Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: ASKEW (06/07/18)
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TITLE: A Question of Grace | Previous Challenge Entry
By Terry R A Eissfeldt
06/13/18 -
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As an avid fisherman Rob always took pride in the chowder I created from his latest catch. But today, in his off-centre world, Rob hates fish; the smell, the taste, the idea of them. Swollen red spots, where the rejected soup landed, burn across my right forearm.
I glance across the street. Two giant shadows paint the pavement in front of a bungalow. Snatches of conversation, carried on the mid-summer night breeze, settle over me as I sit on my front porch.
“….grace…wrong…..sad….”
“But….you said…..God can’t ….”
It must be the Kincaid girls talking. It’s their house. I won’t let their problems invade my space. I can’t carry anyone else without tipping over myself.
The heady scent of Mrs. Peter’s rose garden swirl around me. I take a deep breath letting the powerful fragrance fill my lungs. A knot in my left shoulder loosens as I swing gently back and forth.
“No, that’s not what I said…..grace ….”
“What about sin?….murder….”
I breathe out in frustration. I have so little time to myself, to decompress, to straighten out my own mind in order to face the uncertain future. I don’t want their troubles to mix with my own.
But what sort of person does that make me? Their dad, hardly cold in his grave, an innocent victim of a random gang shooting, was my friend. I’m so entwined and out of balance with my own loss I haven’t even walked across the road since the funeral.
There’s movement on the street. No, please, I pray. Not now. Not them.
“Hey, Mrs. Charlotte.” Daphne, sixteen, freckled face somewhere between girl and woman, auburn curls out of control, looks at me with dull green eyes. They used to be so full of light, like a pixie.
“Daphne,” I struggle to hold her pain filled gaze so I turn to her younger sister. “Margaret, it’s nice to see you.”
They know I’m lying. They’re kids. They still possess the magic quality of smelling out phoniness.
Daphne slouches against the railing. Margaret takes the seat next to me on the swing. At twelve she ’s just starting to form her own opinions.
“Mrs. Charlotte, you know God. Can you please tell Daphne what grace is? And I don’t mean the prayer for food.”
I’m startled by her forthrightness. Such a direct question for such a convoluted subject.
“I’m not sure….”
“Exactly,” puffs out Daphne. “Where’s God for Mr. Rob? Where’s this grace now?”
“Well, that’s not what….”
“Right!” retorts Margaret. “Grace isn’t about everything on earth being fair!”
“But…”
“Fair?” Daphne is on the verge of tears.
“Girls!” The volume of my usual tip-toe-around-the-sick-husband voice shocks me as well as them.
“Grace isn’t easy. It’s pretty messy actually where God’s concerned. And a lot of the time I don’t understand it and I don’t want to.”
Why was I sharing my doubts with these two? Why couldn’t I just give the pat answer?
Grace: unmerited favour from God. Isn’t that the accepted Christianese definition?
“Why does it have to be messy?” Daphne says quietly. “Why can’t it be clear who gets it and who doesn’t. In the Old Testament…”
“But Jesus…”
“Margaret,” I gently squeeze her arm, “let Daphne finish.”
“Thank-you,” Daphne continues, ”In the Old Testament there are rules for everything.”
“But Daph, Jesus paid for sin…everyone’s…God forgave everyone. No one earns forgiveness, by doing or not doing stuff. That’s grace. Right Mrs. Charlotte?”
Margaret’s gentle pleading is on the edge of tears. “That’s why we have to forgive the shooter. God’s grace is for him too.”
I look from one to the other and see the inner turmoil. Their world is shattered. They’re living wide awake in the out of kilter reality of life with out their dad. Can they forgive the shooter? Would it straighten out their world?
I’m living wide awake in the misaligned future of institutionalizing my husband. Can I forgive myself?
Is God’s grace enough?
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