God's Will Be Done

 TRIGGER WARNING:

GOD’S WILL BE DONE

           “And I tell you,” Pastor David Marks shouted above the chorus of ‘Amens,’ “as sure as God created heaven and earth, homosexuality is not inborn. God would not plant such a thing in the heart of a child. It is not an,” here he exaggerated the word, “orientation.” No one is compelled to commit such debauchery. You are free, I am free, we are all free to choose Christ above sin. There’s nothing that prayer can’t solve!” All seventy-five of his parishioners stomped their feet and cried out in affirmation. “Their agenda is to confuse our youth.” He wiped the sweat above his lip with a folded handkerchief. “Make them into what the Lord abhors. But within the walls of this compound, we are out of reach of the ungodly. We are sanctified! Let me hear you say, ‘sanctified.’ The congregation shouted in response. “Blessed be the name of the Lord. Amen.” Amidst their wails and exclamations, he solemnly descended the pulpit. All but one of the parishioners cried out with the spirit of God. Angelica Thomas just cried as she sat in a pew at the back of the sanctuary, nearest the door.

           Bishop Phillips, one of the several senior, white-haired bishops of the Church of Sanctity, stood and walked to the center of the platform.

“And now, brothers and sisters, we come to the business of the community. Angela Thomas, come and stand before the congregation. All heads turned to the back of the church as a very pregnant, young teen ambled up the center aisle. One woman at Angelica’s left mouthed the word, slut. Phillips stared down at the girl.

“Angelica, are you ready to confess your sin and the name of the father?”

She drew in a breath, “No,” she said and then burst into tears.

“Harlot!” shouted a woman rocking an infant in her arms.

With an even tone, Phillips asked, “Was this done to you by way of force?”

Through her tears and hiccups, “No.”

“Were you willing?”

“Yes.”

A man from the middle pews roared, “Then she must be punished. As the Israelites of old we must stone her. The boys of the congregation are too young to have lain with her. So, she must have tempted one of the men into adultery.” The once sporadic shouts then became a hail of handclapping. Meredith Roberts bolted to her feet.

           “She’s just thirteen and afflicted with the mind of a six-year-old. She can’t have known what was happening.” She turned from side to side, looking at the faces around her. “We can’t stone a little girl.”

           “Then let her confess,” came a remark from behind her.

The bishop pled over the whoops and chatter that electrified the wooden church. “Child, tell me. Who did this to you?”

           “The Messiah,” she said sheepishly.

           “Wait. Wait. We’ll just exile her to the town. Child Protective Services will test the infant’s DNA against the men of the congregation. Then we’ll know the father’s name and punish him accordingly.”

           “Brother Roberts, control your wife!” exclaimed on of the bishops.

           “Would it not be more merciful?” she asked, still standing, and shrugging off her husband’s hand on her arm. There were nods and some voiced their stance with Meredith.

Davis’s face reddened. He’d had enough.

           “Sister Roberts, we will not allow such an invasion of privacy. We will use the ways of God, not man, to solve this. Now, everyone settle down. The bishops and I will pray over this matter.”

           “With due respect, Pastor. You’re not just postponing this because she’s Widow Peterson’s only child?”

           “Brother Watson, are you questioning the judgement of God’s anointed?”

           “No, bishop,” he said and sat back down.

David cleared his throat, “We will announce our decision at next Sabbath.”

           “And just how are you going to explain a dead, pregnant teenager to the authorities? Have you all thought of that?” Meredith yelled. “Widow Peterson’s already lost her husband, now you want to take away her child.”

Phillips placed his hand on the shoulder of the sniffling teenager. Then asked, “Widow Peterson, what say you?”

The demure woman of 35 years stood but kept her head down.

           “My child has sinned. It’s not for me to decide her fate. I put it in the hands of our church fathers.”

David grinned to himself. She was as ugly as spittle on the sidewalk, but he could always count on her.

Meredith rolled her eyes, sighed loudly, and plopped back down on the pew.

Finally, David thought, the bitch is quiet.

           “All these years I’ve been calling you ‘Tinker Bell.’ What’s your real name, honey?” David said, his husky voice still heavy with desire.

           “You don’t pay enough to know my real name,” said the teenager as she rolled over to face him.

           “Come on now, girl. We’re friends. I like you is all.”

She twisted her fingers in his chest hair. “It’s D.”

“D-e-e?”

“No, just the letter ‘D.’ It’s short for Destiny.”

David burst into laughter. “Your mother named you Destiny? Oh, Lord.”

           “What’s so funny?” She slapped his chest. “She told me that she thought it sounded pretty. She used to call me ‘Dessie,’ but all the other girls around here just call me D.”

David’s laughter faded into a gentle chuckle as he stroked D’s cheek.

           “You know, Reverend, all the time you’ve been coming in here, I’ve never heard you laugh. You always seem so sad.”

           “That’s because I am sad,” he said as he sat up and reached for his glass.

           “Why? You got that big ol’ compound. And everybody says you got five wives to tend to you. People kind of respect you. You always dress nice. You got that big ol’ shiny truck,” she smiled, “and you got me.”

He filled his glass from the bottle of whiskey on the nightstand. “And I hate all of it except you.”

           “Then why don’t you leave?”

           “I can’t. I’m their leader. As was my father before me. Besides, it has its benefits.” He took a long pull from the glass and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

           “Big Sue says your daddy used to come here when she was just one of the girls like me.”

           “Yeah, I know,” David snorted, “he paid for my first time.” He tightened his lips, then poured another glassful. She sat upright and began to message his neck.

           “You know, my mama turned me out when I was twelve. She left me here and runned off with her boyfriend. I been here three years now, but I’m not stayin’. No way. I’m not no junkie or nothin’. So, I’m gonna’ save up, get my GED, and then become a nurse.”

           “Is that right?” He chuckled into the glass.

           “You could leave, too. From the time you’re born, bad things happen to you, but those bad things don’t have to make you do bad things. It’s not like being born with blue eyes and red hair or something. Alls I’m sayin’ is that fate gives you a choice, and from that choice it brings you to another. And I’ll tell you what—”

           “What?” he said smiling.

           “I’m gonna’ choose to be happy each time, no matter what.” She grinned wide and slapped his shoulder.

He pushed himself from the side of the bed and reached for his shorts.

           “Child, you’re both wise and naïve. Neither you nor I are going anywhere. I knew when I dropped out of school and came back to this place, you can’t fight God’s will. My father did things to me, and I did it to her and the others. Hell, even to you. Just as sure as Cain, I bear my father’s mark.”

           “All I know is that even if you were done wrong, you can always still do right.”

He handed her the money, and when her eyes met his, he smiled, then closed the door behind him.

           David’s oldest wife, 22-year-old Martha, was annoyed when he ordered her to bring Meredith Roberts to his eight-roomed house on the compound. When Meredith entered his spacious home office, he spent several moments just eying her. She was 35 years old, same as Widow Peterson. But he respected Meredith much more. She was protective of her two young children, unlike Mrs. Peterson had been with Angelica. The poor child had developed early. And he knew that most of the male members of his congregation lusted over the beautiful, blonde child with the woman sized breasts just as he had. Her mother didn’t hide her hatred for Angelica, both disgusted by her disability and jealous over the attention paid to her. She knew what he was doing all along. But she remained loyal to him. Her declaration of love for him turned his stomach. But she’d promised to keep telling the girl she’d go to hell if she revealed the father if and only if he added her to his sister wives and gave her what she knew would most likely be her last child. But he had a plan. A plan that would rid him of the most troublesome females in his life.

He offered her a seat.

           “I’ll stand, thank you.”

He grinned and shook his head as he sat back in his desk chair.

           “You know, Sister Meredith. I just can’t figure out why you dislike men so much. I mean we all know that Brother Roberts lets you walk all over him. No woman could respect a man like that. Buy why me? I’m just a humble servant of God.”

           “You are neither, Mr. Marks. Everyone knows that you go out and minister to the ladies at the whore house each week when you go for supplies. And I know that’s why the women aren’t allowed to leave the compound, because you know the men will keep your secret. You banished my son and all the other teenage boys from the compound, though they did nothing wrong. Without them, all the young girls are left with only you, the bishops, or the elders to marry. And I believe that’s all by your own wicked design.”

He slammed his fist on the desk. “If you’re so unhappy with me, then why don’t you leave?”

           “I was born here,” she said, nonplussed, “under your father’s leadership. This is all I’ve ever known. I’ve no money, and I refuse to leave without my children. I’m stuck with you, and you with me.”

           “I can assure, Meredith. My father was not a better man than me.”

           “Well, he sure as hell would not let a thirteen-year-old mentally disabled girl be threatened with stoning for what was obviously rape.”

He rested his elbows on the desk.

           “She won’t name the father. She’s a temptress. Scripture says, ‘if your left hand causes you to sin, then cut it off.’ We must do as commanded. They’re just going to tell the authorities she threw herself from the top of the church in shame for having sneaked into town and slept with some long-gone drifter who promised to marry her. The bishops hold sway with the police,” he shrugged, “If she stays here, she must be punished.” Her eyes bore into his and he turned away. After he had waited a moment, he turned back to her.

           “Look,” he said, opening the top drawer of his desk, “here’s $300.00. Take the girl and your two sons to town and then take the bus anywhere. That’s the best I can do for her.” She snatched the money from his hand and slammed the door behind her.

           Marks had a thundering headache when he and the bishops sat to discuss what he’d hoped to be the sudden disappearance of Angelica and Meredith from the compound.

           “Shameful woman, trying to kidnap the children,” Bishop Phillips said, “Pastor, Meredith Roberts—”

           “What about her?” he groaned.

           “Two nights ago, Sister Allison saw Meredith and three individuals climb into Brother Roberts’ van and drive out of the compound. She called Roberts and the deacons drove him into town and caught her, Angelica, and Roberts’ two sons just as they were boarding a Greyhound bus. Insolent woman.”

David closed his mouth and swallowed his dismay. “So, they didn’t get away?”

           “No,” said Phillips, “and we all had a hand in helping Brother Roberts correct the incorrigible woman. One must not spare the rod with the child or the woman. The other women are tending to her wounds. By the time they’re healed, she’ll be a much better wife. I assure you.”

           David stared straight ahead. “Yes, yes. Of course. A much better wife,” he droned.

           Marks felt as if he were sinking as he slowly followed the line of bishops as they made their way to the desolate clearing next to the rocky outcroppings of the mountain above the compound. He winced when he saw the girl in a white shift with her wrists tied to a post surrounded by a wide circle of hand-sized rocks.

           “Jesus said, ‘let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’ But I say to you, we have all confessed our sins, repented, and were washed in the blood of Christ. We are born again and are as newborns without sin. This girl has not confessed; therefore, she is as heavy with sin as she is with the devil’s seed that grows within her. And we must punish the unrighteous.

He bent over to pick up a stone, then stopped.

           “Widow Peterson, this your child. Abraham was called by the Lord to sacrifice his son, Isaac, when the knife was just above the child’s heart, the angels stopped him, and the Lord spared Isaac’s life. Shall we not first listen for the voice of God, should he choose to spare this child’s life?” Widow Peterson dutifully picked up a stone. David closed his eyes, praying for a sound, any sound. But there was only wind. He opened his eyes when he heard the girl cry out. Peterson’s rock bounced off Angelica’s arm. Then the young child then glared at him; her eyes wide with terror.

She opened her mouth and the words rushed out, “No, David, you said we’d be together and---”

His face reddened, then with celerity, he grabbed a rock. Cutting the girl off, he shouted, “God’s will be done.” With all his strength, he threw the rock against the girl’s head, dropping her to her knees. The rest of his flock followed until only the top of her swollen head was above the rock pile. When her wide-open eyes no longer blinked, he raised his hand, stopping the deluge. He felt a pang of sadness, and Destiny’s smiling face flashed in his mind. As he watched the blood seeping from her head and being soaked up into the stones, he murmured, “But it was God’s will; it had to have been God’s will.”