the principles of fair trade. And she thought about Jabez. But before long, each night, sleep came.
On Sunday night Esme presided at a Eucharist at Wiles Green, Miss Trigg on duty as her steward. She preached a straightforward expository sermon from the lectionary readings set for the day, avoiding controversial interpretations or any remarks Miss Trigg might construe as flippant or inappropriate. The congregation was tiny but the atmosphere peaceful. Esme wondered if they would miss her when the time came, sooner than she had planned, to move on. She wondered if she would miss them.
Afterward, turning out of the car park, she glimpsed the new poster in the Wayside Pulpit, saying REMEMBER YE THE SABBATH DAY TO KEEP IT HOLY, and thought of her forthcoming stewards’ meeting with misgiving. She drove up Chapel Lane and turned into the village street, then with a lightening of her heart into Jabez’s yard.
He had anticipated her coming, and a bowl of homemade vegetable soup with bread and cheese awaited her. Happily she curled up in her corner of the sofa, beside the fire that Ember had recently lit.
“This feels more like coming home than when I go back to the parsonage!” she said. “It’s so nice of you to take care of me like this.”
“Ah,” said Ember, “’tis rare to find a kindness without an ulterior motive. Even here. Jabez don’t cook for everybody. Not even for himself, some days.”
She shook out her knitting, a vast stripy thing using a motley assortment of ends of yarn.
“Ember, that’s colossal! What are you making, anyway?”
“’Tis a jumper for the winter,” Ember explained. “I likes my clothes baggy,” she added unnecessarily.
For a while, silence lay between them as Esme devoured her soup and bread, surprised to find how hungry she was once she stopped to think about it.
“Delicious!” she pronounced as she finished it. “Thank you so much.”
She reached down and piled her crockery on the floor beside the sofa. She wondered if now would be the time to tell them about the move she had agreed to but somehow felt unable to bring it closer by discussing it. Instead she chose to stay in the temporary reality of the present.
“Jabez,” she said, “I’ve been thinking about all you said to me last week, and it’s given me an idea—I thought I might see if we can begin to sell fair-traded things in the chapels I pastor. But I can’t do that at Wiles Green without taking on Miss Trigg. Have you got any ideas about how I might sort her out?”
Jabez laughed as he considered this. “I can far more readily imagine her sorting out me than the other way round,” he said. “But surely Miss Trigg will be in favor of fair trade?”
“I expect so,” Esme replied, “but not in favor of buying and selling on a Sunday. Once when my car was in for service and I went to chapel in a taxi, she remarked that it was okay because I was digging my donkey out of the ditch.”
Ember gazed at her, perplexed.
“You know—necessity. From the thing Jesus says about ‘Which of you if your ass or ox falls into a pit on the Sabbath day will not pull him out?’ But I strongly suspect that trading on the Sabbath, fair or otherwise, will be strictly off limits. Although, mind you, if I could only remember where it comes in the Gospels, Jesus speaks about doing good being lawful on the Sabbath, doesn’t he—and if fair trade isn’t good, I don’t know what is.”
“It’s in Matthew 12,” said Jabez to her surprise. “‘It is lawful to do well on Sabbath days.’ Don’t look so amazed. I only remember it because my mother used to quote it to excuse my father going fishing while we were in chapel. She said he fished well but his hymn singing was atrocious. While you’re at it there’s Saint Paul as well, 1 Corinthians: ‘All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.’ So provided it’s expedient to hold your Fair Trade stall on Sunday after church, you got a backer in Saint Paul. It’s lawful, and you’re not to be brought under the power of Miss Trigg, on good authority. And you got an authority in Isaiah 1, ‘Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moon and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble to me, I am weary to bear them … Learn to do well; seek judgement, relieve the oppressed.’ And Saint Paul picks this up too, doesn’t he? Um—Romans 14. ‘One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it.’ And Jesus says in Mark, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.’ You got every authority. Tell her she’s being carnally minded.”
Esme blinked at Jabez in amazement. “Tour de force or what!” she exclaimed. “How on earth have you remembered all that?”
“Oh, well …” Jabez looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry; I wasn’t showing off. It’s just—maybe you can imagine it—there was rather a lot said about the Sabbath in this house when I was a child. Quite a few heated arguments. My father wouldn’t go to worship, but he was brought up chapel, and he knew why he wouldn’t go and what he wasn’t going to. Quotations from the Scriptures fired between him and Mother like arrows between crack archers. That was one of the first things that began to put me off the church I think, really. Everyone I knew used the verses of the Bible like a pile of rocks to hurl at each other in an endless battle of one-upmanship and self-righteousness. You get sick of it after awhile. It’s a rough game, and a spiteful one, with a lot of losers.”
“But you think it’s the way to handle Miss Trigg? I mean, if you were in my place—if you were her minister—is it what you’d do?”
“Stone me, Esme! That’s a bit unfair! Tell you what, I’ll do you a swap. Marilyn Prior’s son was out on his bike in the lanes after school during this week. He hit the edge of a pothole while he was going downhill quite fast. His chain sprang the cogs, the bike leapt forward, and he was thrown. Something else must have happened—I’m not quite clear what—involving him and a tree. He hasn’t bent the forks, but he’s crumpled both the top tube and the down tube. He’s got a bump on his head. I’ve got his bike. Okay. You tell me how to fix Danny Prior’s bike, and I’ll tell you how to fix Miss Trigg.”
“Tell his mother to buy him a new one,” said Esme. “Your turn.”
Ember chuckled. “That’s my girl.”
“Well, all right, I reckon if it’s only ideas as bright as that you’re looking for, I may well be able to help you with Miss Trigg. Cup of tea first?”
Having made a pot of tea and poured a mug for each of them, Jabez resettled himself in his chair. “Don’t forget to chew it,” muttered Ember as he sipped his tea. Jabez ignored this.
“Miss Trigg, then,” he said. “As far as I can see you got three problems. One, she’s lived in Wiles Green all her life, knows nothing but the folks and the attitudes she grew up with, so she’s got small-life syndrome. Two, she’s hooked on fundamentalist religion, and her security is its rigid framework that acts as a splint and an exoskeleton and a steel corset of the soul—like those African ladies with all the rings round their necks—they’d have been better off without them but if you took them off now they’d go all floppy. Three, she was brought up by a tyrannical mother and a father who beat her; she worshipped the ground they walked on but she takes it all out on the rest of the human race. She’s weak, she’s a bully, she’s always right, and she’s having fun nipping your ankles—is that it?”
Esme laughed. “You know her very well. I think you have it exactly. Heaven knows, she’s not all bad, she works like a slave for the chapel, and organizes all sorts of good events, but …”
“All right. Well, in gratitude for your excellent advice about Danny Prior’s bike, I’m going to give you my equally valuable opinion about Miss Trigg. First thing is, have you heard her preach?”
“Oh yes,” said Esme.
Jabez grinned. “Me, too, many times. Would you be prepared to preach the kind of ideas Miss Trigg preaches and upholds?”
“Well, of course not!” Esme exclaimed. “She preaches a lot of nonsense, she does really! And it’s harmful, dangerous nonsense too. And it’s so off-putting! You know, if I could persuade some of the mums from Mothers and Toddlers to come to worship one Sunday when Miss Trigg was preaching—not that I can persuade them to come at all because they’ve all met Miss Trigg—I’ll bet you any money you like they’d never come again.”
“Seems reasonable,” said Jabez. “But surely then, asking for the freedom to be yourself implies offering the same freedom to other people—even to Miss Trigg.”
“Oh, that’s all very well!” Esme was sitting upright, annoyed. “But Miss Trigg isn’t letting the other members of the chapel be themselves or the toddler group mums—or me!”
Jabez shook his head. “Miss Trigg’s a lot of things,” he said, “but she’s not a witch out of a fairy tale.”
“You sure?” interrupted Ember.
He laughed. “No, but I think so. She can’t put a spell on you to make you be a frog or a donkey or a statue; neither can she put a spell on you to make you angry or afraid. That’s your choice. D’you remember last week I told you—oh Esme, I hate this—” he broke off in dismay, suddenly horrified at the thought of himself regularly offering advice. “This is so didactic, I can’t hold forth like this; it’s like a course of instruction!”
“Correct,” said Esme. “Go on.”
He shook his head. “I can’t. It’s embarrassing, I feel such a fool, I—”
“Oh, get on with it,” said Ember as she turned her knitting round to begin a new row. “Just say what you think without drawing attention to yourself so much.”
Jabez looked absolutely furious. He closed his eyes and didn’t speak.
“You were saying?” said Esme. “Being angry is one’s own choice?”
Jabez began to laugh. “Thank you! Yes it is—yes, it is. Okay. Last week, one of the things I suggested that you wrote in your diary was about minding your boundaries. A really important part of any spiritual tool kit is the ability to keep soul boundaries—a poise that falls to neither domination by others nor subjugation of them by you. Being with Miss Trigg is probably the best chance you’ll ever get to hold your radiance steady in the turbulence of other people’s energy. Anytime you find yourself in a tug-of-war with her, just let go of your end of the rope. I know you’re the pastor of the chapel—but that gives you a real authority she hasn’t got. You’re in a position to offer them the chance of a Fair Trade stall, but if Miss Trigg terrorizes them into turning it down, don’t panic. If you aren’t choosing to fight, you don’t have to win. Ministry is responsibility, but all the people share the responsibility of ministry, not just you; it’s all of you together; so they got to learn to mind their boundaries too, not let Miss Trigg annex their lives and decisions to her own.
“Words are power, Esme. Breath energy is spirit; it’s not to be squandered or used in violence. It’s important not to speak unless you really have something to say and others are ready to listen. You can speak softly, and the universe will still hear you, your words will make a difference. And there’s no need for hurry or impatience, you can take your time—the earth waits. Time is flexible, elastic. The ark of God doesn’t sail without the unicorn.”
Ember sat with her knitting in her lap, staring impatiently at Jabez. “Whatever are you talking about?” she said.
Jabez said nothing in reply.
“I think he’s saying that even if it doesn’t seem likely, gentleness is enough, and there isn’t another way. I just have to keep my nerve.” Esme ventured. Jabez nodded.
“That’s right. D’you want another cup of tea?”
“One more; that would be lovely, then I ought to be on my way. Thank you, Jabez. And d’you think you can fix Danny’s bike, too?”
He smiled at her. “I’m sure I can. If I take my time, and think about it; look at it carefully and only try to do one thing at a time.”
As Esme drove home that evening, she wondered if she should have told them about the proposed changes in the circuit structure, and her volunteering to move. She told herself that the business of the circuit leadership team had to remain confidential, but she had a feeling that was not the reason she hadn’t told them.
It was a long, long time since she had known anyone who would talk with her so freely about walking the paths of the spirit. She felt that she had found something—a kinship, an understanding—too precious to discard and leave behind. Still, she had volunteered to go, and it had been the right thing to do, and she could think of nothing that could be done to change it. She had her living to earn and no home but a parsonage to go to. There were no other choices that she could see. She resolved to be practical and make the best of it; there seemed no other way to stop the spreading stain of sadness, the quiet, persistent grief that wept in her when she contemplated losing this friendship.
She avoided introspection by immersing herself in her work. To her pleasure and surprise, all three church councils embraced her proposal of a Fair Trade stall with enthusiasm, almost unanimously. Even Miss Trigg was remarkably restrained and contented herself with abstaining from the vote.