Elsewhen

1970
The Reverend Timothy Thurston paused in mid-sermon, the silence broken by the distant honking of a flight of spring-migrating geese, and the soft snoring of —there she is— Mrs. Harken. If only she would, he thought, looking down at his notes to stifle a grin at his private pun.
His topic was “Eternity”. Perhaps this best described the length of the sermon, since most of the congregation was by this point, semi-somnolent. Funny, he thought, it’s like a scoreless baseball game, or worse, cricket, (which could go on for days). An experience not unlike eternity, as the old seminary joke went.
Tim Thurston was a recently minted Reverend, graduating from Union Theological Seminary in New York, magna cum laude. He was the white sheep, in a family of black sheep, from the wilds of urban Pittsburg, and the only one in his family to attend any center of learning beyond second year of high school. His undergraduate major had been English Literature, during which time he fully fed on Dickens, Trollope, Milton (of course), and Lewis Carroll, among others. This was his first parish, and after a year he had finally gotten used to the rural pace of life. And his congregation was slowly growing accustomed to his use of literary references other than the King James Version of the Bible.
But there were two in his flock riveted on his sermon. Three, actually, but he didn’t count Mr. Osborne, a little elderly man with a perpetual smile on his face, and a Catholic rosary he wore as a necklace. Mr. Osborne was not your typical Protestant. Not typical at all. The rest of the congregation pretended not to notice.
The two shining little faces, all of eight years old, hungrily absorbed his every word. Laura Elizabeth Austin and Elijah Grant sat together, their parents on either side.
Laura Bess had the penetrating gaze of intelligence, with a serenity of wisdom beyond her years, which could switch in an instant to mischievous laughter. Her large blue eyes dominated her face, framed by Nordic blonde hair, usually in pigtails. She was also an athletic little tom-boy, wearing at least two band-aids at any given time. Today she wore her best Sunday white dress. Any other day of the week she would be uniformed in mud-caked jeans and a flannel shirt, and boys had better beware—except for Elijah Grant.
Elijah, or more often “Lije”, was her best fiend. He was serious, with a little old man way about him. When he wasn’t looking at the ground with a wrinkled brow, he had the thousand-yard stare of a combat veteran. Lije was always “studying” something. If not Thurston’s sermon, then it might be a problem in beginning Calculus, or the Physics of hyperspace. He often became so absorbed that he would “see things” he couldn’t explain. He didn’t worry his parents about it, but it sometimes made him a little queasy. He too was dressed in his Sunday best.
Both sets of parents eked out a living as farmers, but they didn’t expect their children to follow in their footsteps. They knew that both Laura Bess and Lije were special.
They were geniuses.
As long as I am reaching those two, thought the Reverend. He continued: “And what is Eternity? Try to imagine it—endless time.” He looked directly at the two children.
“Imagine yourself going down a road that disappears in the distance over a hill. Just like our long, long prairie roads that stretch from horizon to horizon. Now, no matter how long you walk, or how fast you run, you never reach that distant hill.”
Thurston opened a book and began to read:
“In Lewis Carroll’s book ‘Through the Looking Glass’, the Red Queen tells Alice to run:
‘Faster! Faster!’ And they went so fast that at last they seemed to skim through the air, hardly touching the ground with their feet, till suddenly, just as Alice was getting quite exhausted, they stopped, and she found herself sitting on the ground, breathless and giddy. …Alice looked round her in great surprise. ‘Why, I do believe we've been under this tree the whole time! Everything's just as it was!’
‘Of course it is,’ said the Queen, ‘what would you have it?’
‘Well, in our country,’ said Alice, still panting a little, ‘you'd generally get to somewhere else — if you ran very fast for a long time, as we've been doing’
‘A slow sort of country!’ said the Queen. ‘Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!’”
He closed the book.
“Perhaps Eternity is like that— where—or rather when, Time itself doesn’t even exist.”
Elijah and Laura Bess looked to each other, struck with the same thought.
Mrs. Harken woke up and stifled a yawn.
Mr. Osborne smiled beatifically, like a clueless angel.
Later, Reverend Thurston stood at the door, speaking with each member of his congregation as the church disgorged them. When Elijah and his parents emerged, they shook hands and made the usual minister-flock small talk. And as usual, Thurston singled out Elijah, because he knew the serious little boy would give his honest opinion, always.
“And how are you this morning, Elijah?”
“Fine, thank you sir.”
“I couldn’t help but notice you paying attention to my sermon.”
“Yessir.”
“What did you think? Now, you don’t have to flatter me.”
“Don’t know how, sir. Flatter, I mean.”
“I wish more people had that handicap, Elijah.”
Lije looked at Reverend Thurston for a moment the way your dog sometimes does when it is trying to figure out what the heck you are saying. He blinked, twice.
“Well, anyway, I’m goin’ to read ‘Through the Looking Glass’ again. And Laura Bess and me are goin’ to talk it over.”
“We find our inspiration in unexpected places, Elijah.”
Certainly I have, Thurston thought, since coming here from the great metropolis. From the mouths of babes.
“You can call me Lije, Reverend. Most everybody does.”
“Sorry Lije. It slipped my mind.”
He turned to Lije’s parents, winking.
“Brother Grant, Sister Grant. That tadpole is a keeper.” (Thurston had picked up some of the regional colloquialisms.)
“Till he’s old enough for M.I.T. Reverend, or wherever he fancies, I reckon”, said a proud Luke Grant.
The Grants strolled to their car, as the Austin family came out the church door. Thurston greeted them.
“Brother Austin, Sister Austin, I have a very important question for your daughter. May I?”
The Austins were quite used to this routine, as it happened every Sunday, with both Lije and Laura Bess.
“Well of course, Reverend.”
The minister stooped down.
“Well, Miss Laura Bess, did you like my sermon today?”
Laura Bess needed no urging. Thoughts rushed from her like a spring waterfall.
“Yes I did, ‘specially the part about Time and forever and all? And going down the road? And how that’s like forever?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know ‘bout Time, but I was thinking, isn’t Love s’posed to be like that?”
“You mean, like going down a long road?”
“Uh-huh. Forever.”
“Could be a bumpy road, Laura Bess. Not always an easy one.”
Why did I say that? Good heavens, I’m talking to an eight-year-old girl!
Laura Bess looked at the young minister with something almost like pity.
“Don’t worry, Rev’rent. There’s more than one road.”
Thurston stared at the little girl for a moment, as an unexpected pang struck his heart, and then smiled.
“Well, Laura Elizabeth Austin. You never fail to give me something to think about. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Rev’rent.”
Then she scampered away to see Lije before the Grants left, as her parents strolled after.