In View
1. Myopia
On the day Shiloh called its pastor, my mother sat at the peninsula between kitchen and house, a thin leaf shaded by green lines of Formica and lead columns of names. On the left, votes for the retired plumber whose two sons would attend with their two sons and the only granddaughter. On the right, votes for a delivery driver with teen boys who drank fire.
My father read from a black bonded leather King James, touched finger to mouth before he turned his onionskin pages.
The Ladners who lived further back on Shiloh Road were sure to vote for Brother O’Hara, my mother thought, and the Ladners who lived just off Caesar Road were sure to vote for the soul-winner; but he was fire-breather, too, and my mother didn’t like fire-breathers.
She called widows, I’d guarantee. She asked around, I’m sure, and the column of the firebreather got longer.
He slept with his heart under the Word, his chest raised the Lord, then lowered.
2. Amblyopia
Anders and I, sons of Lee’s Chapel and Shiloh, worked yearbook, until I joined band, and he laid pages, then edited. I directed.
During third-period humanities, he sent a note saying Tina Hoffman was Catholic. Didn’t matter, she liked the snare drummer—though once, I slept against the sequins of her uniform and indented my face.
He tied cat’s tails together, throwing them over a power line, he said. Left them fighting. Now, maybe not, or maybe he stapled them.
Either way, not pastoral—though the affair certainly happened behind the room where his father wrote thirty-five-minute sermons, and longer after football season. Near the cemetery of the same last name, but with the Resters.
After we graduated, a recession, so Anders got hired in a corrugated factory. He said, A blade cut through the tip of my shoe—didn’t touch my toes. I knew God saved my toes, so I could walk out and serve.
I’d gotten run over by a bull once, didn’t think God sent me a message. Just though I should get out the way faster.
Now, I might wish God talked to me then.
3. Hyperopia
She held the leaf tight, as she checked each body present against her list.
My father taught adult Bible class before the sermon, just shared the Word on his heart, crossed-referenced his verses better than the concordance he never owned. At the front of his Bible, he wrote, on September 27, 2001, to the best of my knowledge and belief, a form of “preach” is listed 141 times in the New Testament.
Anders preached the final sermon before the calling, far shorter than others.
My mother’s hands shook the leaf. Her control of numbers equaled her control of her children; she beat them to obedience. Sometimes, though, numbers defied her, hard as the only son.
My father stood, said, Brothers and sisters, I don’t know about your hearts, but mine was moved by the message shared with us today, so I say we ask this young man to stand in view of a call.
4. Presbyopia
Anders moved from one pastorium to another, just across the road from the sanctuary doors, preached on Sundays, went to seminary, came back for prayer meetings, brought a church music major to sing on Easter, married her, became his father, more or less.
When the children came, God called him to a church in the suburbs of Memphis.
I came to know a preacher’s daughter, one of Ander’s distant cousins, after her parents left for mission fields, married her later. Her voice grew tender, then numb, and the leaves never changed in Mississippi.
I moved north alone, after he became solstice light.
My mother’s hands shook more with pens, with crochet needles, with rakes and hoes, with wooden spoons, she stirred, until her body trembled, until her mind filled with holyness.
