____________
Mae Laangebroek sat down in the pastor’s office, took one look at the half-filled book shelves, the cardboard boxes hither and yon, and a snowstorm of crumpled papers, then told the new preacher she’d rather die than move from the house she’s lived in for fifty years. “Not that Shellsburg doesn’t get under my skin,” she told him.
It’s a wonder she didn’t forgo the talking and pull a can of Lemon Pledge from that hefty purse. Pastor Terry has been here eight months and those books still aren’t on the shelves. Goes to show how many he really reads.
But Pastor Terry knew what he was getting into before he suckered Mae into his office. He’s green, but he had a plan none of the rest of us would have tried.
“It’s going to take death or the day of the Judgment for me to leave my place, I guess,” she told him, “and it isn’t because I love the house either–that place has more leaks than I do.”
“What is it then?” the young pastor asked her, stalling for time.
“There’s so much of my life I wouldn’t know what to do with. And besides,” she told him, “the mess itself would like to kill me.”
Messiness is at the heart of things here. Pastor Terry was out to clean up the messes in Shellsburg Church like some new sheriff, starting with Mae and her sister Norma. He’s young, but we only get rookies here because our job is to break in the seminarians for the big Michigan churches. We never know what we’re going to get when we call a man. It’s like gambling, I guess, but then the CRC doesn’t believe in gambling–except for farmers, but that’s another story.
Sorry for going on like I do. My wife says I can’t tell a decent story, but that never stopped me yet.
The story here is that Pastor Terry decided to work at the reconciliation–two sisters, both in his church, who haven’t talked to each other for three years. He asked a bunch of us to come to church early and hide out in the youth room because he’s going to get Mae to talk to her sister Norma because Norma’s sick and sisters not talking to each other is the kind of thing you can’t have in healthy Christian fellowship. He told us he wanted us there for the celebration–that’s how confident he was about winning this thing. Carol, my wife, says he thinks he’s Houdini. I told her he’s just a young man seeing visions, and how he’ll make somebody in Hudsonville a good undershepherd someday.
So it’s me and the wife, Rolly and Ann deGooyer, Fanny Vander Kooi, Marlys Fynaart, Fritz and Eunice Lems, Harriet Aalberts–all of us hiding out in the youth room as if this is a surprise party. Which it is. As in Pearl Harbor.
“So,” Mae says to the preacher, “what can I do for you?” except our young deceitful pastor has one eye peeled out the window for Norma, who he expects any minute. “I’m visiting all my parishoners,” he says, “and it’s your turn. Thought we’d just chat. Anything you’d like to talk about?”
That was a stupid question for Mae, who’s something akin to Gibralter. But then he’s not even married–what does he know about life?
“Your preaching is fine so far,” she says, and right about then is when the pastor spots Norma coming up the sidewalk. So did we–through another window.
But just one minute here. You should know that cleaning up is what brought all of this on three years ago. Norma was at the dentist and Mae went over to her place for tea, thinking the appointment was over at three like it would have been if it hadn’t been for the oldest boy of Rich Frens canceling. Dr. Bensema told Norma to stay put because he was going to do a little extra work as long as he had her jaw frozen.
Mae doesn’t say much, but she can hardly keep her hands to home when it comes to a mess. Like Mary and Martha, the two of them are. Norma got all the talking genes. She can go on forever at Bible studies. Take fifty years off her life and she’d be in seminary herself right now with all the changes in the church. Mae keeps a huge garden, where Norma has perennials some guy from town weeds–you get what I’m saying? They’re sisters and widows and they love each other all right, but love doesn’t mean you always get along just perfect.
I’m off the story again. So Mae was waiting for Norma, and everybody knows that she shouldn’t have done what she did, everybody except Mae, but telling her that is like talking to a silo. So that afternoon Mae cleaned Norma’s house–did dishes, picked up around, swept the floors, picked up eleventy-seven magazines and stacked them neat as church bulletins.
And still no Norma.
Word is, she looked around, then pulled out some cleanser, did the sinks, and got the fixtures to shine like new. You can’t blame her for looking outside because she was waiting for her sister, but what she saw instead between the screen and the inside window was pure sin–dust turned thick to dirt. So she lifted the window beside the dining room table, and started cleaning the inside sills. Word is, it was cold for April, too, but then you got to know Mae.
When Norma came home, she found her older sister in her own house, leaning over her dining room table to clean out her own sills, and it tripped some old hair-trigger wire.
Mae Laangebroek sat down in the pastor’s office, took one look at the half-filled book shelves, the cardboard boxes hither and yon, and a snowstorm of crumpled papers, then told the new preacher she’d rather die than move from the house she’s lived in for fifty years. “Not that Shellsburg doesn’t get under my skin,” she told him.
It’s a wonder she didn’t forgo the talking and pull a can of Lemon Pledge from that hefty purse. Pastor Terry has been here eight months and those books still aren’t on the shelves. Goes to show how many he really reads.
But Pastor Terry knew what he was getting into before he suckered Mae into his office. He’s green, but he had a plan none of the rest of us would have tried.
“It’s going to take death or the day of the Judgment for me to leave my place, I guess,” she told him, “and it isn’t because I love the house either–that place has more leaks than I do.”
“What is it then?” the young pastor asked her, stalling for time.
“There’s so much of my life I wouldn’t know what to do with. And besides,” she told him, “the mess itself would like to kill me.”
Messiness is at the heart of things here. Pastor Terry was out to clean up the messes in Shellsburg Church like some new sheriff, starting with Mae and her sister Norma. He’s young, but we only get rookies here because our job is to break in the seminarians for the big Michigan churches. We never know what we’re going to get when we call a man. It’s like gambling, I guess, but then the CRC doesn’t believe in gambling–except for farmers, but that’s another story.
Sorry for going on like I do. My wife says I can’t tell a decent story, but that never stopped me yet.
The story here is that Pastor Terry decided to work at the reconciliation–two sisters, both in his church, who haven’t talked to each other for three years. He asked a bunch of us to come to church early and hide out in the youth room because he’s going to get Mae to talk to her sister Norma because Norma’s sick and sisters not talking to each other is the kind of thing you can’t have in healthy Christian fellowship. He told us he wanted us there for the celebration–that’s how confident he was about winning this thing. Carol, my wife, says he thinks he’s Houdini. I told her he’s just a young man seeing visions, and how he’ll make somebody in Hudsonville a good undershepherd someday.
So it’s me and the wife, Rolly and Ann deGooyer, Fanny Vander Kooi, Marlys Fynaart, Fritz and Eunice Lems, Harriet Aalberts–all of us hiding out in the youth room as if this is a surprise party. Which it is. As in Pearl Harbor.
“So,” Mae says to the preacher, “what can I do for you?” except our young deceitful pastor has one eye peeled out the window for Norma, who he expects any minute. “I’m visiting all my parishoners,” he says, “and it’s your turn. Thought we’d just chat. Anything you’d like to talk about?”
That was a stupid question for Mae, who’s something akin to Gibralter. But then he’s not even married–what does he know about life?
“Your preaching is fine so far,” she says, and right about then is when the pastor spots Norma coming up the sidewalk. So did we–through another window.
But just one minute here. You should know that cleaning up is what brought all of this on three years ago. Norma was at the dentist and Mae went over to her place for tea, thinking the appointment was over at three like it would have been if it hadn’t been for the oldest boy of Rich Frens canceling. Dr. Bensema told Norma to stay put because he was going to do a little extra work as long as he had her jaw frozen.
Mae doesn’t say much, but she can hardly keep her hands to home when it comes to a mess. Like Mary and Martha, the two of them are. Norma got all the talking genes. She can go on forever at Bible studies. Take fifty years off her life and she’d be in seminary herself right now with all the changes in the church. Mae keeps a huge garden, where Norma has perennials some guy from town weeds–you get what I’m saying? They’re sisters and widows and they love each other all right, but love doesn’t mean you always get along just perfect.
I’m off the story again. So Mae was waiting for Norma, and everybody knows that she shouldn’t have done what she did, everybody except Mae, but telling her that is like talking to a silo. So that afternoon Mae cleaned Norma’s house–did dishes, picked up around, swept the floors, picked up eleventy-seven magazines and stacked them neat as church bulletins.
And still no Norma.
Word is, she looked around, then pulled out some cleanser, did the sinks, and got the fixtures to shine like new. You can’t blame her for looking outside because she was waiting for her sister, but what she saw instead between the screen and the inside window was pure sin–dust turned thick to dirt. So she lifted the window beside the dining room table, and started cleaning the inside sills. Word is, it was cold for April, too, but then you got to know Mae.
When Norma came home, she found her older sister in her own house, leaning over her dining room table to clean out her own sills, and it tripped some old hair-trigger wire.
_________________
Tomorrow: The genesis of the sisters' feud.
No comments:
Post a Comment