The Tombstone
A Short Story
“Those among us who seriously want to be Christians ask at this hour: God, come into our waiting. God, we are waiting for your salvation, your judgment, for your love and your peace. Jesus speaks to us: Behold! I am standing at the door knocking. And we say: Yes, come, Lord Jesus.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from the sermon “At the Turning Point: Waiting for God,” preached on November 29, 1931¹
Recently, the boy had become fascinated by a tombstone. Not by the stone itself — an unremarkable slab of weathered, moss-mottled limestone — but its bizarre isolation. For this particular tombstone was located not on the funerary grounds of a cemetery or private family plot, but rather stood alone, anomalously, under the canopy of a lone tree at the center of a grassy field.
From the road, the boy at first thought maybe he’d spied a rogue boulder or something — the field’s tall grass and wildflowers concealed all but the topmost portion — but curiosity got the better of him, so he decided to investigate. Up close, the boulder theory quickly crumbled. This was clearly a grave marker; he’d seen many like it in the cemetery next to the church. He took note of the tombstone’s crude inscription, and although he couldn’t read what it said, he imagined the words disclosed something significant. As he retraced his steps back through the field, he wondered, Why there?
The discovery had occurred as the boy walked the dusty horse-trodden road that runs (more or less) from his house to the Presbyterian church just outside of town, a journey he’d made every Sunday morning since he could remember. Sun, rain, snow… didn’t matter—he was going to church. In good conditions the walk took about an hour, give or take, and aside from the two cabins, the roadside scenery along the way was mostly dense forest interrupted on occasion by expanses of wild meadow.
Now it’s Sunday again, and the weather for the boy’s weekly trek to church is uncomplicated: clear skies and heavy, late-summer heat. Not wanting to be late for worship, he grudgingly forgoes a follow-up inspection of the mystery grave site, deciding instead that he’ll ask the Minister about it after church. He presses on, and as he rounds the road’s last familiar bend, the boy can hear the gospel choir bellowing one of his favorites: “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning.” He quickens his pace.
After worship, the boy waits patiently at the bottom of the church’s steps for the Minister to wrap up his ritual of exchanging pleasantries and prayer requests with parishioners as they file out of the sanctuary. At last, he turns his attention to the boy. “Good morning, young man.”
“Good morning, Reverend.” A pair of nuthatches exchange tinny trills in the distance. “I was wondering if you might know anything about this, um… I mean… If you walk down that road a ways, there’s this field that has a tombstone in it, right by an old — ”
“ — Bigtooth,” the Minister interrupts.
“What?”
“The tree,” says the Minister. “It’s a Bigtooth Aspen.”
“Oh,” the boy says, momentarily flustered by the unanticipated botanical trivia. “Wait, but so you know the place I’m talking about?”
“I do. Very well.”
“And the tombstone?”
“Mmhmm.” The Minister nods absentmindedly, his gaze drifting sideways. “Sad, sad story, though.”
“I see…” the boy replies, trying to conceal his eagerness.
“I’d hardly believe it myself if I hadn’t been there. Mercy… I haven’t visited Gabriel’s grave in years.”
Gabriel. The boy savors this bit of information. He does not expect what the Minister says next.
“You up for a walk?”
The midday sun is fully alive now, immense and unforgiving. Butterflies with wings like blue flames dart about the weeds on either side of the road, and the boy imagines the Minister knows their proper name. The Minister’s pace is unhurried and ruminative. He rolls up the sleeves of his linen shirt and begins.
“For our purposes, brother Gabriel’s tale begins when he’s a grown man. Like many, he’d heard whispers carrying the promise of a better life here in the Colonies. Believing he had little to lose, Gabriel resolved to go, and set about scraping together the necessary funds to secure his passage to the New World.
“He made his voyage across the Atlantic as a passenger on a decommissioned Company ship named for the Roman goddess believed to relieve men of pain and sorrow: Angerona. That the vessel had this specific name Gabriel considered an auspicious sign, and he was heartened by it.
“Now, having been orphaned as a child, Gabriel had not been raised in the faith, and I suppose it’s possible he’d never even heard the gospel until his time on board the Angerona. Unlike the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus or even the great John Calvin, brother Gabriel’s conversion to the Lord was not sudden and metamorphic; rather, it unfolded… erratically. But it begins with a small, tattered bible he discovered in the ship’s galley, tucked between crates of cargo and long-forgotten by its previous owner.
“In the weeks that followed, Gabriel devoured the holy scriptures, gradually awakening to the voice of the Holy Ghost. And ultimately—if still a bit uncertainly—accepting the Creator’s claim on his body and soul.”
The Minister veers toward the road’s edge and gently touches a violet-colored wildflower. “Liatris spicata,” he says. “The ‘dense blazing star.’ Fitting name, don’t you think?”
The boy nods. He estimates they’re about halfway to the tombstone. “Did he get baptized?”
The Minister releases the flower, resuming his casual walk. “No—well not yet, anyway. You see, Gabriel was at the same time impressionable and impossibly stubborn. So although he had in some sense come to faith, he still held his newfound belief at somewhat of a distance. So, days before disembarking the ship, Gabriel gave God an ultimatum: Convince me of your presence with a sign or vision, Gabriel prayed, and I will serve you the remainder of my days.”
“Whoa,” the boy says, almost inaudibly.
“Audacious, I agree. Gabriel told me countless times he’d read that old bible he found cover-to-cover—so I have to believe he was familiar with Hebrews eleven, the bit about faith being the ‘evidence of things not seen,’ et cetera.” The Minister shrugs.
“Anyhow, when he stepped off that boat, he was determined to find God. Unfortunately, though, what he found was that life in the New World was difficult. The details are unimportant; suffice it to say that he struggled to start life over again, essentially from nothing. So over the next few years he wandered farther and farther inland, unable or unwilling to settle down in any one place. Meanwhile, his already feeble faith had very nearly flickered out. If God had heard his prayer at all, Gabriel thought, he hadn’t done a thing about it. And then everything changed.”
Just as he says this, the Minister and the boy arrive at the field. They turn off the road and begin wading through the grass toward the towering Aspen tree.
The Minister goes on: “One day, as Gabriel was walking aimlessly toward his next unplanned, temporary destination, a massive rainstorm materialized above him, abruptly enveloping the entire sky. Never in my whole life have I seen a storm that violent before or since.”
“You were there?” the boy asks. They’re nearly to the tree.
“I was working on my sermon inside the church when the clouds rolled in. Gabriel, on the other hand was likely standing in the middle of the very road we just walked together.”
The boy steals a wide-eyed glance back at the road.
“The rain came down so quickly and relentlessly that Gabriel had hardly any time at all to find shelter—to do anything—before finding himself swept up in the chaotic current of a flash flood. Panic overcame him as the raging waters thrashed his body this way and that, rapidly threatening to overwhelm him. He desperately flailed his arms, searching for anything to grab on to, but it was a futile effort. The last thing he remembered before blacking out, he said, was praying: I’m ready, Lord. Well he certainly wasn’t ready for what happened next. When he came to, Gabriel was slumped over at the base of a tree—this tree—sun shining overhead and not a scratch or bruise anywhere on his body. The whole thing was utterly unbelievable—miraculous, even. After all this time, Gabriel thought, God had finally answered his prayer.
“That’s the day I met him, in fact. Gabriel walked out to the road, and the very next building he came upon was a church—which all but confirmed the whole ordeal as a sign from God… in his mind, anyway. In any case, when he noticed me inside the church, he didn’t even bother to introduce himself as he strode up the stairs… just announced, ‘I think it’s time I get baptized.’”
The boy is suddenly aware of a breeze in the air, mellow and merciful.
“Fast forward a year or so,” the Minister says, “and Gabriel had at last settled down, having found a home in the community and in our congregation as an enthusiastic member. He was constantly sharing his story—his ‘epiphany,’ as he was fond of calling it—with anyone who would listen, and occasionally even ones who wouldn’t.” The Minister laughs… then sighs. “Internally, though, Gabriel was wrestling with his faith. He was content but not entirely fulfilled. He’d had a profound, overpowering awareness of God’s presence when he woke up underneath the tree that day, and devoted though he was, hadn’t had a single spiritual experience remotely like it since.
“For reasons beyond my comprehension, he became increasingly convinced that the Aspen tree before us now was somehow integral to his epiphany—that, or maybe the soil beneath it. Either way, that’s when things started going sideways. He started making visits to the tree—first every once in a while, then more often, and eventually daily—offering fervent prayers of supplication, pleading with God to return to this place, to his life. And at some point, he just stayed put, right here at the foot of the tree.”
“Stayed put? As in, didn’t leave?”
“Mmhmm. He sat here night and day, praying ’til he could stay awake no longer, and would start right up again just as soon as he woke up. His mission, which I believe had started with pure and virtuous intentions, had transformed into a kind of… willful madness. Whatever it was, myself and a couple of parishioners who knew Gabriel well tried our best convincing him to leave, but nothing any of us said got through to him. So we gave up. Well, they gave up, but I couldn’t—I had to do something. And since I couldn’t get through to his mind, I decided the best way to help in the meantime was to look after his body. So I brought him blankets to keep him warm. And food. And water. And I don’t think he touched any of it. I think I thought maybe he was refusing to eat because he was fasting, upping his dedication. I don’t know. I wish there was something else I could’ve done, but Gabriel had forsaken his own nourishment. Forsaken himself. He was dead within days.
“After he died, I debated whether his grave should be here or in the church cemetery… but, well, the decision I made is obvious, I guess.”
The boy is confused. “What difference does it make where he’s buried?”
“A pretty big one, I think. Symbolically, at least. You see, the one thing in life the brother Gabriel I knew wanted more than anything was to know God. To see God, experience God’s presence. And to put it charitably, his final days, spent in pursuit of that ambition, were nothing but tragic, misguided fanaticism. We don’t need to be vigilant in our search for God, when we’re called simply to be prepared. To be ready. God comes to us not in single moments that escape the hearts and minds of the inattentive; rather, God comes to us—is always coming to us—in an unbroken and unyielding stream of moments. In creation. In relationships. In worship. In the tender hospitality of a stranger. For those who are truly alert to it, God’s presence is practically inescapable. This is why Jesus tells us to always be ready, to keep our lamps lit. Gabriel’s unfortunate mistake was not that his lamp wasn’t lit, but that he aimed it into a corner.
“So. Do you bury a man alone, at the site of his folly, believing that’s what he would’ve wanted? Or in the cemetery, among the faithful departed whose faces on earth reflected the love of the very God the man so desperately sought? That was the question. That’s the difference.” He looks toward the boy. “What do you think?” he asks. “You think I made the right decision?”
The boy takes a moment to consider the question before replying, “All I know is, I wouldn’t have ever heard Gabriel’s story if he was buried in the cemetery, if that means something.”
The boy points to the tombstone. “What does it say?”
“Gabriel’s name and his age at death—32 years, 8 months, and 11 days. The rest is in Latin. In morte invenit res quisnam in vitam quaeritis.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, In death he finds that which he sought in life.”
¹Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Volume 2. Edited by Victoria J. Barnett, Fortress Press, 2017, p. 66.
This story was originally presented as a sermon reflecting on Luke 12:32–40 for the congregation of Faith Lutheran Church.
