Theophilus in the Mirror

Call to Worship

The human soul and that person’s mind and also their body is inextricably intertwined. Sometimes this became clear to anyone stepping out in the sunrise in this mountain valley. In a mist shrouded green Garden of Eden where Saint Valentine’s Creek hurried down what used to be called Eve’s Valley in the North Carolina Mountains, the water from higher up giggled to meet the Pidgeon River in the main valley below. 

S-s-s-wa-a-a-tch” the water sang.

It was therapeutic, healing and even worshipful all day and night. The complete human soul, mind and body, all could literally feel the strength flowing into them when the person stood with a morning cup of coffee in hand.

Here at this joyous coming together of living water, there stood a quaint and time-worn mountain valley town. Actually, “town” would be a bit optimistic. The community could be better described as a small cluster of houses and businesses nestled snugly in the eternal bliss of high altitude majesty with an alpine river singing right through the middle of it. A little village church occupied a ridge above the gathering of houses and buildings with a winding drive leading up to it and an associated graveyard beautifully surrounding the place of worship. Because it was a ridgetop church, some tombstones were positioned so precariously on the valley edge that mountain climbers must have been required as pallbearers. Over the years a flash flood would occasionally wash a coffin out of this steep hillside, making everyone wonder about the eternal residence of the now rejected but long departed saint having been so degradingly bounced down, down, down. Sometimes the dead were even ejected from the safety of their coffins. This always led to a nightmare litany of state inspections, investigations and negotiations, before the dearly departed was safely reinterned. This time hopefully, the saint was buried further away from the edge of perdition. One of the several pastors over the history of the mountain church, came up with the idea of planting more trees in the cemetery to prevent washouts. However, this move led to theological and other complications much too detailed to go into here. (Sometimes the tree roots would suck up the departed saint and recycle their remains into the ecosystem.)

Being one of the highest points in the valley and nearby hills, the tall, old, church steeple had a necessary lightning rod attached to the cross on the very tip. The church was built in 1866 by a community gathering of area farmers and merchants giving of their very limited time, energy and assets. Many of the builders were veterans of the then recent, US civil war so they certainly were a sincere and somber bunch. Unfortunately, the first church steeple and more importantly, the first heavy, lead, cross on the very tip of it, existed for only one month. The problem with the first steeple and cross wasn’t due to the volunteer team’s work, which was of unbelievable craftsmanship. Instead, like God rejecting an unacceptable offering, lightning struck the sacrificial work in anger. As providence would also have it, the newly organized town fire brigade was in formal session for their inaugural meeting when the shout went out.

“Fire!”

They were able to save the church building since they were already in town and it was raining. Most of the steeple and the entire cross were lost though. The newly ordained, first pastor of the church, convinced the congregation into building an even taller steeple and this time, the cross had a lightning rod. “In times of trouble,” he sternly warned from his smoky pulpit, “we reach even higher to God in supplication and we learn from the lessons he allows.” Since the pastor was of the high church mindset, he cast quite an impressive figure in his robes. His heavy Scottish brogue certainly helped as well. 

Largely though, this therapeutic valley was a place of peace, neighborliness and healing. Morning came to this part of the Garden of Eden like a sleepy wake-up prayer. In the summer, one part of the valley got most of the sunlight. In the winter it was another part of the valley that got most of it but shadows persisted throughout the year because the mountains insisted on it. The point being here that there always were places of gloom in these mountains, even on a sunny day, no matter the beauty involved.

A tiny village “downtown,” almost directly below the church, was dominated by a Victorian looking general store with fourth generation owners now selling prepaid cell phones, hunting licenses and various postal services along with the usual frozen, canned, dry goods and tourist knick-knacks. Fred’s car repair and hardware was immediately next to the general store, where, if Fred didn’t have it he could usually rig something up for you anyway. Several antique vehicles from various eras lingered in the eternal purgatory of being “fixed someday.” They cowered forever in the weeds behind the storefronts though Fred could change a car’s oil in less than five minutes if pushed.

St. Jerome’s Bar and Restaurant was across the street. The establishment was the natural “go to” for any area, community gathering, no matter the size. St. Jerome’s had the best breakfast burrito this side of Texas. Santos, the owner of St. Jerome’s, came from Texas so he would be an expert on the matter. His old Dodge pickup broke down and gave up its ghost right in the middle of the “main street” about ten years ago. Since the computer component needed to fix the truck cost more than the truck was worth, Santos stayed in this beautiful place. An abandoned old restaurant and a guy with more talents than you can shake a prophet’s staff at, meshed well, leading to the completion of this downtown. Santos didn’t come up with the restaurant name. St. Jerome’s has been St. Jerome’s since even the old people of the valley could remember. Santos also kept the name because of the art work outside of the building emphasizing the saint.

The Eucharist, (Mid-service Worship)

A world famous art expert on vacation, brought her overpriced fad car to a screeching halt on the main street just as Santos was setting up shop several years ago. “OH MY GOD,” she screamed. “It’s a Franksey, with his usual methods but this far away from London!” There was proof as plain as an eye could see though. “Franksey” said the artist’s signature, down on the lower right side, near the ancient sidewalk. It clearly was the signature of the famous street artist. The artwork looked like a curious mixture of an ancient Eastern Orthodox icon and early 2000s street art. This piece was of St. Jerome all right. It had the regular iconic pile of books, the thorn that he supposedly removed from a wounded lion’s paw, the usual hourglass and of course, the skull present in many traditional depictions of saints. A statement below the artwork in medieval font said:

“The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart. Beauty when unadorned is adorned the most.”

The people of the village had no clue what that meant but the work was a town status symbol so it had to be wise. The closest anyone got to actually explaining the art was when one in the history of the pastors of the village church, tried during a town meeting.

“Well, St. Jerome said and did a bunch of things. One of his interesting issues is that he insisted that some sexual activity within a married couple’s love, actually was sin.”

“What” was the collective town response? “Ah, forget it” was the pastor’s best reply.

There were some moves in the North Carolina State Assembly to have the work relocated “for its own protection” but this almost led to fistfights on the Assembly floor. Out of desperation the best that the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources could do was to hire some guy all the way from Wisconsin to restore and protect the work where it sat. Almost everyone in the valley agreed that the masterpiece belonged “here.”

This was that kind of village on God’s earth where people waved as they passed by, even if they didn’t recognize the person. “God Bless You” was not an uncommon goodbye. Everyone in town helped where and when they could. Most participated in the volunteer fire brigade either directly or at least at the bi-annual fundraiser dinner. Many in the village sang in the church choir, (including some who would bless everyone more by worshiping in silence.) The Kiwanis regularly got the whole town out on the quarterly trash pickup day.

Pastor Wilson, the current holder of that responsibility at the Village Church, was a fixture of community wide respect. He was invited to grace every event imaginable with an invocation, opening prayer, statement of blessing or time of good thoughts, however the action was called. The Pastor was well known for his sacrificial service to the community including his hanging out with Fred who was known for his raucously open atheist leanings. Fred and Pastor Wilson would often be seen studiously sharing thoughts over breakfast together, shockingly early at St. Jerome’s. Santos opened the place at five am every morning for the farmers, truckers and construction workers who for some reason, always needed to get up at that ungodly hour. 

With all of the interesting oddities of life around here the most conflicting fact about this beautiful place was the name of the village. The large, weather beaten signs on State Hwy 215, on both ends of town were clear enough. In honor of many towns and cities in the area whose names ended in -ville, such as Huntersville, Hendersonville, Greenville and Asheville, this little place confusingly called itself Eville. Really? Evil, what sort of name was that?

Every now and then, a tourism oriented blogger would meander into Eville and start asking the obvious question with their video recorder going.

“Why did you name this beautiful place, Eville?”

Santos, Fred or whoever was running the general store at the time, would direct that person to Julia. She was Mayor for Life of “metropolitan” Eville since usually no one else wanted the extremely demanding and low paying job. Julia also was the wife of Henry, the general handyman of the valley. (That second position on her resume probably brought as much respect as her first job because she controlled Henry’s appointment book. A very good and reasonably priced handyman like Henry was extremely hard to find around here.) Julia also had the Mayor’s job as long as she wanted it because she just was so very good at running the place. Every now and then some oddball or kid fresh from college would run against her and be thoroughly trounced. The small stipend that the village gave Julia for her considerable responsibilities certainly helped but wasn’t anywhere close to her worth. As mayor, where she shepherded a town council as eclectic and unfocused as pre-adolescent Sunday schoolers, she also was the administrator and treasurer of the volunteer fire brigade. She was responsible for all of the reports, inspections, and bureaucratic business that the state required in both of those tasks. Besides these obligations, she was general hand holder of citizens up and down the valley including many who really could not be counted as citizens of the village, and she had uncountable, other, “small” jobs dumped on her. Still, with her Mayor job and Henry’s trade, the two did okay for themselves.

When the important media person insisted on asking why Eville was Eville, Julia would characteristically smile and nod her head. Then her face would get very serious. She looked this particular guy over. He was, what, twenty-five years old?

“First, I need to talk to you about romance before I can talk to you about why we called this beautiful place, Eville.”

“Romance?”

“Yup.”

“But what does th….?”

“God made romance, not Hollywood, Bollywood, the media in general, the music industry, the porn industry or Madison Avenue.”

“Ok?” This blogger did as most would usually do when Julia got them to this point. He began looking about to make sure he had a quick way of escape. Mayor Julia continued as always.

“Many people mistakenly think that God is against romance.”

“OK?” Obviously this conversation was bringing more questions than answers. This exasperated Julia and it showed.

“Well, obviously God can’t gift us with something that is evil!”

“Ok.” The blogger was slowly beginning to inch away.

“Therefore, clearly it is our application of the gift from God that makes it good or bad.”

Usually this was where most media people suddenly “got an important call” and would disappear. This guy persisted though. “Ok, so how does this apply to giving a town a label like Eville?”

The rare times when she kept a blogger to this point, Julia would usually make one of her huge, winning smiles. Most of the time she and the media person were looking at the outside painting of St. Jerome at this point. “St. Jerome wrote about that but first, isn’t this place beautiful?”

Taken aback, the media guy stuttered, “ye…yes.”

They took in the heavenly valley silently for a while. Then Julia whispered as she usually did if she got her media “influencer” to this point. “There is evil here in Eville but I still don’t agree with St. Jerome on the matter.”

The blogger had thoughts on the level of, “I am either recording my best show ever or am about to be murdered.” “Evil, here,” was the best answer that he could muster?

“Yeah!” Julia nodded. “If you walk in the woods around here you will find old stone foundations everywhere.”

“Foundations?”

“Yeah, 1969 was a very dry year.

“1969?”

“Yeah, what do you know about kudzu?”

“Well, it is an invasive, leafy vine that is common in the southern United States. If not contended with, it can choke a whole forest.”

“True! So a young man from the town got a “Dear John” letter from his fiancé off at a fancy girl’s school on the East Coast. In complete distress, the mentioned young man very unwisely decided to burn the letter. Sadly there was much kudzu around him at the time. Being mayor here, of course I know the date that it happened, August 15, 1969.”

“Ok?”

“Well, kudzu goes everywhere. That includes dry kudzu.”

 “Ok.”

“The town was considerably bigger then than it is today so by the time that the fire was out, most of the town was burnt to the ground.”

“Everything burnt?”

“Nope, the fire brigade took a stand at the church and in this downtown area. Everything else was burnt down though.”

“Hmmm, was the town already called Eville then?”

“Nope, it was called Blissville then. They decided to rename it to Eville a year after the fire.”

“It must have been horrible,” the blogger looked around carefully.

“It was. All that the town had to fight the fire was hand tools and a WWII war surplus, Studebaker, Army fire truck retired from the Air National Guard.”

“My God!” The media guy imagined the smoke, flame and sparks flying everywhere. 

“There was black snow.”

“Black snow?”

“Yup, the ashes from the fire were billowing up into the air with the heat, then falling after they came out of the updraft, like black snow, everywhere.”

“My Lord!”

“People lost everything. Thankfully no one lost their lives though that could have easily happened.”

This media guy had a good imagination and could almost see the smoke, ash and flames in this now, beautiful valley. He checked his camera to make sure that it was recording everything. “How did they cope?”

Julia smiled. This is exactly where she had intended to move this blogger. “During the fire, the pastor of the church of the time, who also was the town fire chief, took a stand for us in the flames. He saw that the wind was changing. “Fight fire with fire” he roared. They set a new fire right over there, next to the Pidgeon River. The pastor knew his firefighting I guess, because the good fire fought the bad fire until all of it was out.”

“Wow” The media guy was excited because the camera shots forming in his head would mesh perfectly with an announcer’s deep, bass, voice over, filling in on the story and the crackling fire sounds and people’s shouts in the background. The blogger made a mental note to call the flying drone guy that he regularly contracted, as soon as possible. The camera drone would need to swoop over the Victorian general store as it dived in from a high shot of the beautiful, mountain valley. God this was good! Wait! What did this have to do with romance? The media guy looked at Julia from around his camera. She was patiently waiting. Julia let the blogger ask the question. “This is a great story, but what does that have to do with romance?”

Julia smiled. “Do you know what the young man’s name was, the one that unintentionally set the town ablaze?”

“No, should I?”

Julia’s smile couldn’t have been larger. 

“Theophilus Franksie, they always spell it wrong you know?”

The media person fought the urge to go into a loud, ecstatic, joyful, Pentecostal shout of tongues, though he had learned somewhere back in Sunday school that you were not supposed to suppress the urge. “My God, I have found the birth place and also last work of art of the extremely famous yet also extremely shy, Theophilus Franksey, and that with an incredible story mixed in. Holy Moses, the city of London, England, actually used one of his street works as the basis for their new city flag.” The media guy looked at Julia with eyes reflecting hope against hope. “Is the late Mr. Franksey,…ur….Franksie buried here in Eville?” Since the camera wasn’t aimed at him the audience wouldn’t know that he grimaced urgently as he asked the question.

“Yup, up in the church graveyard.”

The Benediction, (End of Worship)

The blogger had to immediately run into St. Jerome’s to use the bathroom. Julia waited patiently. How was she supposed to know that sometimes when in extreme excitement, this media guy would need to pee? The blogger was gone for quite a while because while in the can, he also made some phone calls. Eventually Julia gave up and went back to her daily tasks. She was a busy wife, a mother, a mayor, and a business partner after all you know? She called it her life of love.

The media guy came out of St. Jerome’s with astonishing camera shots bouncing in his head, of butterflies on gravestones overlooking the valley and the village of Eville below. After looking around for a no longer present Mayor Julia, he went back into St. Jerome’s for breakfast. The cooking had smelled fantastic when the blogger was inside and he had used the hand soap in the bathroom of course.

After breakfast, the blogger visited the church cemetery with camera in hand. The church and yard with views of the valley below were downright cinematic. This internet content provider found Theophilus Franksie’s grave marker. (It was safely away from the edge of the valley.) The tombstone was not particularly plain but not anything special either. It had Franksie’s name, his birth date, his date of passing and then one curious word. “Restoration” was carved rather prominently on the granite slab. Curiously, an oval, permanent looking, small, antique mirror was attached to the grave marker as well.

On a side note, while randomly digging around in the church office years ago, Pastor Wilson found journals from one of his predecessors. The earlier pastor wrote some very confidential stuff and Pastor Wilson couldn’t help it but began reading. This even though it was none of his business. “Clergy-penitent Privilege” is the legal term of the matter. There was several places in the journal where that Pastor and Mr. Franksie had long discussions. “Since you confessed your sins to God and repent of them, he completely forgives you. Therefore you can let the matter rest. Restore what you can and live the best life that you can afterward” was the clergy advice. Pastor Wilson agreed. He was going to destroy the journals because of the confidentialities inside but just couldn’t do it. This was crucial history here. He did place them in the church safe though. Pastor Wilson told no one.

“Come now, let us settle the matter,”
    says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
    they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
    they shall be like wool.”

Isiah 1:18 NIV

Writer’s note: August 15, 1969 is the start date of the iconic Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Theophilus is the person St. Luke is writing to in the biblical book of Luke, (Luke 1:1-5.)