DAY 6

My attempts to block the cemetery board from appointing Lackey were noticed by a great many people. I was their youngest board member, elected primarily because my dissertation had been widely disseminated around the country, even prior to publication. On paper, I was the most qualified candidate even if an out-of-the-box thinker. I was appointed on a 10-2 vote, with Lewis Gantry being my most vocal critic at the time. Gantry was extremely wealthy and aging quickly. Rumors were circulating that he was planning on leaving the school a nice endowment after his death. Over the course of my stay on the board, it was interesting to watch certain members cave to his requests.

I was successful in blocking Lackey’s first attempt to join the board. The vote split evenly down the middle, so it fell to the President who decided to appoint less controversial figure. His choice was less than ideal, but I supported him in it. Within a matter of months, the new appointee became Gantry’s whipping boy and ironically, between the two of them they managed to sway enough votes to oust the sitting President on some silly Calvinist debate, the details of which escape me after forty plus years.

The culture of the board was changing rapidly then – pressure from donors to “tighten the theological belt” were the topics of repeated conversation in our meetings. Tempers would sometimes flare and the old, freer thinking guard was growing weary of the battle. In time, they would all leave and I too would be muscled out.

Despite being fifteen years my senior and being my former professor, Lackey knew there were still a few people who listened to me around campus. I remember he cordially called me up during the new member orientation process (he was elected on his second attempt with a 9-3 vote despite my efforts to prevent this); according to his self-report, he was “seeking my advice” on board issues. I have often reminisced about our conversation, wondering if he wanted to bury the hatchet between us and was just too stupid to know how, or if he really was out to spring his trap. Perhaps, he was after some kind of validation after having succeeded in getting elected, perhaps he wanted to gloat, or perhaps it was something altogether different. I can’t be sure. One thing I feel confident about however: it must have pained him greatly to acquiesce to me as a former student who he once graded harshly.

My wife was five months pregnant when Lackey extended the white flag and we agreed to share a meal together as husbands and wives. It was no secret among the board that we were expecting and I suspect that Lackey certainly knew this. My wife was good at hiding the weight gain under loose fitting clothing and at this point anyone who didn’t know us, probably would have no idea she was pregnant. But Lackey surely knew.

After hasty introductions, we settled in and ordered. The ladies discussed the pregnancy, while Lackey and I listened politely, occasionally eying one another. Sensing a pause in their conversation, he chimed in toward me, “Are you aware the board will be voting next month on whether to endorse Tooley for the Senate?”

Of course I was aware and I did not like the idea at all. The cemetery had never endorsed a political figure before and I saw no good reason to begin. “I think the whole city is aware by now. I know my parishioners have been talking about it during the fellowship meals. Regardless of the outcome, I think it was wrongheaded to even consider voting on it.”

“I suspected that’s where you would be on it.” Lackey turned his fork over and over in his hand before continuing. “I know you haven’t looked favorably on my appointment. But I also know that how I vote on this issue will determine for the rest of them which side of the fence I’m on. It’s my first vote on the board. There could be repercussions.” He stopped and looked intently at me.

I buried my first instinct to respond. Of course there would be repercussions, I thought to myself. The board climate was growing foul; endorsing a political candidate was evidence enough of this fact alone. Gantry was pushing the right buttons internally on the board, while particular high profile pastors were pressing them in the media. And as in most things political, the trail of money led straight to a group whose only interest was obtaining more power and social capital.

It didn’t occur to me at this moment, but some time later I realized that Lackey had also revealed something of his intentions in commenting about his vote. He was nothing like me, in that I never thought about repercussions as being a negative thing, nor did I look to my appointment on the board as any sort of means to an end. Lackey revealed by his own admission that he wasn’t on the board to simply serve it. He had ambitions. I only wish I had recognized it right then.

“I will be abstaining from the vote as a sign of protest,” I shot back at him. “I am sure there will be many who do not approve, but I am not concerned.”

“That’s what I have always admired about you,” he said. “You vote your conscience the same way you write your papers.”

I detected the insincerity buried in the rub, and so did my wife. She reached over and patted my thigh as a sign of reassurance. Was it my conscience that kept me constantly blocking Lackey from the board? Did he like that about me too? As I recall, I muttered as much back to him in a witty response, to which we all laughed. He was definitely playing the role of the gracious martyr, which made me more convinced that he wanted something particular from me.

The only other thing I recall from our time together in that first meeting was his insistence on discussing the issue of abortion despite my wife’s obvious discomfort. It’s why I said he surely knew we were pregnant. Everything he said about it seemed rehearsed, like he was probing my own womb with a pair of obstetrician’s forceps to drag something out of me. At one point, he started to get into the procedure of it all and we were, thankfully, interrupted by our head waiter. I never saw the life growing in my wife’s womb as anything other than a human person who was half mine and thereby I drew half the stakes as to any outcome that might befall him. Outside of the two of us though, it was no one else’s business – least of all, the Lackey’s of this world.

We talked all the way home that night and my saintly wife endured a great many profanities as I fumed over my former professor’s gall at openly discussing abortion during dinner with a pregnant woman. I was so intense that I’d nearly forgotten the rest of our conversation, and so I was naturally defenseless the next morning when Lewis Gantry phoned me to request a meeting on the upcoming vote. I had a light morning scheduled for sermon preparation and accommodating his request over coffee was agreeable to us both.

This would prove to be a fencepost kind of meeting, meaning my choices on this day would be strung along the line of my life leading me to this current hunger strike. My faith would be spread out on a cracker like welcoming pâté, metabolized by the first of a thousand villi, and passed as waste to the generation behind me. Others like me would be consumed until the whole of what we once were would be starved out of the nation’s psyche.

Gantry just sat and spun his coffee spoon around the fluid blackness. I’ve never trusted a man who sugared up his coffee. A touch of cream I could understand, but three scoops of sugar spoke to me of the insincerity of having taken a cup of it to begin with; I saw it as an open rejection of what the coffee truly was. Though he was reluctant to converse, I had no trouble ribbing him by suggesting he might have ordered a soda instead.

He smiled only briefly. “Always the humorist,” he said. “The world could be perched headlong on the edge of destruction and you’d find a clever way to critique its posture for a last chuckle.”

“And you, Mr. Gantry, could take a good chuckle and find a clever way drive it to such an edge.” I retorted. “Why don’t you tell me why you called this meeting?”

“Lackey told me you will be abstaining from the vote to endorse Pete Tooley for the Senate. I think this reflects poorly on the board and the seminary. I’ve come to ask you to reconsider.” He stared intently at me and drew a long, sweetened sip.

My coffee was black, bold, and bitter; the way I liked it. Like the coffee, my resolve too was made of stronger stuff. “I have reviewed the charter and see no cause to reconsider. In fact, I would like you to reconsider your position. This entire affair is out of line with our founding documents.”

“The only thing out of line is a country that no longer holds to the faith of its own founding documents. It will be our undoing if we fail to act.” Gantry did everything but pound the table as he spoke and I was reminded of the time I visited my grandpa’s church to hear a fiery, moral message.

“I have always been of the mind that God is still God no matter whose man is in office. These are petty affairs run by petty souls. As the great Apostle himself said, our day is one that ‘clings to a form of godliness, while denying its power.’ Mr. Gantry, I mean no offense, but this move to endorse Tooley is meant to compensate for the weak-kneed, self-serving Christianity we’ve been pumping into the heads of young seminarians.” I could tell this response was not well-received. Gantry’s old wrinkled skin bristled in a way that I think surprised even him.

He pointed his finger squarely at me. “You’re treading on dangerous ground son. You’ve got a pregnant wife at home and small congregation where you bury at least one member per month. I know people who would work to pull your credentials and kick you to the curb. Try raising that kid as an itinerant preacher with no health care, retirement, or steady salary. You’re lucky to be associated with this denomination and you better be counting your blessings.”

I was taken back for two reasons. One, because Gantry meant every word he said and most likely wasn’t bluffing at all. He did have that kind of authority in the system, being its biggest donor. Two, I was surprised by how much pity and compassion I had for him in those moments. I would have thought his threatening rant would have produced fear or anger in me, but it did not. Instead, I saw a small, terrified child behind his eyes, a child who was used to playing it tough in the neighborhood because at home he was subjected to a great many beatings. This was the only way Gantry could give his defeated soul a breath of fresh air. It was a crowning flower on his malicious stone erected above his box of beaten bones. I felt a Christ-like pity rise up in me for him.

Perhaps, I would have been served better to respond to his aggression with aggression of my own. But I could not. I simply reached over to him with an open hand, my knuckles on the table, my palms up. I said, “Let me pray with you,” and with such a display of brotherly affection, there could be but one response from a man of such hatred. The crucifixion of my career was set in motion.