The Second Coming

could talk. You knew the secret. But how can that be? How can it be that only with death and dying does the sharp quick sense of life return? For that was your secret, wasn’t it? That it was death you loved most of all and loved so surely that you wanted to share the secret with me because you loved me too.
    One night after the war and during the Eisenhower years the father was taking a turn under the oaks. The son watched him from the porch.
    â€œThe trouble is,” the man said, “there is no word for this.”
    â€œFor what?”
    â€œThis.” He held both arms out to the town, to the wide world. “It’s not war and it’s not peace. It’s not death and it’s not life. What is it? What do you call it?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œThere is life and there is death. Life is better than death but there are worse things than death.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThere is no word for it. Maybe it never happened before and so there is not yet a word for it. What is the word for a state which is not life and not death, a death in life?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œI wonder if it ever happened in history before?”
    â€œI don’t know.” Where is the word, the girl in the greenhouse would say, and look around.
    Hands in pockets, he looked at the chaplain and past him to the sunlight, which had turned yellow and now shone straight through the front door. I wonder what you would have thought of rich Christian Carolina, old mole.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI said what a great lady Marion was to give so unendingly of herself. There was so much to give.”
    â€œDo you mean because she was so rich or because she was so fat?”
    â€œHa ha. That’s a winner. Touché. Marion would have loved that. Yes, Marion was far too heavy. God knows I tried to tell her. She said look who’s talking.” He put his hands on his side, a jolly fat lightfooted friar in a jump suit. “Marion and I had much in common. We loved all the good things God gives us. In a word we like to eat. But no, that’s not what I meant by her heart’s desire. You know what I meant.”
    â€œWhat?”
    A clock struck. The sun was setting.
    â€œI am talking about Marion’s dream of a community of people living out their lives married, together, not burdening anybody, a true love-and-faith community lived according to the rhythm of God’s own liturgical year.”
    God, love, faith, marriage. The old words clanged softly in the golden air around them like the Westminister chimes of St. John’s steeple clock.
    â€œActually, Will, it was your other lady I wanted to talk to you about.”
    â€œWhat other lady is that?”
    â€œHa ha. I’m talking about my favorite girlfriend, the apple of your eye, your lovely daughter Leslie, a real sweetheart.”
    Leslie a sweetheart? lovely? the apple of his eye? Leslie, his daughter, was a tall sallow handsome dissatisfied nearsighted girl whose good looks were spoiled by a frown which had made a heavy inverted U in her brow as long as he could remember.
    â€œWhat about Leslie? Is she giving you trouble?”
    â€œYou better believe it.”
    â€œWhat does she want now?”
    â€œShe wants to write her own wedding ceremony.”
    â€œCould it be any worse than your new liturgy?”
    â€œHa ha. That’s a winner. But what are we going to do?”
    â€œWe?”
    â€œYou don’t have a bishop looking down your throat.”
    â€œI sure don’t.”
    Jack pulled him close. They were standing outside the open door of a room. Jack almost whispered.
    â€œI want you to meet our newest couple. Tod and Tannie Levitt. Actually they’re our oldest couple. We’ve stretched a point and allowed them to share the same room. They’re eighty-five and eighty-seven. In the same room! Big deal, right? Bear with me. I have my devious reasons. They’re cute as they can be. You’ll love them. But, more important, I think you’ll see the possibilities of a real couples’ community even in this bareass hospital room. I want you to imagine Tod and Tannie in a rustic setting, a simple but homey apartment with a balcony opening onto the entire Smoky Mountains. Did you know that the hundred twenty-first psalm was Marion’s favorite? I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. And you better believe that’s where