Fall from Grace

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Fall From Grace
©2002 George Wiman, All Rights Reserved.
The following story is entirely fictional. It is personal, not literary, written to illustrate how I feel about a certain thing. Any resemblence between the characters in this story and actual persons is probably a strange story. If you have not attended evangelical Protestant churches in North America, especially in the South, you may have a hard time understanding the culture represented in this story.

Near the front of the church sanctuary, on top of a sixteen-foot scaffold, lay a man engrossed in connecting some wires. In the aisle, a tiny, white-haired woman in a purple dress watched him working. Mabel Flessner was annoyed at the whole prospect. No one had asked her opinion about this development. She raised up an arthritic hand and yelled up to the man:

"I don't like it! Singing to a projector screen! What was ever wrong with hymnals!?"

The sound technician turned over to see the owner of the shrill voice calling up to him – and rolled right off the edge.

It only takes one second to fall sixteen feet. In that time, he tried to right himself, to pick a level landing spot, and to roll to minimize injury. One second was almost enough time.

The old woman stood frozen in the church sanctuary, looking at the man who had fallen off the scaffolding. He had rolled, but there hadn't been enough room to stop, and she had heard the "thunk" as his head hit the support of the front pew. The sound echoed off the back of the sanctuary, one hundred feet away.

Her hand covered her mouth as she stared in terror at the unconscious man. What to do? If she ran to get Pastor, he would discover the accident had been her fault, as she had harrangued the man installing the newfangled projector system. He had turned over to see who was yelling up at him, and fallen right off the scaffold.

Gathering up all her courage, she fled down the hall towards Pastor's office.

"Just a minute, Dan, I'm going to have to call you back." Paster Tom Cooper put down the phone as the elderly woman poured out a torrent of words about the man putting in the projector, and the speakers, and the hymnals, and she had talked to him, and…

He hurried down the hallway to find middle-aged man lying on his back next to the scaffolding. He was dressed in dark slacks and a dark blue shirt emblazoned with a company logo. A pair of eyeglasses lay on the floor next to him. A trickle of blood ran from his bald head onto the carpet.

"You see, he fell right down, and he hit his head, and it wasn't my fault but it all happened so fast and…"

Now the pastor faced two problems: to get an ambulance and to get the panicked Mrs. Flessner out of the way for a while. He decided the first problem would be easier if he took care of the second. "Mabel, would you please go get Jeanene? She's over in the parsonage. I'm going to need her help."

"Pastor, do you think he's hurt badly? I didn't mean for anything to happen to him, I just wanted to ask him a question and he…"

"Mrs. Flessner, I will take care of this man. Please go get my wife."

That ought to be good for ten minutes or so, he thought. He examined the prone figure without moving him: pulse was steady, breathing slow. He lifted each of the man's eyelids in turn, and saw the pupils contract. He was stable. Cooper ran back to his office, picked up the phone, and dialed 9-1-1.

As he dialed, he thought: There is something awfully familiar about that man.

That afternoon, Cooper entered the hospital room carrying his Bible, wearing his pastoral dark suit and tie, and a practiced expression of kind concern on his face. He found the injured man sitting up in bed, picking at a bland dinner. The man wore a light blue smock and had a small bandage on his head. He felt a shock of recognition:

"It is you! I don't see you for twenty-five years and then you turn up unconscious in my sanctuary!"

Bill England looked uncomfortable in the way of a man caught out. He had hoped to avoid meeting his old friend until the last day of the installation, so there would not be time for serious conversation. "One of your sermons must have put me to sleep," he said, grinning self-consciously. He pushed the dinner tray aside.

Cooper stepped over to give the reclining man a careful embrace. "The nurse said they want to keep you here for twenty-four hours for observation," he said, "as if you could ever be hurt by a hit on the head."

The two men reverted to their college days together, as best friends studying for the ministry. Despite being heavier and having less hair, they were the same two friends from college, famous back then for their dangerous recreations and incessant practical jokes on their fellows and professors. The dean had lectured them about the responsibility that hung upon their shoulders, and how they should not lead their friends into so many misadventures. They were leaders.

Since college, one had become a successful pastor, serving a small church and answering the call to a mid-sized one years later. The other had tried to serve a small congregation, had been fired, and had lost touch with his old friends from college. His marriage ended in divorce and he lived alone. After many jobs, he had drifted into a technical service field, installing audio-visual systems in businesses, schools and churches for a media equipment company.

Cooper noticed that England deflected questions about his current church membership but said nothing of it. His old friend seemed terribly uneasy. Whatever it is, he thought, it will come out when it's good and ready.

"Let's pray together," he said. He placed his hand gently on England's and bowed his head.
"Our majestic Heavenly Father," he began, "I praise you for the joy of rediscovering a lost friend. Grant him the succor of your healing power, and…" –

"Stop." England said.

Cooper stopped and looked at his old friend. "What's that?" he inquired, "What are you talking about?"

"I knew this would happen," he replied, "and I can't let you go on thinking what you are thinking."

"I can't pray for you?"

"In private, yes. But I don't pray any more."

And there it is, thought Cooper.

"That's why you didn't come find me when you came to do the installation at the church, isn't it? You must have known I was the pastor of this church. But you've fallen away from the Lord and you didn't want to confront me."

"Guilty as charged," he answered, "but I take exception to the 'fallen' part. It's more like I jumped."

The pastor of First Christian Church winced at the thought of his friend deliberately leaving the Lord's presence. "Why didn't you come to me if you were having difficulty?" he asked. "We could have talked and prayed together!"

"That was exactly what I didn't want," he answered. "Our friendship existed in a setting of Christian faith. Even if we didn't see each other, as long as you thought I still believed, the fact of our friendship still existed. I've lost so much I just didn't want to lose that too."

Cooper was incredulous: "You thought we couldn't be friends anymore if you stopped being a Christian? I think I've been insulted!" In the back of his mind, he was reeling – his old friend, one of the "Bible Bombers", lost? Purposely rejecting God? He struggled to imagine what it meant. Damnation! A permanent loss – really permanent.

"Think about it, Tom," he said. "You find out I am not a Christian anymore and you freak out and start trying to convert me back, to save me from hellfire. I tell you there isn't any hellfire and you start pulling out Bible verses. I discount The Book and Heaven itself and there you are with your old friend ripping the most precious thing in your life. You think I'd look forward to that?"

Cooper leaned back against the windowsill, with his hands in his suit pockets. "I'm not as fragile as you seem to think," he said. "You think I couldn't handle it?"

"The thought crossed my mind. Plus I wasn't sure I could handle it. You don't suppose there's any chance we could just drop it?" His head was turned down slightly, as if he were pleading.

"No, there isn't any chance we can just drop it. You think it was an accident you wound up installing a system in our church? You think the Lord didn't have this in mind when He forced us back together like this?"

It was an accident, thought England. "Sure, that would make sense, if there was a Lord, and if He were planning chance meetings."

"Nothing happens by chance, Bill. Look, the nurse told me I could only stay a few minutes, so I have to go. You're getting released tomorrow. Are you staying in a hotel?"

"The Sheraton."

"I want you to stay with us," he said. "You shouldn't be in a hotel after a hit on the head like that, and we obviously have a lot to catch up on."

"You mean you're going to try to convert me back to Christianity."

"I might. But we've been friends a long time, and we still are. At least come have dinner with us. Stay with us while you put in the system. You can explain to me how it works."

"All right, I'll think about it. They're releasing me at ten tomorrow morning."

"I'll be here. And don't die!"

England saluted his friend: "Aye aye, captain." he said. Cooper swept out of the room.

England lay his head down on the pillow and darkened the room. Despite the clean bill of health he had received from the MRI, his head hurt. In the darkness he noticed a golden metallic gleam on the table – gilded pages. Cooper had left his Bible. It had to be intentional, he knew, as his methodical friend picked up that Bible the way some men put on their pants. He never went anywhere without it.

This is going to be hard, he thought. Finally, he fell asleep.

The doctor warned England the following day to avoid using power tools while he recovered, and to stay away from high places. He chuckled to himself: he still had a sound system to install and no bump on the head would stop him.

Cooper picked up his friend at the hospital, stopped at the hotel, and they had dinner at the church parsonage. Afterward, the two men left for a walk.

"You told her, didn't you?"

"Yes, I told her. How did you know?"

"Dinner was great, but she kept treating me like I had a terminal disease or something."

Jeanene Cooper had been part of the Bible Bombers, and had fallen in love with Tom while they hoisted the founder's statue up to the steeple top with ropes and pullies in the dead of night. Another time, she had stood lookout as Tom and Bill had led their eight closest friends to set the dean's tiny MGB car ever-so-carefully on the stage in the chapel. (Of this crime they were suspected but no evidence was found and no one ever confessed.)

Life had been dull since college. She was delighted to learn Bill would be staying with them, and then horrified when Tom told her Bill was no longer a Christian. She found herself with a new mix of emotions for which she had no simple name.

The two men walked the chipped-wood path around the city park. A jogger padded by, paying them no attention. The tennis courts had been converted into a skateboard course: the men could hear voices and the scraping and slapping of the boards as youngsters honed their skills.

England took out a cigar and a lighter, and offered one to his friend.

"No thanks – I don't smoke cigars at all any more. But you go ahead."

"That was our main vice in college. What happened?

"Ever deliver a cow?"

"You mean a calf."

"Whatever. I'd have to learn how because the ladies in the church would have a cow if anyone saw me smoking a cigar. Plus, I have to set a good example for the kids. So I don't."

"Well, I hope you really don't mind because I can use one." He paused to flip open the lighter. As he drew flame into the cigar, his friend wished he could have one, too.

"So what happened? Why would you 'jump' away from the Lord?"

"Tom, you may not believe this, but I love you, and I'm telling you, you do not want to go into this." There was a note of desperation in his voice.

"Why? What are you talking about?"

"Losing my faith wasn't a choice, Tom. It was more like an amputation without anaesthetic. And it's taken just as long to get used to. I want no part of the same thing happening to you."

"You think I might lose my faith because of whatever made you lose yours? That just doesn't make sense, Bill. The Bible promises the Lord can hold on to us!" He made a gesture as if he were going to reach for his Bible, then realized he had left it behind – second time in two days.

"I know all the same verses you do, Tom. We had the same major in college, remember? We used to drill each other on Bible knowledge."

"All right, fair enough. But your faith was real. If you know the same Bible I know, what happened?"

"That's what happened – it isn't the same Bible. You believe in a Bible that's infallible, the Word of God. I finally couldn't anymore. Once that happened, Christianity had nothing to legitimize it above the others, and we were all adept at debunking the others."

"You just gradually lost faith in the Bible? My faith is in Jesus Christ."

"…whom you found out about in the Bible. And you know perfectly well I believe what I learn from study. I studied the Bible and its history in close detail. It just didn't hold up."

They had arrived at the softball field bleachers. England sat down on the second bleacher and puffed his cigar. Cooper sat down beside him.

There had to be a loophole, an escape clause in it somewhere. His logical friend had painted himself into a corner and needed someone to throw him a rope. If only he could find one!

"Maybe you just didn't want to believe." he said.

"And maybe you just did want to believe!" said England. "What difference does it make what any of us wants? All that matters are the facts!"

"So there's no room for faith? Faith is the evidence of things not seen."

"Faith is a lie, a self-delusion. It's wishful thinking. What you don't know is how much I wanted to believe. I fought this for years, looking for an escape clause." He looked down at his cigar, watched the smoke curling up from its grey tip.

Escape clause! Cooper had just been thinking of that very thing. He had talked to hundreds of people trying to escape from God. He had never before met someone who wanted to believe, but could not. He had read about one, however…

"Faith is a gift from God." he said. "Thomas said, 'I believe, help thou my unbelief!'"

"You mean a gift from that God in the Bible?" asked England. He flicked the stub of his cigar out into the gravel. It landed with sparks, and smoke drifted up from it.

Cooper asked: "Are you still trying to find the answer? Are you open to new facts, new information?"

"If you could find any. There aren't any new facts, and you know it. Everything that bears on the God question has been around since before either of us were born."

This can't be hopeless, thought Cooper, it can't. With God anything is possible. "Could we make a study of it together? I just can't accept that you can never come back to the Lord."

"Wherever you're going, Tom, I've been there. I don't want to argue with you. I'd have to write a book to explain it all to you."

"Well, why don't you, then?"

"Do you seriously want me to write a book debunking Christianity?"

"No, I suppose not."

A moment went by when neither man spoke. On the skateboard park, a boy fell, and picked himself up again.

So that's it – you're an atheist now?"

"Call it agnostic with leanings toward atheism. Or just call it humanism."

I was born in sin, and in sin did my mother conceive me, thought Cooper. "I can't go along with humanism," he said - "it's flawed right at the center."

"Tom, I didn't come here to convert you into unbelief. It would destroy your whole life."

"Don't worry – you can't convert me. I'm safe in the arms of Jesus."

"That's fine, Tom. But can we please, please just drop it? As friends?"

Cooper wondered: What kind of a friend would I be if I just dropped it? But further talk-talk on the subject might drive England away. He resolved to pray hard for his lost friend, forever, never to give up. He would never talk to God again without mentioning his lost friend. He removed his glasses and wiped tears from his eyes.

For a moment, he thought, he had caught a glimpse of how important every lost soul is to God, how urgent every loss.

"You don't mind if I pray for you? Not that it would stop me if you did."

"No, that's fine. Pray all you want – knock yourself out." England pictured his friend fervently praying to no one, believing in a transcendent God that wasn't there.

I will, thought Cooper. He asked: "Bill, do the other guys know about this? Because none of them has mentioned it to me."

"You mean the Bombers – no they don't. For the same reason."

"All of us have been wondering what happened to you. You should tell them. They have a right to know."

"So I can go through this eight more times? So they can all go through it? I'd rather have them just think I'm a jerk who forgot about them."

"The truth hurts, but so does your fictional indifference. At least with the truth they would hurt for the right reason. And so would you."

"I'll think about it."

In three more days, the system was installed. Every church has a person who likes audio-visual technology, and First Christian's A-V person was Dan Miller. He was a short-haired, physically fit 33-year-old, who secretly preferred running a projection system from the balcony, over sitting in the pews with his neighbors. He liked going to church, but not being with church people.

As a child, Miller had been entranced by the Wizard of Oz, controlling a mighty presentation from behind a curtain. Now, he would be that person. England showed him how to synchronize the digital projectors, how to que up sound sources and prevent feedback from the control panel.

Miller was excited. In fact, the training session was superfluous: he intuitively understood how everything worked, and the possibilities in the system. "See, the hymns are part of a PowerPoint presentation, and everyone can see the words on screen. Likewise with communal prayers and even the video from last week's camp meeting. The second projector shows the same thing to the people on stage so they can be in synch!"

Cooper nodded and smiled – he had said little in the training session, preferring to let Miller soak up the lesson. His mind wasn't really in it anyway.

A tiny voice sounded behind them. "Sir?"

The three men turned around to find Mabel Flessner standing at the top of the stairs. She looked even smaller than her 96 pounds.

"Mr. England, I'm sorry I made you fall." she said.

"Bill, this is Mrs. Flessner," said Cooper. "She was present for your rapid descent from the scaffolding on Monday."

Mabel Flessner advanced timidly onto the balcony, and the three men stood up to greet her. England held out his hand.

"No harm done, maam – my head's as hard as a rock," he said. "Besides it wasn't you, it was me. It was my own clumsyness."

"Thank you, young man. You're very kind." She took his hand. England was amused by the phrase 'young man.' He didn't feel young. But she looked twice his age. He imagined himself living another life as long as the one he had already lived.

"It's just that I like singing from hymnals better than from some projector contraption," she said. "It's more personal."

"You're absolutely right," said England.

"I am?"

"Yes, you are. Hymnals are more personal. With a hymnal, you hold the music in your own hands. You lose that, with one of these systems."

"Well, young man, that isn't what I expected you to say!"

Cooper and Miller looked apprehensive: England smiled. "Well, there's a catch to it of course. With one of these systems, the singing really is communal. Everyone's head is raised up instead of looking down at a hymnal. They can follow along better. They can breathe better, so they sing better. They even recite scripture more clearly. If you listen tomorrow, you'll hear what I mean. So it may be worth the change."

"Really?"

"Yes. But you are still right about the hymnals."

Cooper grinned. That was the most diplomatic thing I ever heard anyone say, he thought. He pictured England as a minister, then remembered that his friend had been fired from his first calling. He made a mental note to find out how it happened.

"Well, thank you, young man; you're very kind. I will listen tomorrow. Maybe I will decide I like it. And I'm sorry again about your fall."

"Thank you, maam, I hope so," he said. "And think nothing of it."

She turned to begin her slow descent of the stairs. Cooper and Miller looked at each other in amazement. Maybe they had underestimated Mabel Flessner. In any case, it was the first time either of them had seen her have a brief conversation.

On Sunday, the system worked perfectly. Dan Miller had spent all evening Saturday practicing with it, so the hymns and scriptures marched up on screen with the smooth precision of a drill corps.

The congregation found, on the very first day, that the singing did sound better, and it did smooth out the worship service not to tangle with books or search for pages. But there was more whispering in the pews than normal – the new system would take some getting used to.

Cooper stood up to preach. He commented on how nice the new system was, and thought to himself that the big story behind it would never be known to the congregation. His friend was not grist for sermons.

Not grist, true, but certainly inspiration: "Today's topic is the gift of faith," he began. "It's about the Apostle Thomas." The relevant scripture verse flashed on screen above him. "Now, I've always liked Thomas mainly because we share the same name, but very little is known about him…"

He stopped and looked at the congregation. Three hundred fifty faces looked back. For thirty long seconds, he was silent. Several people coughed.

Jeanene Cooper studied her husband's face. She could not decypher his expression. Was he having a heart attack? She held her breath.

Up at the pulpit, Cooper saw through England's eyes – the gospel, common Christian doctrine, the Bible, shelves full of books, all a delusion! Two thousand years of Christian history!

He felt his chest tighten, and made himself take a couple deep breaths. No, it couldn't be! What was wrong with him? He shook his head.

Then, he was all right again. The universe righted itself and Christ once again reigned. The faces looking back were concerned about his long silence, but they wanted to hear the Gospel and it was good to preach it to them.

He felt shaken by the experience. He desperately wanted to finish the sermon and get alone in a room to pray. Once again he began: "Today's topic is the gift of faith…"

One part of him, his public face, was expounding on the topic from his notes. But he was furiously thinking, no more free ride. It wouldn't be so easy now. Would he have to struggle with doubt after so many years of being perfectly sure? What was God trying to teach him? Maybe I've become complacent, he thought.

Hundreds of miles away, Bill England sat at his computer, writing an email that would be copied to nine people.

"My dear friend," he began, "I know you have not heard from me in twenty-five years, but I need to tell you something that will be hard for both of us to accept…"