This Rock (29 page)

I sipped and seen the first star pop out over the mountain. The star snapped in the blue-and-lavender sky like a thought. I am seeing from a whole new angle, I thought. I have a new vantage point to think from.

My grandpa had built the first church on Green River out of the materials he had. I would build a new church out of what I could find available.

Lord, show me what to do that will have meaning and will last, I prayed. Show me what to do to quell my fear and lostness. Show me how to work for a purpose, and not just to blunder and fail. Don't let me be a complete fool. Don't let my spirit be killed.

Looking at the sky above the mountains, I felt like I seen the curve of the world stretching far as I could look, and the curve of time stretching beyond that, far as the curve of thought. The blood whispered in my ear: This is what you was meant to do, to pray in the woods and to build a church in the woods. The stars coming out above whispered in the dome of sky, like the whole sky was a whispering gallery.

I tried to stand up but felt my nose mash against the pine needles. I reached around, but the thicket turned faster than I did. The prow of a great ship plunged sideways through my head.

A voice whispered way back behind my ears: You will build a church. Upon that mountain you will build a church. You will place an altar in the wilderness. You will make a place of prayer and praise high in the wilderness.

I looked behind me in the thicket and seen nothing but darkness. I looked at the mountaintop under the new stars. And it come to me that the Lord had whispered to me his message, and he had whispered to me his covenant. I was to build a new church on the mountaintop. The old church was little and drafty. What the congregation needed was a new church, and it would be the work of my life.

I would build a church on the mountaintop with my own hands and on my own land. That was what I had been born to do. If I
couldn't preach with words I would preach with my hands. My sermons would be in wood and stone. For I seen the new church had to be built with rock that would last through the ages, like the churches in Europe. I would build a steeple that would inspire all that seen it in all weather and all seasons, as it pointed to heaven.

A church building was a kind of scripture and a kind of sermon. A church would inspire people when they wasn't even thinking about it. A church was a sign to people of the covenant of grace.

I got on my knees and held on to a pine tree and thanked the Lord for showing me my purpose and my future. I felt an ease and strength I had not felt in a long time. The sky above the thicket leaned and swimmed a little, and the trees swayed and rocked a little. But my head was steady and clear. I seen what I had to do, and what I was going to do.

Muir

T
HE NEXT MORNING
Mama said she thought it was a wonderful idea when I told her what I planned to do. But she said I couldn't build a church without asking the preacher and the board of deacons. I told her that of course I planned to ask the preacher.

“In a Baptist church it's up to the congregation,” Mama said. “The preacher ain't supposed to have any more say-so than any other member.”

Fay said she had always thought the preacher was supposed to be the boss. Preacher Liner acted like he was the boss. All I could think of was that a new church would change the spirit of the community, and Mama agreed. But she said the whole membership would have to vote, after I told them what I was planning.

I hadn't thought of that before. I hated to ask the very people who had seen me make a fool of myself trying to preach to vote for a new church I wanted to build. I doubted they would have any confidence in me.

“They're not building the church,” I said. “I'm going to build the church myself.”

But I was pleased that Mama showed enthusiasm for my plans.
She said a new church could give the Green River valley a new start. She seen that a new church could bring the people together and make them want to work together. But she warned me I would need a lot of help. And that I would need the support of the congregation.

“What if Grandpa had waited for a vote to build the first church?” I said.

But Mama just argued that was in a different time and before there was a congregation. And Mama said, as she always did, that I shouldn't get carried away with my plans. I couldn't deny I'd made a fool of myself more times than one. But this plan was different. It was something I would do at home. The land on the mountain belonged to us, and the rocks on the river belonged to us, and the trees on the mountainside. I told her it would be my sweat that put the rocks in place on the mountaintop.

“You couldn't carry that many rocks to the mountaintop in forty years,” Fay said.

“If it takes forty years, then I will work forty years,” I said. I knowed there was churches in Europe that had took hundreds of years to build.

“Son, I hope you can do it,” Mama said.

“You're just doing it to impress Annie,” Fay said.

Just then Moody come into the kitchen. He must have been listening on the porch. “Sounds like Muir wants to build a Tower of Babel,” he said. Moody knowed more Scripture than he let on. I hadn't told him I'd found his stash of liquor and money in the thicket.

“I'd rather build something up than tear down what everybody else has done,” I said.

Moody lit his cigar and leaned on the mantel, grinning at me. I told him I would need his help in carrying the rocks from the river to the top of the mountain, and in cutting the trees.

“Don't expect me to aid your foolishness,” Moody said. But there wasn't as much sarcasm in his voice as I had expected. I think the idea of the church on the mountaintop had caught his interest too.

“Muir wants to bore with a big auger,” Moody said to Mama.

I would build a church with a steeple so high it would be the first thing people seen when they stepped outside in the morning.

The old church set at the foot of Meetinghouse Mountain. The new church would set on the top, higher than the peach orchard on Riley's Knob. I crossed the pasture and walked through the Richardses' field on the side of the mountain. The Richardses' land joined ours, and our property run to the top of the ridge. I climbed up the mountainside behind the church to the steep part where Uncle Joe and Uncle Locke and Grandpa had dug for zircons in the 1890s and caused a landslide. Their pits was full of leaves and rainwater, and the big piles of dirt was still bleeding rocks and mud down the side of the mountain. Above the pits was a kind of shelf with more laurel bushes. But the very top was covered with white oaks and poplars.

I climbed to the peak and looked out through the trees. From there you could see all the way up the river valley to the Banes' land and the Morrises' land, to Chimney Top and the far end of the Cicero. To the right you could see far as Pinnacle and Mount Olivet. To the east you could see Tryon Mountain, which Grandpa used to call Old Fodderstack. And to the south you could glimpse Corbin Mountain on the South Carolina line.

Out of the river valley and the creek valleys and the branch coves, the ground gathered itself up to the height where I stood. The ground I stood on was like an altar next to the sky. This is the place the church has to be, I thought. I've hunted turkeys here, and I've found ginseng here, but this is the spot the church was meant to be. This is the place of worship. It was far from the rocks in the river that would be used in the walls, and it was far from the spring. But rocks and water could be carried up the hillside. Climbing up the ridge, people would climb out of their ordinary lives into purer air.

I went ahead and talked to the preacher about my plans. I talked to him after prayer meeting on Wednesday night. After the service let out I took the preacher aside and told him there was a project I wanted to discuss. We stood on the steps of the church in the dark while the wind was roaring on the slope above. I was so nervous I felt sweat dripping under my arms.

“What is troubling you, Muir?” the preacher said. “I've felt for some time that something was troubling you.” The preacher leaned over me like he was pushing me away.

“What was troubling me was that I didn't know what I wanted to do,” I said.

“The Lord will answer if you pray for guidance,” the preacher said.

“The Lord has showed me what he wants me to do,” I said.

“Not everybody is called to preach,” Preacher Liner said. Preacher Liner was such a big man you always felt he was pressing up against the air around him. I always felt like I was going to smother when I was around him.

“I'm not studying on preaching no more,” I said. “I'm going to build a new church.” The preacher didn't answer. The wind on the mountain was so loud it sounded inside my ears and inside my blood. The wind chanted and pounded inside my head.

“Why do you want to do this?” the preacher said. He shifted in the dark the way a boxer or wrestler might.

“I feel led to do it,” I said. “I feel it's what I was meant to do.”

“Might be the devil's work,” Preacher Liner said. He was not pleased like I expected him to be. There was a stiffness in his voice. Preacher Liner was a big man with a face that got red when he preached. His eyes was the color of tobacco juice. He stood too close when he talked to you, like he was trying to drive you back.

“It's not the devil's work to build a new church,” I said. My voice was weaker than I hoped it would be.

“It's the devil's work to split up a congregation,” the preacher said. “The devil splinters churches all the time.”

“I don't want to splinter no church,” I said. “I want to build a new church for all of us, on top of the mountain.”

“Oh,” the preacher said. The wind got quieter on the ridge above, but louder in the trees in the pasture below the church. The wind was like a chorus shouting its disapproval at me. Sweat run from my forehead and dampened my temples.

“I want to build a rock church, a bigger church, right on top of the mountain there,” I said. “I want to put the church up high where everybody can see it, and I want a steeple that shoots up into the sky. It'll have a bell to ring to the farthest coves of the valley, calling everybody to worship.”

“How do you know the Lord is leading you to do this?” Preacher Liner said. He didn't sound pleased; he sounded irritated.

“I can feel it,” I said. “I had a terrible feeling after the elephant died, and I prayed and the Lord showed me I was to build a new church, for we need a new place of worship.”

“We ain't got money to build a new church,” the preacher said.

“I will build it myself,” I said. “My grandpa built the first church in these parts, and I will build this one.”

“You can't build a church all by yourself,” the preacher said.

“I'll build it with rocks out of the river, and planks from the trees on the hill,” I said. “I will build it one rock and one nail at a time.”

“Beware of the sin of pride,” Preacher Liner said. He didn't talk at all like I thought he would. Here I was, offering to build a new church with my own hands out of my own materials, on my own land, for his congregation. The least he could do was show a little appreciation. He didn't like my plan because it wasn't his idea.

“I want to make something I can take pride in,” I said. “Maybe I'm called to preach in work, and in stone. The church will be my gift to the community.”

“A church is not made with just rocks and mortar,” the preacher said. “A church is in the hearts of people. A church is in the will of the community to come together in fellowship.”

I seen it wouldn't do any good to argue with the preacher. He didn't like my idea yet because it was new to him. And he didn't believe I could build such a church. How could he, since I had never proved myself? I'd failed at or quit everything I'd tried so far. It was up to me to prove I could accomplish something. I didn't need anybody's permission to do my work. I just needed the patience and the sense and the time to get the work done.

“There ain't even water on the mountaintop,” the preacher said.

I told him we could carry water from the spring in buckets, and there was no need to have baptizings on the mountain. But the preacher was quiet for a long time. It was scary for him to just stand there in the dark without saying nothing. Wind roared on the mountain, and I shivered with the sweat under my shirt.

“I won't let you divide this community with some crazy scheme to
build a church,” the preacher said. “All my life I have fought off Pentecostals from breaking up my church, and I won't let it happen again.”

But I had already made up my mind.

T
HERE IS A
rage that comes on you when you look at woods that need to be cleared. Oak trees and poplar trees stand in the way of the open place you want to make. Trunks hard as masonry have to be chopped through. And stumps have to be dug out of the ground or burned any way you can to get rid of them. A man with an axe looks at the woods all around him and above him and hears the roar of an ocean in his ears and feels the tightening of a fight in his guts. It must be the way our grandfathers felt when they faced the raw wilderness a hundred years ago.

The shadows of the thickets make you mad. The must and mold of the leaf floor rile you. With your two hands and an axe you want to let in the sunlight. You want to chew up the forest and spit it out as mulch. Saplings wave and tremble when you swing against them. Dry leaves and sticks break up when you trample them. The rotten dirt underneath is exposed. Cobwebs and vines need to be tore away and roots tough as gristle ripped from the ground. The ground is laced with secret roots that have to be jerked out like stitches.

When I looked at the trees on the mountain I seen ten thousand licks of the axe that stood in the way of ever starting the church. There was fifty thousand strokes of the saw and a thousand digs with the grubbing hoe. There was bushes and log fires and leveling that stood in the way of my idea.