Stuart Michael Stanton’s hike came to an end at the southern rim of Buttermilk Canyon, the dramatic ‘V’ cut by the Buttermilk River through the folded limestone of his native North Georgia woods. He hiked a bit further along the rim, enjoying the calming breeze filtering through the trees and the faint, refreshing hint of a distant thunderstorm. He had no energy to descend into the canyon, much less to cross the Buttermilk if he were to reach it. He sat beneath an oak, listening to the rush of waters below him and the chattering of two chipmunks scurrying about on their precious and important business. Eventually, reluctantly, he retraced his steps back to his car and back to the life he was increasingly struggling to live.
The road descended southeastward out of the mountains roughly paralleling the path of the river. Before the bridge, the one which, crossing the Buttermilk, would lead to the town in which he had lived and the church he had pastored for the past twenty years, he turned down a street of riverfront shops and parked in front of Blackstone Coffee, the coffee shop where he often worked.
Danny, the Barista, greeted him with his familiar cheer, “Hi, Pastor! What can I make you?”
“Just a small cup of coffee today, Danny. Thanks.”
“You here to meet a client?” Danny asked pleasantly.
“I don’t quite look at them as clients, Danny,” Stuart explained. Danny, a student at a local college, had over the months figured out that Stuart was a pastor. But having no history in any church, Danny was never quite sure what vocabulary to use when talking with Stuart. “But, no, I’m by myself today.”
The previous Thursday, Stuart had met with a man Danny would have considered a ‘client.’ James was a friend, a member of Stuart's church, one listing heavily under the weight of a life that he just could not unravel. Danny did not read this in James when he had served him his cafe con leche, but few could. James, like most who are crumbling inside, managed to keep that part of himself hidden under a pleasant façade.
James had lost his wife to a long and painful struggle with a brain tumor 12 years earlier, leaving him to raise their daughter Chelsea alone. He had done well with her, but the summer before she, now 18, had conceived a child by a boy who disappeared as quickly as he had come. Chelsea determined to give life to the child and raise him, but in the end, even that heroic choice didn’t matter. Nine months of difficult pregnancy led to six hours of terribly painful labor. And the child, born seriously ill, lived but 34 hours.
James, broken, confused, angry, and bitter, poured his heart out to Stuart, and Stuart, wishing that he could explain the ways of God to his friend, found that he could not. He could not explain what no longer made sense to him. He could not explain what he feared he no longer himself believed. His explanations always felt empty in the face of a suffering child or an innocent man. He could no longer reconcile the notion of a god who, with every sunset, presumably, paints beauty in the sky, but who seems oblivious to the horrors existent beneath that sky. He struggled to comprehend a god who claimed to knit marvelous wonder in the womb, but who seemed blind to the agony faced by a child when the ‘knitting’ goes somehow terribly wrong. Where is the god who could split seas and move mountains when in the darkness of a hidden room a man’s finger ruins the innocence of a five year-old girl?
Stuart used to yell at God for such things. He would hike to the edge of the canyon and scream into it, pleading with God to undo the damage or to provide relief or at least an explanation. Only the chipmunks, it seemed, heard him.
As he sipped his coffee he stared longingly at the mountains. He no longer yelled at God. If is fruitless to yell at that which is neither there nor listening. A shudder coursed through his body at this realization. He felt so alone. He had not chosen to stop believing. He was paid to believe for others, but who was to believe for him? Belief had drifted away out of reach. There was no one able to retrieve it for him. There was no one to stand by him in his loss. There was no one to bring him back.
Stuart left the coffee shop and continued home. As the road crossed the Buttermilk, he looked left up the canyon. It seemed ancient and unmoving. It looked as if it had always been there. It hadn’t, of course. Hard and unbridgeable now, it once had been nothing but a quiet stream running through a pleasant meadow over seemingly impenetrable limestone.
Well, you not only excel at exegesis, but you write outstanding fiction as well. I say you should write an entire novel with these kinds of dilemmas. You could reach an entirely different audience. Well done, Randy. I thoroughly related to your protagonist and the challenges of faith in the midst of so much evil.