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The Jevlir Caravansary

Author: jevlir

  • Pastoral Candidate

    [This is a work of fiction.*]

    Vernon noticed the arrangement of the room. As manager of a regional chain of restaurants, he was used to reading the way a meeting was set up and evaluating peoples’ attitudes.

    It was hard to be precise about the five men sitting across from him. He saw eagerness and uncertainty in nearly equal measures. He was surprised to notice some fear and hostility as well. He didn’t see any reason for it. These five men could decide on their own who they would invite to be pastor of this church, and there was no threat he could hold over them. Not that he wanted to!

    “Vernon,” said the chairman. “It’s OK if I call you Vernon, isn’t it?”

    “Sure Mr. Wilson,” said Vernon. “You knew me when I was in the nursery around here!” He chuckled, both because he was relaxed, and because he wanted the members of the board to relax.

    “OK, Vernon, I think I’ll get right to the point. We’re wondering why someone like you, who hasn’t been to church for over 10 years, thinks he is qualified to become pastor of this church.”

    Vernon was surprised. “I think we’re working under some misapprehension here. I thought you had invited me here because you were considering asking me!”

    “So you didn’t send us your resume? You didn’t ask Mrs. Thompson to deliver it to us?”

    “No, I didn’t . . .”

    “Well, then there is a misapprehension!”

    “I was going to say,” Vernon continued, “that your mentioning Mrs. Thompson explains what happened. She visited me the other day and told me she believed God was still calling me to be a pastor. Then she discussed her son’s resume, and … I’m not quite sure how it happened … but she walked away with mine as an example. When you called, I assumed she’d talked you into inviting me to talk.”

    Everyone was grinning now, even Gerald Adams, the senior member of the church, who was known never to smile. It was just a slight grin, but he clearly was amused by how they all had been had.

    “So, do we actually have anything to talk about?” said both Vernon and Tom Wilson at nearly the same time.

    The silence that resulted had a couple of board members laughing, while a couple of others were trying to restore dignity to the meeting.

    “Well, Mr. Wilson . . . ”

    “Call me Tom,” said Tom Wilson.

    “OK Tom,” continued Vernon. “I think I need to answer your question. The reason I think you should consider inviting me to be pastor of this church is that I agree with Mrs. Thompson. I believe God is calling me here, and it’s time for me to quit sailing for Tarshish.”

    It took some of the men a few moments to get the reference, but to their credit, they did.

    Tom appeared to be trying to gather his thoughts. “That’s a good answer, and I admit I hoped you’d give a good answer. We could really use someone with your skills to try to revive this church. We just don’t have the numbers we had when you were a child.”

    He paused again for a long time, but Vernon could tell that he wasn’t finished. Finally, he continued. “Here’s the problem. I know that you’re smart enough about finances to know you’d take a pay cut to take this position. With an MBA on top of your M.Div, no doubt you could command a much larger salary than we could offer even if you went to pastor at another church.”

    “I won’t be taking a salary.” Tom’s words stopped all sound in the room.

    “No salary?” asked Tom.

    “No salary.”

    “How are you going to live?”

    “I’m actually going to demand much more than a salary.”

    “Just what do you mean?”

    “Do you mind if I give you a fairly long explanation? I’d like to make clear what it is I’ll provide and what I’m going to ask of you. I also want you to understand why.”

    “Take your time,” said Tom.

    “You may regret that!” Vernon paused a moment, making sure he had everyone’s attention. He was used to doing this sort of thing to rooms full of management trainees, but it was hard for him to do it with these men who had been the pillars of the church in his youth. They were the people he had learned to respect as a child and young person. You might not like them, but you didn’t ignore them.

    “Some of what I’m going to say is going to sound insulting, but I’m asking you to hear me out.” He wouldn’t have said that to management trainees. He just would have given them the facts, and then used a combination of good humor and biting challenge to bring them up to standards.

    “If I looked at this church as a branch of my company,” he continued, “I would have to rate it as a failure. I’d probably suggest closing it down and opening another store serving the same market. The reason is that this particular branch has a reputation to live down, and employees are stuck in a losing way of doing business.”

    “As evidence, let me point out that your membership is half what it was when I last attended your church. The Board of Elders has only one new member, and the average age has gone up by 10 years in those same ten years. Finally, though you’re searching for a pastor, you have only had one interview, and he decided he didn’t want the job.”

    “You’re wondering how I know all this. I know it because I’m a businessman, and I find such things out from habit. I’m thorough. I looked at my old church as I would have looked at a business.”

    “Here’s the problem: When I looked at this church as a business, it looks terrible. Hopeless. No point. I can’t live on any salary you could reasonably offer me. It’s not even close. I couldn’t live on your entire church budget. That has a great deal to do with choices I’ve made since I left seminary, but I’m stuck with the results of those choices.”

    “You’re all good men, and I believe you love the Lord. That’s why you’re still sitting there while I’m telling you things are hopeless. When I had all the numbers together I decided that I wouldn’t bother to talk to you, because there was no point. But I couldn’t shake that sense that I was being called.”

    “So I started to pray. Then I started to read. I read the gospel of Mark. I read 1 Corinthians. I read Ephesians. I read Philippians. Finally I went back to Ephesians 4. Then I had my answer.”

    “But before I could call you and talk to you, you called me. Mrs. Thompson was busy helping God out!”

    “So what is this solution?” asked Tom.

    “First, let me ask you a question you’re not going to like. Why is it that I see five men before me, but the entire work of the church is being done by the women?”

    “What do you mean?” broke in Gerald Adams. “You aren’t suggesting we should have women on the Board of Elders, are you?”

    “Well, I work with women on committees in my business all the time, and it works out quite well. But no, I was actually planning to challenge you with something much harder.”

    “What is that?” asked Tom.

    “I’m challenging you to bring your level of service up to your level of leadership. You will need to work according to Mark 10:44: ‘… whoever will be first among you will be servant of all.’”

    “How many of you have visited one of the church shut-ins during the last week?”

    “My wife does that,” muttered one man.

    “Good for her! But do you think God wants those visits done only by the women? What about Mr. Jefferson. He’s 93 years old, but he can still carry on a pretty good conversation if you pay attention. I went to visit him yesterday, just so I could see what it feels like. I’m sure he appreciates the older ladies of the church bringing him flowers, but he’d really love a conversation with one of you men.”

    The business evaluation had been something they could take easily. They knew it all, and this, Vernon was someone they had known as a child. They could pretend to be grading him on his work. Now he was under their skin and it was making them angry.

    “I know this is not what you want to hear, but if the men of this church joined the women in visiting people in need, it would make a tremendous difference in this community. More importantly, it would make a tremendous difference to each one of you. Why? Because you would be doing what Jesus told you to!”

    “But let me ask you another question. How many of you have spoken to someone else about your faith during the last week?” He paused. “Nobody? You are believers. I know you are. You do work out there in the real world. I know you do. So what is the problem? Do you not think the gospel is important?”

    “And before you get too angry, let me confess that I didn’t share with anyone either. I can talk about being a backslider at the time, but I still believed; I was just frustrated with the church. I guess I didn’t think it was that important either.”

    “So here’s what I’m going to propose. I think you’re angry enough to throw me out of here. But I also know that you’re honest men and that you know your Bibles.”

    “I’ll become pastor of this church. But I will do it part time and for no salary. I’ve been supplementing my income by consulting and teaching seminars. I’m going to give that part up. Instead, I’m going to teach right here at this church.”

    “But there’s a condition. Every person in this room is going to become a servant along with me. I’m going to operate according to Ephesians 4:11-13. I’m going to equip. You’re going to equip. We’re all going to be teachers. But as we lead we’re also going to be servants.”

    “From what I hear you really believe I have been called to do this. I believe I have been called. You wanted a pastor to do all that visiting, to reach the people of the community, and to bring in young people. You’re going to do all that, and I’m going to teach you how.”

    “Now you can throw me out, and continue on the path to stagnation and death, or you can choose to answer the call to ministry–as a church.”

    Vernon sat there and looked from one to another of the men. He waited for them to respond, to tell him to leave. If they did that, he could go with a clear conscience. But he felt in his heart, more desperately than he had when applying for his first job, the desire to have them say “yes.”

    Finally a voice broke the silence. It was Gerald Adams.

    “Son,” he said, “you have made me madder than I have been in at least 20 years. I could go whip your butt as a disrespectful, arrogant young pup.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “Problem is, Jesus did say what you said he did, and you’re right. So mad as I am–and I’m still mad!–I want you to be our pastor.”

    It only took moments for the rest of the men to agree. After all, nobody argued with Gerald Adams. Jesus, maybe, but not Gerald.

    * In a story dealing with theological issues, no character represents my own view. My short stories are intended to raise and discuss issues, not provide answers to theological questions.

    **This story came to me while I was editing The Jesus Paradigm by David Alan Black, just released by my company, but Dr. Black is not to be blamed for my ideas or attitudes.

  • Christian Carnival CCLXXXVI Posted

    … at Thoughts and Confessions of a Girl Who Loves Jesus.

    I will be hosting the Christian Carnival here on August 5, 2009. The intervening July 29 carnival is at Brain Cramps for God.

  • My One Sports Moment

    This story is actually true. Well, at least it’s based on true events that happened to me. I’m probably dramatizing it a bit. Maybe more than a bit.

    You see, when I say I can’t play _____ (fill in the sport), I really mean it. I don’t think I’m an incredibly clumsy person, though I’m not particularly talented either.

    The problem is that most people have played at least a little bit of a variety of sports. People assume that when one says one doesn’t play baseball, for example, that one is very bad at it; not that one doesn’t play at all.

    For me, however, when I say I don’t play, I mean I really don’t. I dabbled in ping-pong, and played volleyball a few times. While I was in Guyana as a teenager, I did get hold of a cricket bat a couple of times. My Guyanese friends assumed I was so bad at it because I was used to baseball. But no, I hadn’t played baseball.

    The reason for this state of affairs was that my parents didn’t approve of competitive sports. I grew up on the fringes of the Seventh-day Adventist church, in what were known as “self-supporting” organizations. There we had very little to do with the ordinary culture around us.

    So fast forward a few years and I’m in the Air Force, taking technical training in San Angelo, Texas at Goodfellow Air Force Base. We had a half day for recreation, and what better way to occupy the afternoon than with a softball game. I even forget how we chose the teams.

    The folks on my team wondered what I played.

    “I don’t play softball,” I said.

    “Oh, but what do you do best?”

    “Nothing. I don’t play softball.”

    “This is just an informal game. It doesn’t matter if you’re any good or not.”

    “But I don’t play.”

    They stared at me blankly.

    “I don’t even know how to hold the bat.”

    “Oh!” Horror and comprehension dawned at once. How could an American young man grow to his 20s and not play softball. I chose the “I grew up overseas” explanation rather than “I grew up in an environment where softball was not religiously acceptable.”

    So one of the players takes me to the plate and shows me how to hold the bat, and generally explains the game. The other team just knew that I would be an easy out.

    I come up to bat and the pitcher does his thing. I watched one. I missed one.

    Then suddenly the ball was coming toward me and I was swinging the bat. The odds were ten thousand to one, or perhaps a hundred thousand to one, but the laws of probability were writhing in agony somewhere in the outfield. The barrel of the bat connected squarely with the ball and it disappeared over the fence, or at least past the arbitrary line we had designated as the fence.

    It was a solo home run. No, really!

    The other team was sure they’d been had, but then a few more innings went by and I demonstrated clearly that I truly did not know what I was doing. The laws of probability were back in force.

    But at least I had one moment.

  • On Reading Bad Books – and What They Are

    I’m trying to get back to this blog, but paying work continues to intervene, and fiction writing is not paying work for me, nor is reviewing or commenting on fiction. I will get back to posting and even have some plans for some of my material elsewhere.

    That said, this morning I found a link from Martin LaBar of Sun and Shield to a post by Elizabeth Moon, Why “bad” books succeed. If I can summarize her post very briefly, I think she is saying that it’s because bad books are not entirely bad.

    And I would add that, of course, good books are not entirely good. For example, I read Ms. Moon’s books, and would definitely not call them “bad,” in fact, she is one of those authors I regularly read. Yet I sometimes dislike her battle descriptions and I was not too happy with the ending of Victory Conditions. But to all that I say, who cares? I read the books anyhow, and I like them. Sometimes when you’ve done enough reading you just feel like complaining about something.

    To make the same point again, I hate time travel, yet I read everything from the Dragonriders of Pern and other series by Anne McCaffrey that I can get my hands on. Why? Anne McCaffrey is simply in a class by herself as a story teller, and her characters draw you in and make you want to hear more about them.

    I think it’s fairly arrogant to tell other people what they ought to like in literature. I’ve been told I should like Dostoyevsky. I can’t stand him. All apologies to advocates of great literature. I’m going to miss that part of it. But are people who like his writing stupid? Do they have bad taste? In my opinion, they simply have tastes that differ from mine. In this case it might be that it is the social commentary and the ideas that drive them.

    Speaking of ideas, I like reading parts of Ayn Rand, but things like John Galt’s speech in Atlas Shrugged just turn me off as part of a novel. When I first read Atlas Shrugged I scanned the speech and then read it later when I was in the mood for some non-fiction.

    I wrote on this topic before in Defining Good Literature (Or Not), and the follow-up, So Are There Actually Standards in Literature.

    Enjoy. (Or not!)

  • Happy Easter (and a Story Link)

    I’ve been extremely busy in my business, and have neglected this blog. I’m working on arranging my time so as to change that. Writing for this blog is particularly relaxing.

    For Easter morning, however, I’m simply going to link back to an older post, Easter Morning Resurrection. I enjoyed writing it way back, and I still enjoy the feeling of that story for an Easter morning.

    Happy Easter to all!

  • After the Fire, What?

    After the Fire, What?

    The first time that Yagac approached the shrine he was carrying a stick he had cut from a tree and sharpened.

    “What do you bring for the god?” said the aged priest. Villagers said he had been at the shrine more than a hundred years. He looked it.

    “I bring this spear,” said Yagac, his young voice trembling.

    The priest saw a thin, or better scrawny boy who might be in his teens, though he could be taken for younger. He knew the villagers had very little to eat.

    “That? That’s a stick.”

    “It’s a spear. My father says that the God accepts whatever is the best you can bring. You must let me offer it.”

    The priest thought a moment. It was true that he had told the villagers the god would accept their best. He had meant “only their best” but perhaps this was the best the boy could offer. It wouldn’t do to give the villagers the idea of withholding things.

    “Go in, offer it, and say your prayers.”

    Inside Yagac laid his spear on the altar, then prayed. “You know that the lord in the castle takes what he wants. Now he has even taken my sister. I would like you to do something about it.”

    He felt very peaceful and wanted to laugh–a joyful laugh. But he didn’t do either. He put on a sober look and walked from the shrine.

    “Did you receive peace?” asked the priest.

    “I wasn’t praying for peace,” said Yagac. Then he walked off toward the village.

    The second time Yagac came to the shrine he was carrying a knife made of flint. It was very well formed, and had a wooden handle attached to it with some twine that looked hand woven.

    This time the priest just waved him in. At the same time he got an idea. Why not benefit from the repeated returns of the boy?

    Inside Yagac laid his knife on the altar, then prayed. “You know that the lord in the castle takes what he wants. Now he has even taken my sister. I would like you to do something about it.”

    This time the peace and joy that came over him was nearly overwhelming. He was sure there was some divine presence in the shrine. But he wasn’t satisfied. He carefully straightened his face as he walked out past the priest.

    The priest stopped him. “If you come again to offer a weapon, you must bring food with it. The guards from the castle will be suspicious if they see you bringing weapons as sacrifices. Traditionally they are sacrifices to give one courage and victory in battle.”

    Yagac nodded and walked away toward the village.

    The third time Yagac came to the shrine he was carrying a basket with some vegetables in it. Amongst the vegetables was a very respectable hammer made of a hard rock carefully attached to a wooden handle.

    This time the priest decided to make use of provisions he had made to listen to the prayers of worshipers. He had ignored the boy because he figured he was praying for some childish thing and he had no interest.

    Inside Yagac laid his basket on the altar, pulled the hammer out and put it beside the basket, then prayed. “You know that the lord in the castle takes what he wants. Now he has even taken my sister. I would like you to do something about it.”

    This time the feeling of peace and joy truly was overwhelming. Yagac fell on the floor laughing hysterically. Then he got up, straightened the rags he wore for clothes, wiped any smile from his face, and left.

    The priest intercepted him. “You have been touched by the god. I can see it on you. You should be satisfied with what has happened. His peace and joy have come upon you.”

    “I wasn’t praying for peace and joy,” said Yagac.

    A bit of fear came over the priest. He liked the way things were in the village and at the shrine. While the village produced little, something came to him from everyone, and then he received a monthly payment from the castle lord for help in keeping the villagers quiet.

    It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in the god, though he had never seen anything that could definitely be crediting to his activity. The peace and joy? That was a secret ingredient in the incense.

    “Be very careful what you pray for, child,” he said, trying for a fatherly expression and tone. “The gods always demand much of those they aid! Be happy with his peace, lest you find the price of an answer too high.”

    He didn’t say this because he thought anything might happen. He just didn’t want word of a child with such a prayer getting back to the village. He considered reporting the child to the castle guards, but he decided there was no real threat. He’d just bring trouble on himself.

    The final time Yagac went to the shrine he was running. He was carrying a short sword in its scabbard. He could barely carry it and run. The priest could hear the sound of horses’ hoofs further in the distance. He moved to block the boy, but he was old and slow, and the boy ran directly into the shrine.

    Yagac slammed the sword down on the altar and said, “You know that the lord in the castle takes what he wants. Now he has even taken my sister. I would like you to do something about it.”

    But this time he continued. “I don’t want peace. I don’t want joy. I want revenge. I want things changed. I don’t care what it costs.”

    The guards were already outside the door, and the priest turned away so as not to see the boy killed. The priest didn’t really believe anything might happen.

    Suddenly the ground shook. Something emerged from the temple, but it wasn’t anything that could be recognized as Yagac. As it took steps the ground shook. Fire surrounded it. The guards fled in terror.

    Yagac felt no different. He was still just Yagac just a boy. But as he returned from the castle, riding into the village on a horse he had appropriated the villagers bowed down in the street, hailing him as a conquering hero.

    He was no hero! He was Yagac, who could plow the straightest furrow. Yagac, who loved his family and missed his sister. He’d found her dead in the castle. It wasn’t fair! These people wanted food. They wanted protection.

    Yagac spurred his horse and rode down the trail away from the village. But even as he did it he knew he would be returning. The god demanded it.

    He was also Yagac the responsible, and he would pay the price.

    3Our God comes
    but he doesn’t keep silent.
    Fire devours before him,
    A furious windstorm surrounds him. — Psalm 50:3

    (See my devotional on this verse.)

  • Christian Carnival CCLXI Posted

    … at The Ignorant Historian.

  • The Tenth Muse continues Musing

    … at Dr. Platypus.

  • The Call

    Once in a lifetime, perhaps, a king’s knight would ride over the hill to the south of the village. His armor would be gleaming, his clothing immaculate, and his weapons beyond the comprehension of the villagers.

    He would come to the center of the village, order that all the young people be assembled, and then he would look from one to another. If he saw one he liked for the king’s service, he would call that one. He would say that the one called could refuse, but few believed that. Even fewer believed that the one called would ever be seen again, though they couldn’t agree on precisely how long ago anything like this had actually happened.

    Even more rarely, never in living memory of the villagers, a king’s knight would appear, it was said, to settle quarrels between neighboring lords, to deal with bandits, or to administer the law.

    They assumed that the one called would be trained to fight the king’s battles, and none of them particularly cared for that. It was hard enough fighting for their local lord, who required his tenants to carry spears and march to battle with neighboring lords if there was a dispute. These disputes were always short, because it was said that if they got too wild or too long, the king would intervene.

    But nobody could remember that ever happening, and there were many who believed it was all a lie, a story told and retold to keep people in line.

    But one fine spring day while planting was in full swing and nobody was happy for the interruption, over the hill came just such a knight. His armored gleamed like a mirror, and he had with him three riding horses, though he wore his full armor and rode his war horse as he entered the village.

    He found the headman and told him to assemble the young people of the town from age 15 to 25, both boys and girls here in the center of the village. The headman didn’t want to do this, and the farmers didn’t want their children brought in from the fields. They certainly didn’t want one of them to ride away on one of those empty horses.

    But tradition was strong, and fear even stronger, so the young people were assembled. The knight passed from one to the next, looking and then passing on. He stopped in front of Hedder, a young lady of 17. Hedder had fine, golden hair but otherwise she looked too heavy duty to be considered pretty. Handsome, yes. Pretty, no.

    She also asked too many questions and frightened her parents and the headman who liked their world orderly and secure. She was a good babysitter, and a fine farm worker. In fact, other than all those questions, few could find fault with her, though it was said that many young men of the village had begged their parents not to arrange a marriage with her, which explained why she was not betrothed.

    “Come, follow me,” said the knight to Hedder.

    “No!” cried the headman, thinking of what this apparent honor might suggest to the other girls of the village. He had never imagined that the order to include the girls meant that one actually might be called in this way.

    “No!” cried Hedder’s father, thinking about all the planting to be done and how fast his large and heavy duty daughter was at this work.

    “No!” cried her mother, half for her daughter, and half for the girl who took care of all the children, allowing her to accomplish her household work.

    But Hedder simply let the hoe she had carried form the field fall on the ground and stepped toward the knight. Before most of he villagers had time to recover from surprise, she was seated on one of those horses, riding out of the village.

    Many years passed, and the call of Hedder became legend in the villagers. There were those who had been young when it happened who openly questioned whether such a thing had ever occurred. Those who had been there assured them it had, but they didn’t believe.

    “It’s much like the intervention of the king,” they would say. “Everybody talks about it, but it never happens. Nobody can even remember it happening.”

    “The king will intervene if it’s necessary, we know he will,” said the elders. But deep inside they doubted as well.

    “There is no king,” said the younger folk, “and even if there is, he just calls our young people. He doesn’t intervene.”

    It happened that very month that the local lord felt that his neighbor had overstepped his bounds, and had moved boundary markers, giving himself more land. Words were exchanged, and finally blows. Then both men went back and summoned their tenants to get out their spears and come to war.

    The two armies moved boundary markers back and forth, and occasionally killed one another with spears. The men needed to go to the harvest, but the lords would not allow them to leave.

    “Not until all the boundary markers are restored!” said the one.

    “Not until my enemy is hanging from a tree for all the damage he’s caused!” said the other.

    Nobody knew that one of the village headmen had sent a messenger to find one of the king’s knights before all the harvest was ruined in the field. He didn’t tell anyone, because people would think him foolish. If the messenger returned with help, he would be vindicated. If not, he thought, perhaps the messenger would never return.

    Finally one day the two sides gathered across a field from one another. It looked like finally there would be a big battle and one side or the other would win decisively. As they got in formation, lowered their spears and prepared to charge at one another, there was a commotion to the south.

    It was a knight, with armor polished and shining, but with a sword out in his hand. Slowly the knight rode between the battle lines. The men looked at their spears and thought that there was really no use trying them against that armor.

    As the knight reached the center, both lords came out to meet him.

    “I have a right to defend my land!” said the one.

    “I have a right to defend myself against this maniac!” said the other.

    The knight removed his helmet. Golden hair flowed out. In a feminine voice, soft but firm and authoritative Hedder said: “I would suggest you reconsider. I am called by the king, and he likes his servants to live in peace.”

    “Follow me!” — Mark 1:17 (and many others)Mark

  • Added the Christian Fantasy Review to Blogroll

    As I was very belatedly catching up with the Moderate Christian Blogroll, I added The Christian Fantasy Review. It looks so interesting I had to add it specifically to my blogroll here. Be sure to go check it out.