Auburnsborro Church

by James Ross Kelly

You could always look out the windows if the sermons went overly long in 1962. There were pigs there in a well rooted field. The faithful were few then, but there were children forced to hear religion from their World War II veteran era parents who, with notable exceptions had mostly abandoned the notion personally, but still felt it had taught basic morality 101—and everyone needs some of that. So, a lot of the children were delivered up there on Sunday’s. Fred caught a ride with the Pastor and his wife and two daughters on Sunday mornings and he’d be sandwiched in between the women for about twenty minutes.

Between ranchers, mill workers, farmers, much was made about the good old American way— that was not really up for grabs yet. Vietnam after a few years of it had reminded a lot of folks about slavery, and the genocide of Indians, and black folks and brown folks did not have the same deal as whites and well there was a lot of general meanness. The news of the entire decade reminded everyone of that, even though the farther back you go there was more meanness.  

In this little corner of Southern Oregon however, there were no Indians, no black folks, and there were no brown folks. The Indians had been killed or removed by 1857. There were laws passed to keep blacks out of the Southern Oregon towns after sundown. Mexicans were allowed to pick pears at the end of the summer and then they had to leave. You had to travel south, north, or east to be close to any of these folks.

So, the Church had originally been on the south side of the highway about five hundred yards from the bridge and had been built around 1915 and had had several flavors of congregations since that time. In the early 1960s it was pastored by the mechanic of one of the logging companies, who came to the cloth by being delivered from alcoholism. Scott, a tall kind man with an owl-like weathered face drove his wife and daughters to Auburnsborro every Sunday and preached from the King James Bible in the old drafty country church that smelled of mold and, in the summer, when the windows were open a little waft of the pigs across the fence as well. Still, the high faithful old women taught it in Sunday school stories that the Savior died for them and loved them, and that God was a great Father that loved them and would hug them no matter what they did. That this contravened all Calvinist doctrine was lost on a lot of folks save the unfortunates that had found nothing better to do but go to Seminary. Then during every Sunday sermon, the pastor who had gone to Seminary for six months after he had dried out, taught that they would suffer the eternal tormenting fires of Hell if they did not come to this Jesus and persisted in all their diverse manner of adultery, immorality, and lust. In the King James pronunciation of “diverse” Pastor Scott had preached it like it was written “divers” and Fred when he was younger could not think of anything other than frog men with scuba tanks under the sea.

Fred, before he refused to go to church anymore, vacillated, thinking if he did accept this Jesus, he’d never have sex; but if he did not accept him according to the loving old ladies, he was still the Father that loved him, and he’d love him after he’d finally had sex. So, logic and the risk of eternal torment the Pastor promised, was a crisis of faith put off by the caveat of the old women, and the sixties rolled on into what it was. Fred Sullivan drove some angst through this from the age of eleven until he was fifteen, when he announced to his mother, he would not go to church again, and since she and his father didn’t go, how could they make him? His mother was devout and prayed for Fred daily but did not go to church because her husband did not go to church because he’d said he’d never set foot in a church again after he'd divorced his first wife, the daughter of a Baptist preacher. No one had ever told Fred of the finer points of this story and Fred had not asked but knew his father had never been in a church in his lifetime.

The old ladies version of the Gospel seemed to abide while Fred studied High School biology and found the notion of evolution straight forward and all around him in nature. It was a 50/50 shot it seemed. If this Jesus was who he said he was— he’d simply have to make it clearer as life went on. It was then he’d seen himself pivotable from his younger self.

There was this thing he hadn’t had before. Now it was quite apparent. He liked women. He liked looking at women. He liked girls his age. He liked older women up to and including his mother’s age. He liked looking at them in dresses. He liked how they smelled. He liked looking at the pictures of brassieres in the Sears and Roebucks catalog and the women that modeled them. He liked women’s breasts even though he’d never seen them uncovered. He liked how women could turn a phrase and it could change his mind. This liking had turned into longing, a longing that seemed like the eternal hell they’d been threatening him with.

But back then it was all in front of him and that moment that he decided he was on his own was as revelatory as it had ever been, he was not a child anymore, he was not a man yet either, but he knew he’d have to do that too and it was all out in front of him.

He then resigned himself to farm work on Sunday mornings and abandoned the Sabbath rest. Later he thought of religion in these parameters even a half world away and being shot at—it did not change. Except for the actual moments when bullets were flying all around him and mortars were landing so near that the earth shook, and clods of wet dirt fell all around him because, well it is mostly true that there are no atheists in foxholes. “Save me Jesus!” or “Oh Jesus I don’t want to die!” came out of his mouth more than once. But he shot back at those shooting at him with as much vehemence as was being meted out. He’d been wounded and after he’d healed up, he could not discount that it had some effect about why he was alive.

Fred did not have sex until he was eighteen—he was deeply in love with the girl he made love to. He dated her for six months and on a brisk late April evening down a secluded road in a blossoming pear orchard with moonlit sky they made love in the backseat of his father’s station wagon. Afterwards they had looked at the moon and stars and took a short walk and held each other with arms entwined and deeply kissed, and everything was better for a time. Had been with her and instead listened to the owl faced Pastor and walked the straight and narrow with Jesus—there would have been nothing remarkable about Fred Sullivan.