Unexpected Treasure

Plainfield, Indiana, where I live, is Quaker country.  Much of Indiana is.  I don't know why.  I also don't know much  about Quakers (Society of Friends).  I know that they are pacifists and good people.  I know that the Quakers in Indiana were very much anti-slavery and very active in the Underground Railroad, but that's about the extent of my knowledge.  Plainfield is the home of the Yearly Western Meeting House of the Society of Friends, and the high school's teams are called the Quakers.  (Now known as Red Pride because the Fighting Quakers wasn't particularly politically correct.)  There are Quaker meeting houses/churches all over the rural and semi-rural landscapes in the area.

Quite a few years ago, when my daughter was married to her first husband, Nathan, he took a position as the superintendent of a small, country golf course, known as Friendswood, about six miles from my house.  One of the perks of that job included an old house on the property, just for the purpose of keeping him on the grounds 24/7.  That little yellow house had some serious issues, but it had one major advantage for a young married couple:  it was rent free.  The kids had the support of Nathan's family and me, plus a radio friend or two of mine, working full tilt to make the place habitable for them and, soon thereafter, our two grandchildren, born while the family lived there.

Maybe a half-mile north of the little yellow house is a Quaker church--Fairfield Friends Church.  Very rural and quaint with a graveyard just adjacent.  Truly, were it not so close to the road, it would be the stuff of postcards.

We aren't Quakers.  I think Nathan's mother Judy has roots in the Friends Church, but my crew doesn't.  Still, if we heard of a public church dinner at Fairfield Friends, or a gift bazaar, we would go.  After all, it was only just down the road from the kids'...

Fast forward short of two years.  Nathan took a job in Muncie, IN.  The kids moved there, less than two hours away.  I cried and cried.  The yellow house was deemed unfixable with its problems.  It was offered to the fire department to be burned for practice, but it didn't pass the asbestos test, and so was rejected (which caused me no small amount of anguish, since my daughter, son-in-law, and grandbabies had lived there).  Thus, the little yellow house was torn down.  On one of her weekend visits, my daughter and I drove by the semi-demolished house, only to notice a storehouse of walnuts falling out of what once was a bathroom wall, explaining the scritchy-scratchy noises she used to hear in the walls.  We saw the half-exposed remnants of what was the children's nursery and toddler bedroom, shed a tear or two, and quickly moved on before we did what Oprah Winfrey calls the Ugly Cry.  And that was that.  If you go by the site now, you simply wouldn't know that a house ever existed there, except for the cement sidewalk that goes nowhere.

Every once in awhile, I drive by that area just for old times' sake.  The Fairfield Friends Church is still there; in fact, it has been expanded, but the sentimental aura of that whole neighborhood is gone for me.  Megan and Nathan are no longer married.  Megan and Denis are.  They now live in the Pacific Northwest, a couple of thousand miles away from me and Nathan and Nathan's parents.  But nothing ever stays the same, you know?  They all seem happy.  That's all I need to hear.

But I digress.
Tuesday of this week, I had occasion to meet with my "team" from our adult Sunday school class, preparing what to do for the spring quarter of class lessons.  We met in the library of our church--Plainfield United Methodist--and somehow, in the process of discussing things, someone said something about author Philip Gulley as being a local author of inspirational books.  Philip Gulley?  Never heard of him....but there, on the shelves, were at least six of his books, all signed by him.  One of the gals on my team went through the books to find the first one and set it down in front of me.  I felt somewhat obligated to check it out, even though it was labelled as fiction, which is not my favorite genre.  I took it home.

Wednesday (yesterday) afternoon, I picked up the book just to see if it really was something I wanted to read.  It was.  I finished it this morning.  What a joy to read!  Written by a Quaker pastor, it was a fictional memoir of people and places in the main character's imaginary hometown of Harmony.  It was funny.  It was poignant.  It was a breeze to read--one of the first times that I have ever read something with so special a message in such subtle vignettes.  As I read it, I pictured the setting to be just like the Fairfield Friends Church.  His characters reminded me so much of the stalwart members of my grandparents' church, the Ancona Church of Christ in Ancona, IL.  It's a tiny rural church.  The sanctuary has 50 theater-style seats--or did when I was last there.  (I counted.)  There was Willy Decker, whose wife, Reva, always marched down the aisle clutching her Bible as if she would be contaminated without it.  There was Myra Sass, who was stern to the young'uns she taught in Bible School.  Clarice Ringer, the pianist.  And Great-Uncle Ray Armstrong, grandson of one of the founders of that house of worship, who refused to attend church during Daylight Savings Time because it wasn't "God's time".  The author made me laugh and cry in recognition that God's House sometimes contains people that only God could love.  I intend to read more of Gulley's books.  I'm not easy to impress.

Now, here's the kicker.  I didn't know this, but author Philip Gulley happens to be the Reverend Philip Gulley, pastor of the Fairfield Friends Church, just down the road from the now-demolished yellow golf course house where my grandbabies had their beginnings.  God works in mysterious ways.