MEDITATION

By Charles Deemer

 

            The Associate Reverend Tom Huckleberry of the First Unitarian Church struck the small gong, as he did every Sunday morning, and the congregation fell silent in meditation. Many congregants closed their eyes. Others stared blankly into space. A minute passed. Another. A baby began to cry, and the mother, after a brief attempt to silence the child, hurried up the aisle to leave the sanctuary.

            Seated on stage, the Senior Minister, Rev. Sally Downs, stopped meditating. Usually Tom struck the gong a second time after about a minute, signaling the end of the moment of silence. Downs glanced at her watch. How much time had passed? Three minutes perhaps. Too long. She stared at the back of Tom’s head, hoping the intensity of her gaze would stir him.

            Someone in the congregation coughed. Others stirred noisily in their seats. The majority of congregants had stopped meditating by now and were staring at Rev. Huckleberry or Rev. Downs, wondering what was going on.

            After four minutes had passed, Downs got to her feet and moved alongside the junior minister.

            “Tom?” she said quietly into his ear.

            There was no response.

            “Tom?”

            Again he failed to give any indication that he had heard her. His eyes were closed. He could be sleeping on his feet.

            Downs reached around him to pick up the gong and the small mallet with which to strike it. She did so, sending over the congregation a prolonged ringing sound to signal the end of the meditation period. An audible sigh of relief swept through the sanctuary.

            “Tom, please sit down,” said Rev. Downs.

            Huckleberry didn’t budge. He stood at the pulpit, eyes closed, motionless.

            Downs turned to George Hale, the Music Director, who was seated on stage beside her. He immediately came forward.

            “Tom?” Downs said again, for the first time loud enough for the congregation to hear.

            Nothing.

            Downs looked at George, her eyes pleading for help.

            “Hey, Tom, you okay?” asked the Music Director.

            When there was no replay, George leaned close to Downs and said, “Could he be asleep?”

            Down replied with her own question, “What do we do?”

            George started to reply and stopped. He turned his attention back to the junior minister. He touched his arm. He gently shook it. There was no response.

            Downs said softly, “We have to get him off the stage.”

            George turned to the choir, got the eye of Joseph, a hunk of a young man, and gestured for him to come forward.

            “What’s going on?” Joseph asked.

            “We have to get him off stage. You take one side.”

            George and Joseph positioned themselves at each side of Huckleberry, grabbed hold of him and lifted. The junior minister was a short, thin man, almost sickly looking, and his feet left the floor at once. A bit awkwardly, they carried him to the wings while the Rev. Sally Downs took her place at the pulpit to assure the gawking congregation that the situation was well in hand.

            After her sermon, Downs found Huckleberry still in the wings, standing alone with his eyes closed.

            “Tom, what’s going on here?”

            Later the medical attendants had to lift him up again to get him onto the gurney. Downs followed the ambulance to the hospital in her car, and George rode with her.

            At the hospital a doctor told the senior minister to go home. Huckleberry would have his vitals checked and tomorrow, when the full hospital staff was at hand, he would be given a battery of tests. The doctor recommended that she phone in tomorrow early in the afternoon for an update.

            Monday was Downs’ day off, which she usually spent in quiet reflection and reading, sometimes going out for coffee, shopping or a long walk. But through the morning her phone didn’t stop ringing as one congregant after another, taking advantage of her policy of being available to anyone at any time for any reason, phoned to ask what had happened at church. Was it all planned, a sort of spiritual drama, the lesson of which would be revealed next Sunday? Was the junior minister ill, physically or mentally? What exactly was going on?

            Downs was prepared for them, having given much thought to what she wanted to say. She said it was too early to reveal what had happened but that she would provide the full story next Sunday.

            When she called the hospital after lunch (her usual bowl of fruit and cottage cheese), Downs was shocked to learn that Huckleberry had checked himself out of the hospital about an hour ago. He had spoken last evening, a nurse explained, asking for the gong and mallet so he could end the period of silence. He’d wanted to leave the hospital right then and there but had been talked into staying for tests. When the tests were completed, he left.

            Downs drove immediately to his apartment. He answered the door with a puzzled look, as if wondering why his boss had come by on his day off.

            Downs got right to the point.

            “What’s going on, Tom?”

            “Pardon me? You’re the one visiting me. What’s going on?”

            “You know what I mean.”

            Apparently he didn’t.

            “What was meditation about?” she asked.

            “What is it ever about?”

            “You wouldn’t ring the gong a second time.”

            “I would have but by the time I was ready to do so, I no longer had it. Someone took me to the hospital and didn’t bring it along.”

            Downs studied him, wondering if he were serious or play-acting.

            “I assume you authorized that,” said Huckleberry.

            “It’s customary to ring the gong about a minute later to end meditation.”

            “It’s customary to do many things of doubtful spiritual worth.”

            “Then you prolonged the meditation on purpose?”

            “Of course. You doubt my spiritual seriousness?”

            Downs looked away lest the frustration in her glare be too obvious. She took a deep breath and tried again.

            “You didn’t leave time for the sermon.”

            “Is that what this is about? You think I stepped on your turf? You’re here because you think I raised a political issue? I was raising a spiritual issue. I thought that was obvious.”

            Downs felt herself being driven into a corner. Whatever it was that her subordinate wanted to discuss, whatever point he was trying to make, he obviously was more prepared to do intellectual battle than she was. She felt defenseless.

            “Tom, we’ll discuss this in my office tomorrow.”

            On Tuesday, when Huckleberry hadn’t come to the office by eleven, Downs phoned him at home. His phone had been disconnected. He didn’t come in all day.

            That evening the apartment manager told Downs that Mr. Huckleberry had moved out. He had spent most of the day loading a U-haul truck with a couple of hired teenagers.

            Through the week Downs kept waiting to hear from Huckleberry but she didn’t. On Sunday she told the congregation that the junior minister was on emergency sick leave for an indefinite period. She left it at that. She handled the moment of meditation herself, striking the gong a second time about a minute after the first, which was exactly how it was usually done.

            A few weeks later, Downs received a postcard from Huckleberry. The photograph on the card was of a spectacular sunset in the Four Corners area of the Southwest, the sky ablaze in fiery colors. The note was brief: “Still meditating. Doing nothing, if properly understood, is the supreme action.”

            Downs stared at the photograph a long time, reread the note, and then stared at the photograph again. She was still staring at it when George walked into her office to ask if she were ready for lunch. Seeing her expression, George said, “Are you all right?”

            “What?”

            “Did someone die or something?”

            “No. No one died.”

            Which wasn’t true, of course, but she wasn’t able yet to put the right words in the right order to explain and interpret what was happening to her. The following Sunday, Downs waited several minutes before striking the gong to end the period of meditation. Looking out over the congregation, she saw many expressions of relief, as if the prolonged silence had stirred up fears of another Huckleberry incident. The congregants didn’t like a break in their routine, which was too bad because Downs knew she had many surprises in store for them in the weeks and months ahead. The congregation would just have to deal with them. Their new spiritual journey together had begun.