A Quality of Light (19 page)

“Maybe. But maybe they’ll listen to you cry, Josh.”

“Do warriors cry, Johnny?”

“No. Everybody knows that Indians don’t cry.”

“Then I guess I’ll never be an Indian.

“You already are. And you already have a tribe.”

“I do?”

“Yeah. Me. Look, Josh, I don’t like church. I only went there maybe two times in all my life but I don’t like it. I don’t really believe in God and stuff. I think that if there really was a God He’d have given me a whole better deal than I’ve got. So, we’re different. I think you gotta start being an Indian but you don’t see that. I think you gotta be a warrior and fight. But you won’t. Why, I do not know, but you won’t. You wanna start these classes because you believe they’ll lead you to an answer. I don’t think so. I think the answer is to knock the shit out of Hollingshead and Begg. So, we’re
really
different. But you know what?”

“What?”

“I’m your blood brother and I’m right behind you, Josh. Even though I don’t agree with you, I’m right behind you.”

“Thanks, Johnny.”

“No problem. It’s a warrior thing.”

“It’s a Christian thing, too.”

“Sure, Josh. Sure.”

P
astor Chuck was a good man. He’d started his theological training at a small Bible college in Alberta when he was just out of high school. He incorporated the ebullient, hand-clapping effervescence of small gospel churches into his services and had been one of the first ministers to introduce popular inspirational readings into his services. We’d hear selections from Hugh Prather, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Kahlil Gibran and even
The Velveteen Rabbit
once, as prologues to sermons. He wore jeans and sandals under his robes and spent a great deal of time and energy encouraging the young people of the congregation to participate in services. Under his guidance the junior choir had swelled and sang spiritual lyrics to the tunes of hits of the day accompanied by electric guitars, piano, bass and drums. Many times there was a short skit presented by the St. Giles’ Players he’d started. He organized hikes along the Bruce Trail, sing-alongs, camp outs, volleyball games, fishing trips and bake sales. St. Giles came alive under his direction, transforming the word
church
in the minds of the entire congregation.

His real name was Reverend Charles Hendrickson, but his manner reflected a farmer more than it reflected a doctoral degree in theology. He preferred Pastor to Reverend, even as far as requesting that the Elders of the church call him Chuck or Pastor Chuck, which of course spread to the entire membership. He spoke of God as a friend, someone he talked to and shared with every day of his life, someone he turned to in the face of sorrow, desperation or simple human longing. When he came to visit us, as he often
did, making the rounds of his rural congregation, our house seemed even brighter than normal. He joke, laughed, teased, talked of crops and weather, crafts and readings and always had time to spend alone with me, talking and gossiping like old pals. I liked him and I trusted him.

There were four of us young people who gathered in the basement classroom to begin confirmation classes that fall. We were all about the same age, two boys and two girls, but the others had the advantage of being town kids who’d spent a great deal of time with Pastor Chuck in either the choir or the Young People’s church group.

Pastor Chuck arrived wearing jeans and a faded sweatshirt. He shook our hands, welcoming each of us warmly.

“Well,” he said heartily and paused to look at us. “You’re here. I’m really glad to see each of you. Three of you know each other pretty well, and Joshua will be a new friend to the rest of you. I’m sure you’ll all have a chance to talk a lot in these next six weeks. Welcome, everybody.”

He went on to explain what membership in a church meant to him. He talked about his life as a young boy in Eastern Ontario and how his parents had to work very hard to keep the family going. So hard that Sunday was always just another day of working and never set aside for family or God. He spoke of his brothers and him having to go out to work alongside their bricklayer father when he was only twelve. The only life lesson he learned from that experience was that life was hard and you had to work hard to survive.

He spoke of school and how in those days reciting the Lord’s Prayer right after the national anthem was standard practice, but the words had always seemed so empty to him, just another exercise they had to do each day. Because he had to work at such a young age, he never had the chance to play with his classmates. He and his brothers moved around their city and their school as outsiders, unaccepted and belittled. Loneliness was a feeling he got used to very young, he said, and by the time he was fifteen he’d come to accept it as a condition of living. Then, his father died. The
family was swept into turmoil, not knowing how they’d survive on his mother’s small seamstress’s salary, or how they’d afford the funeral costs. The boys prepared to drop out of school and work their father’s business. Then, he said, the first of many miracles happened in his life. A group of people from the church down the street arrived the afternoon following his father’s death. They brought hampers of food, clothing, a promise from the congregation to offset the funeral costs, offers of part-time jobs for each of the boys, a better-paying job for their mother in the office of the church. And, most important, they brought the light of Christian example into his world.

He became a regular at that church, Knox Presbyterian. Every time he walked into it, he said, there were hands stretched out in welcome. There was a peace that flowed from every board, stone and nail, and in the singing, in the depths of those old, staid Presbyterian hymns those Sunday mornings, it seemed the loneliness he’d lived with so long was swept away on those undulating refrains. When he was sixteen he took confirmation classes and became a member of the church.

And his life changed.

He became active in the youth groups, joined the choir, read the text in services and attended every function the church held. Through all of it he was led by the example of those who’d been there during his family’s need. They showed him what it meant to be a Christian, how it took the walking of the walk, he said, not the talking of the talk. If his Bible didn’t have pictures, he told us, it was because all the illustrations he ever needed were sitting around him every Sunday morning. They led him to a belief, faith and dependence on the hand of a loving God to guide and nurture him. They were all the pastor he’d ever needed, he said. Now that he was a minister himself, he said, he realized that membership in the church and the feeling of belonging, rightness and wholeness that came with it was the catalyst that led him to a fulfilled life.

I felt honored by this open sharing of his life and I felt a bond with him growing inside me. He finished the first session by outlining our course of study, encouraging us to read our Bibles, pray
and be good to each other and ourselves. Then we draped our arms around each other’s shoulders and he led us in a prayer asking for our protection, shelter and guidance until our next class.

He stood by the door as we paraded out; I made sure to be the last in line. As I shook his hand he smiled broadly at me.

“Well, Joshua, what do you think?” he asked.

“I think I like it,” I said, waiting as he locked the church door behind us.

“Good. I hope you find as much here as I did when I was a teenager.”

“I know what you meant,” I said.

“About what, Joshua?”

“About the loneliness. I felt alone lots.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s hard to have friends when you’re on the farm. You’re always so busy and it’s kind of far between homes, you know.”

“I understand. Do you have friends, Joshua?”

“Yeah. One, anyway. Johnny Gebhardt.”

“Gebhardt? We don’t have them in our congregation, do we?”

“No, sir. They live in Mildmay and they don’t go to church.”

“Oh. And he’s a good friend, this Johnny?”

“Oh, yes, sir. He’s the best. But, Pastor Chuck … I was wondering about something.”

“Yes, Joshua?”

“Well, it’s kind of about … belonging.”

“Belonging to the church?”

“No, sir. Just … belonging. You know that I’m adopted and that my real mother was an Indian?”

“Yes, I knew that.”

“Well, my friend Johnny says that makes me an Indian. But I’ve lived with
this
mother and father all my life and … well, that makes me a Kane, doesn’t it? I mean, I was born an Indian but I’ve never lived as one. I’ve always lived as a Kane. But Johnny says that I have to start being an Indian — a warrior — because that’s what I was born to be. But I believe that God wanted me to be a
Kane, otherwise he wouldn’t have brought me to this family. Besides, I don’t know anything about being Indian … but I know how to be a Kane.”

“And how do you go about being a Kane, Joshua?”

“I just do what my parents taught me to do. Be good to people, pray, work hard, study. That sort of stuff.”

“And do you like being a Kane? Doing that sort of stuff?”

“Yeah! But Johnny says I gotta have a tribe, people who share the same ceremonies, rituals, beliefs and stuff. That’s where I’ll learn to be who I am, he says.”

“Your friend Johnny’s right about needing people, people who share the way we look at the world, the way we react to it. In that sense you’ve already got a tribe, Joshua.”

“Sure, in the church. But what about my Indian part? How do I learn to deal with that? Do I pretend I don’t know where I came from? Go on being the only brown one in my family and in my school, ignoring it?”

“Joshua, God created you. He sent you into this world to become the best person that you can become. And in order to help you do that, He gave you the power of choice, the ability to make choices about who you become. You can either use that power alone and find your way the best you can, or you can use the other power He gave you. The power of prayer. You can use that and ask for help to make the right choices, guidance, Joshua. I don’t know what He has in mind for you, so I can’t tell you how to deal with this question, what choices to make. All I can do is tell you that He’ll provide answers. Just trust and pray, Joshua, and things will get clearer. Trust and pray.”

“Will I become an Indian?”

“I don’t know. But you
will
become who you were meant to be.”

He squeezed my shoulder affectionately before I headed towards the parking lot where my parents sat waiting in the old Dodge. As I moved between the church and my family that night, I knew intuitively that it would be the journey I would make always, a path I would travel by memory long after my sight had faded, a straight line that ran from heart to home to family.

T
he first indication that things were changing was that my home-room class didn’t automatically fall into silence when I entered the next morning. Allen and Chris stared innocently towards the front of the room when I passed and walked silently out the door behind me when we were dismissed to our first class. When I passed through the crowd of ledge-sitters that day, both of them were part of the group, but the catcalls and name-calling were absent. Johnny and I exchanged surprised looks, and relief surged through me. The nature of prayer was working its course, and I offered a silent prayer of gratitude for the reprieve.

That day the banners went up inviting everyone to the Freshman Welcoming Dance the next Friday. There was going to be a buffet, a brief introduction of all the club leaders and sports teams, welcoming speeches by the class president and the administration, followed by a big dance with door prizes and a dance contest. Johnny and I had never been to a dance before, so we were unsure of what to expect. With the apparent withdrawal of hostilities around me I figured it would be a fun thing to be part of and I encouraged Johnny to show up as well. He mumbled something about two left feet, buck-toothed girls in sweaters and jocks in suits. I grinned and told him it would be good for him.

When gym class passed with no confrontation, just an awkward silence from Allen and Chris, we were both relieved. We left school that day in high spirits, the chatter on the bus centering on nothing but the dance. It would be our first high-school event, a benchmark in our passage from elementary school kids to teenagers, and everyone was eager for it. My parents welcomed news of the dance as a good thing and we talked about the clubs with great enthusiasm. The weekend passed in a whirl of hay baling and I was in a good mood for the first time in what seemed like an eternity.