Talk, Talk, and More Talk

October 16, 2014

In which Roz meets Pastor Sundstrøm and gives him a ride home.
Also, Alva McAllen is laid to rest in the company of
eagles, angels, and shepherds; and there is more talk of talk.              (continued from October 15)

Not Mary Ann

It wasn’t nearly as late as we thought it was – we can’t believe we don’t have the staying power we once did. Roz was in the den reading in front of the television. I introduced Pastor Sundstrøm. He sat down and picked up immediately where he had left off.

     He had, as we walked up the hill, asked me what I thought of what he called “the new atheists” – Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Dennett, Dworkin, “and their ilk.”

     “Back to Peter and John and James,” he said glancing at Roz and looking at me. “What we have that they – meaning ‘the atheists,’” he explained for Roz, “Hitchens and Harris and the rest. What we have that they don’t. They have no one among themselves to quarrel with as we quarrel with our friends John and James and Peter. All their quarrels are with others, and they, the others, can't be taken seriously because they, the others, aren't friends but idiots. Do you see?” he asked me.

     Roz asked him: “Have you read Hitchens, Harris, and the others?”

     “Well, no, but . . . .”

     “Wait there just a minute,” she said. “I’ll go get my keys, and we can get you home.”

***

Alva's funeral was the next morning at ten - at the funeral home, not the church.

     Urquhart, the Presbyterian minister, was doing it, though he hadn’t been there the night before. I don’t think Alva liked him. I don't think he liked Alva. What he does like, I remembered as soon as the service began, is his own voice; not only the sound of it – he likes the way it fills his chest, ascends into his throat, is shaped on his tongue and teeth and lips, and parades forth into the room: 
     The opening prayer in which he summoned the eternal spirit, before whom generations arise and pass away; the readings – the seasons of Ecclesiastes, the eagles’ wings of Isaiah, the angels of Psalm 91 and the pastures of 23; Jesus’ telling his disciples to set their troubled hearts at rest, and Paul telling his that they will always be with the Lord because nothing can separate them from him.

     Then, he had a few words to say about Alva. I don’t think Alva liked him. I don’t think he liked Alva; I don’t think he knew her very well, not even as well as I did, who was still wondering how I could have gotten on her list. He praised her intellect, her aptitude, her acumen, her intelligence, her . . . , I don’t know . . . “smarts”? At some point I lost the thread, though not the voice, turning like a drum major this way and that in the indifferent air.

     Then, another prayer: we were again rising and passing away, while she was living eternally with God, death past and pain ended. We were rising and passing away but comforted with all good hope in Jesus; we were bravely walking our earthly way and looking forward to glad heavenly reunion.

     Then, we were talking quietly in the parking lot, remembering poor Alva (and not just how smart she was) and commiserating about the continued swelling in our brains. Sundstrøm asked me if Roz talked much; it wasn’t a chatty ride home, apparently. I said she did talk, when she had something to say.

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