
Bats
The scene yesterday was classic Cabin, with kids in the water, balls being thrown, races being won or lost, dinner around the picnic tables, fears confronted and overcome, stories told. As it was Sunday, and as the youngest grandchildren love new toys, they came with me to Sunday School.
Sunday School at Doe Run had all the robust strength of a beloved institution filled with friends, students, teachers and a courageous Superintendent. A volunteer Sunday School Superintendent is someone willing to confront weekly staffing challenges. Ed filled out the list of teachers for classes. He bravely persuaded them, the young parents overwhelmed and exhausted, the mature parents savoring the quiet of a cup of coffee without children and a mature worship experience, and the parents with grown-up children announcing blithely “been there, done that.” Year after year. Faith is tested on those annual searches for volunteers.
And then it is tested again when the calls come. It is Sunday morning. The teacher for the early years has a sore throat and can’t come. Or 2 kids are acting out in the 3rd-4th grade class. But Ed had that combination of quiet faith and firmness of vision that took him above all that.
Merv’s sermon illustrations were peppered with cabin building stories. Ed knew what we were doing here. He knew we were pulling off the old siding and putting in new windows and new siding. He just showed up one day with hammer and crowbar and tool belt, ready to work. As the drive to the cabin was a good 8 hours, this was a mighty act.
Merv was at the worst part of the job right then. Dread was evident in every movement. It wasn’t that he was procrastinating. He woke up just at dawn. He had coffee. He threw water on his face. He worked a piece of hemlock off the side of the cabin. He looked at it. He pounded out each nail. He straightened each nail. He put it in a can. He carried the board to the pile. He corrected the pitch of the pile. He had another cup of coffee. He carefully worried off the next piece of hemlock. It was a slow careful, quiet operation. It stayed low. It avoided the eaves of the cabin under the roof. It avoided those creatures that pepper every horror story. It avoided the harbingers of haunt, the denizens of dusk, the familiars of witches, of Dracula. It avoided THE BATS!
We had bats. At dusk every night one after another they streamed out from the eaves of the cabin, to soar and dive, to find every last bug and mosquito over the pond. We should have loved them. They should have loved us. But we avoided them and they waited till dusk, after all, to fly out. We were pretty sure that they lived only in the roof. But as the work on the boards reached higher and higher up the walls of the cabin the reluctance grew. The plying off, the pounding out, became more and more meticulous acts. Till Ed showed up. Crow bar in, creak. Crow bar up, creak creak, crow bar in at the top, creak, pound, crash, the piece of wood off and down. Next hemlock board bang, next one bang! The side wall is complete! Moving along to the front, creak, pound crash, again and again! In a morning Ed had ripped the siding off the cabin walls. Except for under the eaves.
Ed hated bats. Merv hated ladders. He held the ladder. Ed went up the ladder. Crow bar in, creak. Crow bar up, creak creak, crow bar in at the top, creak pound. “Hiss. Squeal, chatter! Click!” Ed came down, leg over leg, down the rungs of the ladder. The board stayed up. Ed’s face was red.
Ed had a cup of coffee. He looked at the board. He looked at the ladder. He looked grim. He went back up, slowly. He breathed deeply. He was resolute, finding that place in himself that surmounted obstacles. He pried with the crowbar. The hemlock groaned, complaining against the nails pulling out. Another pry with the crowbar. More hemlock protests. “Hisssssssss. SQUEAL, Angry Chatter!” Ed came down, hopping with both legs, barely meeting one rung of the ladder before he was off again in an acrobatic race. His face was white.
Ed had coffee. He had lunch. He had resolve. He found that place of strength in himself. He found the determination that had confronted Sunday School teacher staffing. He found the courage that confronted the parents of mis-behaving 9 year olds. Slowly, carefully, Ed ascended the ladder, an act of sheer will, the mind completely in control over the body, faith evident as each rung was gripped by the hand, then the next hand, then the foot, then the other foot. Ed reached the top rung. He gripped the crow bar. He put his weight against it. The board screamed off the wall. The absolutely enraged, terrified bat flew out into the full sun! Ed came down. He skipped the rungs altogether, barely slowing his descent with his hands on the sides of the ladder. He landed in Merv’s arms. Ed’s face was green. His hands were trembling. He did not go up that ladder again.
Merv finished the job up there. No fastidious work. Swift movement of crowbar an hammer, under the angry faces of the other bats. They pulled their wings back, glared, hissed and grimaced. Merv became locally famous for his ability to mimic an enraged bat, till he put his fame aside and said no to pleas of “Do the angry bat, Dad, come on.”
Our grandson wouldn’t go in the water last year. He held on to his Mom or Dad’s arms, then madly climbed right up them when he felt the water on his legs. Really fast. They didn’t push it. He arrived this summer. He watched his cousins jump in, play around, laugh. He put on his life jacket. He held on to his Dad. He let go. He started kicking and laughing. Yesterday he went off to Sunday school with cousins, no parents. He was in the water all afternoon. What a great day!