What Were They Thinking?
23 The Dust from My Shoes
THE LOSS OF THE FARMHOUSE Anna leased to the kids was a blow to everyone’s dreams. I felt bad for them. They’d all end up in dormitories now, I supposed. After the elation and parties celebrating their graduation, I could well imagine how depressed they would be. Even Cassie and Josh seemed to be affected.
They weren’t fooling anyone. I’d long since accepted the fact they were sleeping with each other. Any ideal I had of couples needing virgin purity when they got married was destroyed when Bea and I first met. We were both experienced and accepted each other for what we were. It was simply my fatherly instinct shouting, ‘Not with my little girl!’ They certainly wouldn’t be allowed to fornicate in my house, but Don Whitaker had made it abundantly clear after what happened with Denise that Josh should never be afraid to bring his girlfriend home with him. I suspected there was considerably more hanky-panky going on at the Frosts’ house than any of us believed a year ago.
Women talk. I still had conversations with Martin, though much less frequently now that he was out of politics and off the school board. There had been some hard feelings regarding my daughter’s part in his election loss. I didn’t want to condemn him for attempting to pass off worthless property as a great gift, but it was difficult to see him as an upright citizen after the debacle. Nonetheless, we did talk occasionally. I listened as he ranted about how kids today were going to hell and held my tongue.
But Bea met with the mothers of the group on a regular basis, planning events and just chatting about life and our children. Inevitably, the conversation had turned to Hayden, Marilyn, and Anna. Jacob had two wives, I reminded myself. Who am I to judge? As long as Bea had no designs on introducing a second wife. A wife and a daughter are all the women a man needs in his life!
I was still surprised when I received an invitation to a ‘casa and parents’ gathering at the ‘ranch’ on Saturday the fourteenth. I hadn’t been down to see the property but Josh and Cassie were enthusiastic about it. They were loading Josh’s little car with camping gear and clothes for a week and left Friday, as soon as they could get free of other responsibilities.
For our part, it was a beautiful day to fly. I debated whether to take the Cessna since it had the range to make the trip in one hop, but it was such a beautiful day that I chose to fly the two-seat Cub and make two stops on the way. We took off about nine in the morning and hopped to Logansport. I knew several people who flew in and out of this airport and we met up for a chat before Bea and I took off again for Crawfordsville. This route would keep me out of most of the traffic patterns for Indianapolis.
We caught a ride into town for brunch at the Country Kitchen on Main Street. Part of the pleasure of flying these short legs was getting out and visiting new areas. It took until almost two o’clock before we were back at the airport. We landed at Bloomington and rented a car to go to the ranch.
It was sad to see the burned-out remnants of the farmhouse.
“You can smell the broken dreams,” Bea sighed.
As I parked and looked around, I wondered if there was anything I could do to help them. I needed to talk to Rex Davis about the status of our initial investment. It wasn’t like I would miss the five thousand dollars, but I assumed that if they couldn’t produce a show, they would not keep the investment.
I was impressed with the work the kids had done in just a week. I was impressed with the energy I felt all around me. Determination. And I was impressed with the presentations made by Rose, Hannah, and Rhiannon. But where were they going to get seventy-five thousand dollars? It seemed like an impossible task, even to me. And I’m a banker. Who would lend a dozen kids that kind of money?
“This isn’t a question for the group, Brian,” I said during the dinner break. “Do you mind if we talk privately?”
“Of course not, Mr. Clinton. You know I have great respect for you and always appreciate your input, even if it seems like I ignore it, sir.” I didn’t think he outright ignored my input, as he said. I’d seldom met such a strong-willed individual, though.
“Fine. I just want to know, Brian: Why am I here?” The question had been weighing on my mind more heavily the longer I spent among these people. I’d thought it was merely a social event and I was obviously mistaken. “I don’t mean on this earth. It’s not an existential question. I appreciate being asked to see what you are doing. And I know you consider Cassie a part of your casa. But she is living at home and going to Bethel College. She has a boyfriend—perhaps a fiancé—and it isn’t you. Why are we—and they—here?” I try to understand. I try to discern the will of God. I try to do what is right. But I felt I was missing something important.
“Mr. Clinton, Cassie won’t be living at home this year,” he started.
“What?”
“Please bear with me, sir. She will be living with you. But your house is no longer her home, any more than my parents’ house is my home. It is where she grew up. It is where a part of her heart will always reside and where she will return to celebrate special occasions with her parents and one day even to bring her babies to meet their grandparents. But even though she will live there this year, it is no longer her home. I can’t quote scripture for this, Mr. Clinton. We know that whole passage about a man leaving his parents and cleaving to his wife. But this is about where a person chooses… chooses her family. We are born with a family that we will always love. But we also choose a family where we make our home. Mr. Clinton, this is Cassie’s home now. Please don’t think that lessens her love or respect for you. It shows that she has learned love and respect from you and has chosen her family. And her home.”
I couldn’t answer. What could I say to being told by this… by the leader of this clan. He’d just told me that my daughter had chosen a new family. I expected that some day I would give my daughter to her husband. But what Brian was telling me was that she was not mine to give. She had chosen.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you.”
Cassie and Josh were right behind me when I turned away from Brian. I’m not sure how long they’d been there nor how much they’d heard. I just hugged them.
“Daddy,” Cassie said. “We’re staying for the summer. We need to help build our home.”
“Of course you do,” I whispered. “Of course you are. May God bless you and your endeavor.”
None of the kids would ever need to know where the money came from to fund their homebuilding. I knew Anna would not tell them. Rex proposed the terms. I would sign a personal note on Monday when I reached the office.
Yes, I believed they were all good kids. Men and Women. Even the younger generation who began arriving the next day had to be considered men and women. Every one of them determined to succeed in creating a home, a business, and a life for their clan.
Yes, I believed they had the commitment to succeed, whether at the level they hoped or not.
Yes, I believed they would repay the loan.
But none of that mattered. I made a small investment in my daughter’s future home. I would do my best to keep her with me for her first year in college, but I knew that she and Josh would move to Bloomington with Mary as soon as that year was up.
It was a good year. Since Brian and the bulk of the clan had moved south, everything seemed relatively peaceful in Mishawaka. Of course, we saw a lot more of Mary with Josh and Cassandra. And we saw a lot more of some of the other parents. It was funny how having their children move away made several parents suddenly feel more sociable with each other. Bea and I found ourselves invited to dinner with Hayden, Marilyn, and Anna. And they seemed perfectly normal!
We often had Don Whitaker over with our children but also invited Rex and Maria Davis to dinner. They, in turn, invited us to a dinner with the Duvals. We extended an invitation to Sly and Lily Cortales. Every two or three weeks, it seemed, there was some social event with other parents of the clan and especially of Casa del Fuego.
Bertha Landrau had taught the junior high Sunday School class since Moses was a baby. I suspected that had I gone to this church as a child, she would have taught me. Finally, at age eighty-one, she decided she’d ‘had enough of the unruly and evil children’ in the church and that God could call her home but she wasn’t going back in that classroom.
Why I opened my mouth, I can’t say. When the fall classes started, I sat with fourteen seventh and eighth graders in front of me trying to make the Sunday School curriculum we’d acquired from Maranatha Church Materials sound like more than a recitation of Bible verses. It was going to be a long road.
As I taught that first month and watched the sullen children parroting back what I told them, I thought about what Cassie and Brian had told me years ago. The boys sat on one side of the room. The girls on the other. Afraid of each other. Of the twelve to eighteen kids who showed up on a regular basis, I knew for a fact that three-fourths were forced to attend by their parents. Would any of them return to the fold of God when their parents stopped forcing them to attend?
Cassie and Josh made up their own Sunday School class of college age young adults. Occasionally, a visitor would join them. I felt bad that they were the only ones in their age group in our church.
“Why do you sit with boys on one side of the room and girls on the other side?” I asked one Sunday.
“We have to,” a girl responded.
“Says who?”
“Miss Landrau told us this is where we are supposed to sit.”
“Why?”
There was a long silence and a bit of shuffling around. Finally, one of the boys glanced over at the girls and spoke up.
“If we sit next to the girls, we’ll get them pregnant and go to hell. As if.” He rolled his eyes. The girls blushed and giggled.
“So, let me get this straight. If a boy sits next to a girl, she gets pregnant and goes to hell. Or wait. Is it the boy who goes to hell? Or both of them.”
“Everybody goes to hell,” a boy said. “If we do anything wrong we go to hell.”
“Hmm. That’s miserable. I guess I’m going to hell, too.” That hit them. They all gasped.
“Really? I thought grown-ups didn’t screw up.”
“‘All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.’ That last phrase is the key. If we accept God’s salvation, our iniquity—our sin—is laid on Christ. No more hell.” I let that sink in. I was on dangerous ground because I didn’t want them to assume they could just go out and live a riotous life without consequences. “There are consequences to every action. Good and bad. But if you take hell out of the equation, what’s the problem?”
“I still don’t want to get pregnant. Right now.”
“And sitting next to each other will get you pregnant?”
“And kissing and stuff.”
“Well, let’s start by talking about some strategies that will help you. It starts with respect. The ten commandments.”
“Thou shalt not commit adultery.”
“Are you married?” I asked. “Adultery is the act of cheating on your spouse. If you are not married—and I’ll talk about the definition of that sometime later—then you cannot physically commit adultery. I’d like you to look at the tenth commandment. Who can find it?”
It was the first time I got the kids engaged in an actual discussion. It took a while for them to understand that coveting what belongs to another person includes that person’s body. And that if we didn’t have permission from another person for intimacy, we were in effect, stealing from that person. They’d never heard the commandments related to people rather than to things.
It was January by the time the kids were integrated in the classroom. There was still some separation but it was based on who people wanted next to them rather than on boys versus girls. And as I began to look at my notes, I realized that I had begun to teach ‘the agreement.’ Instead of making it an agreement among themselves, I recast it as an individual pledge of honor.
I will always treat people fairly, equally, and with respect.
I will not be jealous of other people or of what they do with each other.
I will respect my body and will expect others to respect it as well.
I will respect that other people’s bodies are theirs and will honor their boundaries.
I will respect age-appropriate limits on sexual engagement, understanding that my body and mind must both mature before I advance from one level of intimacy to another.
I will always have the option of declining any advance of any kind from any partner and will honor the same from them.
I will honor this pledge, even if the person I date or am engaged with does not respect these same boundaries.
Each point was supported with scripture and we discussed how different situations in the Bible illustrated the positive and some of the negative aspects of this pledge. In all, I was pleased and my class was progressing.
As I expected, Josh and Cassie left for the ranch just a week after classes were out. There was a long tearful goodbye with Mary and a pledge that they would be back for her graduation and to take her with them, but that there was a lot of work to be done on the ranch to get things ready for the summer influx of younger kids and the big production camp they would be hosting.
Two other things had happened during the winter that influenced this. The insurance company settled the fire claim on Anna’s farmhouse and she immediately paid off the note on her property I’d underwritten. We were both happy with the progress the kids made and the increase in value of her property. And the ten parent-investors had received a year-end financial statement in January. With a check.
Rex Davis, Jean Duval, Hayden Frost, Art Pratt, and I sat down together. The check had come to me, as my bank held the investor account from which Hearthstone Entertainment had drawn its funds. It had taken them considerably less than the anticipated six months to have a positive income statement. Certainly, it would take the estimated three years to repay the capital investment, but this check meant that cash was no longer flowing out of our account but rather into it.
“What should we do?” Hayden asked. “Do we build the account back up to fifty thousand and then dissolve it? Should we simply be dividing the funds received among the investors? I have to tell you, I didn’t expect to be in a positive cashflow position on this for a long time, if ever.”
“I think we need to run it by the other five families who invested,” Art said. “Off hand, I’d say we should consider other investments as the fund grows back to full strength and give everyone a chance to opt out once the investment plus some percentage has been repaid.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me to find the company itself might have use for more capital at some point. It might be for equipment, expanded schedule, or even more property. Just as we aren’t limited to the company and could invest funds in other areas, we might want to consider investing the funds in adjoining properties. You never can tell what might come available,” Rex said.
“Okay. For now, we accumulate the funds until the initial investment and percent earned per share is mature. We probably still have three years for that,” Hayden said. “If people want out at that time, they can go. If not, we look for other investments. Is that agreed?” We all nodded our heads.
“I’d suggest that with the flow of cash into the account instead of out of it, we start putting the income into longer term CDs. There’s no sense having the cash sitting in a checking account,” I said.
The last day of June was the last day of Sunday School for the summer. We had other programs, but school had been out for two weeks and even among the faithful, attendance in church had fallen off. I wondered, frankly, if many of those who were ‘on vacation’ would ever return to our church. Pastor Clark’s sermons had become fierier and he was drawing a new crowd of charismatics into the church. They seemed drawn to his personality and not interested in studying the Bible to see what was actually said. They ate from his hand and accepted his words without question. I suspected he had filled this pulpit for too many years and we should look for new blood.
I was blindsided in church that morning, however.
“We have a viper among us!” Clark intoned. “There is one who has infected our children with liberal words, encouraging them in sinful paths. This pledge…” he held up a copy of the pledge I’d had my students sign, “…is no less than the work of the devil. How did we sink to such depths as to suggest that our children—our children!—should be encouraged to a life of lasciviousness and degeneracy, thinking that a simple pledge could save them rather than the precious blood of Christ. I’ll tell you how. We allowed a man who let his own child run riot in the school, join a cult of teens known for group orgies, and practically live in sin with a man for the past year to guide our children. This must stop. We need a true man of God to take on the leadership of our youth and get their feet back on the straight and narrow.”
I stood in the middle of the church and walked straight up the aisle to challenge him. He was attacking my daughter and I would do whatever was necessary to stop it.
“You are talking about things that you don’t understand and depending on your charisma to convince people you are right instead of trusting in scripture,” I shouted. “You’ve been leading our congregation in deeper and more dangerous territory steadily, ignoring the word of God and focusing on your own prejudices. I’ve done nothing but teach salvation and respect for each other in that class. What have you taught of salvation and respect from the pulpit?”
“You are anathema to this congregation,” he shouted back. “Go and never darken our doors again.”
“I am a member of this church and can only be ejected by vote of the congregation, not by a demagogue spouting hatred and fear from the pulpit. I call for an immediate vote by the membership to revoke your call and immediately begin a search for new ministerial leadership,” I shouted.
I should have known by the feral grin on his face that I’d walked into a trap. Had we had this confrontation two weeks ago before members had started leaving, ostensibly for the summer, I would have prevailed. But Clark’s timing was impeccable. Martin Sanders, as chairman of the members, stood and took an immediate vote—just as I had suggested. But the members in attendance were the newer zealots Clark had been attracting and the older conservatives were far outnumbered.
“You’ll have to go now,” Martin said as he took my arm. I shook it off and marched to the doors of the sanctuary with Bea at my side. Before I opened the door, I turned again to look at the congregation. Clark had an absolute sneer on his face. Martin’s expression was no less gleeful and I knew him for the serpent he was.
I took off my shoes and slapped them together three times, shaking the dust from my sandals, and left the church.
And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.
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