live now, of course, is not for everyone, probably not for most. So maybe I am the wrong person to ask about being thirty.
I should tell you that I have become a topic of conversation on the church porch these days. Or so I am told. This is the fourth consecutive Sunday that I have missed church and apparently the new minister has been asking questions about my spiritual health. Well, I am not going to church these days because I don’t feel like it. I seem to have lost interest in what goes on there and they can make of that what they will. Do you go to church down there, or have you pretty much given up on that too?
Yes, I finally finished War and Peace . It is an excellent book though I grew a little weary of it in places. A fellow called Pierre is for me the most attractive figure in the entire novel, but I particularly liked Tolstoy’s description of the Russian landscape, especially in winter. It reminded me of Ontario in many ways. This long winter will soon be over, and yes, I am fed up with the damn furnace and its daily demands. On the other hand, I am also tired of the voice in my head that is always complaining about things. I am also beginning to believe that somehow I must learn to recapture the pleasure I took in winter when I was a child. I’m sure I tired of it then too, but I must have taken more joy in it as well. It does no good to wish away the days of the fourth season as I seem to have been doing since Christmas. As someone put it, I must teach myself to cherish not only the rainbow but also the winter branch. I am going to work on that next year. Belated Happy Birthday, Nora, and don’t
worry so about growing old. Think of the alternative!
Clara
Wednesday, March 6
A visit this evening from Mr. Jackson who wanted to know why I have not been attending church. I had been expecting him for weeks and wondered why he had taken so long to get around to me; he is supposed to be such a zealot and saver of lost souls. He sat in the front room with the table lamp catching the light in his stiff coppery hair; long legs crossed and looking at me all the while as if I were not entirely right in the head, a woman mildly unbalanced perhaps by keeping to herself. And I said too much. I was far too anxious to convince him of my sincerity. I shouldn’t have gone on the way I did; it is a failing of those who live alone that when we do have visitors, we say too much. Henry Jackson merely smiled at the things I said and from time to time shook his head as if conversing with some harmless madwoman. He began by saying how disappointed many of the congregation were by my absence these past few weeks. “Your friends, Miss Callan, are worried about you,” he said. “They think
perhaps since your father’s death last year you may have become a little too withdrawn. I understand too that your sister is now down in the States and can’t get up to visit as often as she might like. Would this not be a good time then to attend your church and see your friends? Worship God?”
I should have told him that he made me sound like an invalid. Instead I said, “I no longer believe.”
“No longer believe what?” he asked. He seemed infuriatingly self-assured. Hardly moved in the chair, but lowered his head a little to study me.
“I no longer believe in God,” I said.
He smiled at that. “And what do you believe in then, Miss Callan?”
I told him then that I believed in nothing. But I went on about it far too long. Told him that my belief in God had vanished utterly one Sunday morning in February while I sat at the kitchen table. Belief in God now seemed to me only a childish fantasy. There is nothing there and there never has been. There is no Heaven, no Hell, no resurrectionof the dead. Why did I go on like that? All that detail about Sunday morning at the kitchen table? What foolishness!
He seemed only amused by me. Then he said, “You seem very sure of yourself, Miss Callan. Do you have any proof that God does
I should tell you that I have become a topic of conversation on the church porch these days. Or so I am told. This is the fourth consecutive Sunday that I have missed church and apparently the new minister has been asking questions about my spiritual health. Well, I am not going to church these days because I don’t feel like it. I seem to have lost interest in what goes on there and they can make of that what they will. Do you go to church down there, or have you pretty much given up on that too?
Yes, I finally finished War and Peace . It is an excellent book though I grew a little weary of it in places. A fellow called Pierre is for me the most attractive figure in the entire novel, but I particularly liked Tolstoy’s description of the Russian landscape, especially in winter. It reminded me of Ontario in many ways. This long winter will soon be over, and yes, I am fed up with the damn furnace and its daily demands. On the other hand, I am also tired of the voice in my head that is always complaining about things. I am also beginning to believe that somehow I must learn to recapture the pleasure I took in winter when I was a child. I’m sure I tired of it then too, but I must have taken more joy in it as well. It does no good to wish away the days of the fourth season as I seem to have been doing since Christmas. As someone put it, I must teach myself to cherish not only the rainbow but also the winter branch. I am going to work on that next year. Belated Happy Birthday, Nora, and don’t
worry so about growing old. Think of the alternative!
Clara
Wednesday, March 6
A visit this evening from Mr. Jackson who wanted to know why I have not been attending church. I had been expecting him for weeks and wondered why he had taken so long to get around to me; he is supposed to be such a zealot and saver of lost souls. He sat in the front room with the table lamp catching the light in his stiff coppery hair; long legs crossed and looking at me all the while as if I were not entirely right in the head, a woman mildly unbalanced perhaps by keeping to herself. And I said too much. I was far too anxious to convince him of my sincerity. I shouldn’t have gone on the way I did; it is a failing of those who live alone that when we do have visitors, we say too much. Henry Jackson merely smiled at the things I said and from time to time shook his head as if conversing with some harmless madwoman. He began by saying how disappointed many of the congregation were by my absence these past few weeks. “Your friends, Miss Callan, are worried about you,” he said. “They think
perhaps since your father’s death last year you may have become a little too withdrawn. I understand too that your sister is now down in the States and can’t get up to visit as often as she might like. Would this not be a good time then to attend your church and see your friends? Worship God?”
I should have told him that he made me sound like an invalid. Instead I said, “I no longer believe.”
“No longer believe what?” he asked. He seemed infuriatingly self-assured. Hardly moved in the chair, but lowered his head a little to study me.
“I no longer believe in God,” I said.
He smiled at that. “And what do you believe in then, Miss Callan?”
I told him then that I believed in nothing. But I went on about it far too long. Told him that my belief in God had vanished utterly one Sunday morning in February while I sat at the kitchen table. Belief in God now seemed to me only a childish fantasy. There is nothing there and there never has been. There is no Heaven, no Hell, no resurrectionof the dead. Why did I go on like that? All that detail about Sunday morning at the kitchen table? What foolishness!
He seemed only amused by me. Then he said, “You seem very sure of yourself, Miss Callan. Do you have any proof that God does
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