Caught
Web in the
By Kathy Luder
M
om’s voice rang up the stairs. “Kathy, come down and say hello to the pastor.” Pastor had come to borrow a lawn mower.
H I G H E R T H I N G S __ 14
I had just finished reading my e-mail. My e-mail had brought devastating news, and I wasn’t quite ready to face the pastor. Mom called again: “Kathy, Pastor is here.” Down I went. I stood just outside the kitchen, out of their line of sight, catching my breath. Mom was asking Pastor if he wanted cream or sugar, and he was chatting about how long his grass was. The e-mail from Rachel was burned into my brain. She was going to hell. I had met Rachel, the daughter of a Lutheran pastor, at an arts camp two years ago. We became instant friends that week and shared a bond I’ve rarely known. Then the week ended, and she went back home to Texas, eight hundred miles from here. We e-mailed for a while and made some phone calls, but the bond wasn’t there like it had been in the moldy cabin in Traverse City. It just faded away. It wasn’t her fault, and it wasn’t my fault. It just happened. But I missed the girl I knew at camp. I hadn’t heard from her for over a year, and then my inbox rang. Rachel wrote to tell me that she’d gone Goth. She didn’t believe in God. She read the Satanist’s Bible and thought it made a lot of sense. She also said her parents were getting divorced. I knew I had to ask someone what to do, but I didn’t want to just yet. I needed some time to think about it. I had to put on my game face and not let on that I felt like I might vomit. Mom came round the corner to send another volley up the stairs and almost knocked me over.
“Oh, there you are. Sorry. Pastor is here,” she said, turning back around to return to the kitchen. “Yeah, I know,” I said and started to follow her. She stopped, turned back around, and whispered, “Have you been crying?” “No,” I said, looking away.“Don’t look at me like that. I‘m fine.” “Kathy?” she said, putting her hands on my shoulders and turning me back to her. I fell into her arms. I softly cried while the pastor’s spoon tinkled in his cup. If he knew something was up, he didn’t let on. “Go on up to your room,” she whispered as she spun me back toward the stairs. “I’ll send him away and be right up.” “No,” I said. “I want to talk to him.” Now she looked scared, but she shrugged and led me to the kitchen table where we all sat down. And then I poured out the story. I cried a little more. I couldn’t help it. I was heartbroken and scared. They didn’t interrupt. Even when I got sidetracked and told stories of camp, they just sat and listened. My mom has never been so quiet. Finally I said,“I let Rachel down. I should have stayed her friend. I should have witnessed to her. I didn’t even know any of this was going on. Now I don’t know what to say. And I don’t want to offend her or drive her away.” Pastor took a sip of coffee and a deep breath. “This is not your fault. Rachel chose her own path. You didn’t suggest it. You didn’t help her find it.” He reached over and touched my hand. “You did not fail her.” I nodded and smiled a little, but I was thinking that he says that to everybody. And sometimes, I was thinking, despite the forgiveness we have in Christ, it is our fault. He went on,“Your guilt feels real, but it’s false. You haven’t done anything wrong.” He must have read my mind. “I don’t know,’” I said. He was looking me in the eye, and I didn’t like it. I focused on a spider web with a fly caught in it just outside the window. He wasn’t quitting. “You are heartbroken, and you’re afraid for your friend. But you didn’t do anything wrong. The false guilt feels real. Because when you think about what happened, you are full of regret and what ifs.” I nodded and pulled my hand away. I couldn’t take my eyes off that fly. He was shaking the web, sending the signal to the spider, wherever he was, that dinner was ready. The pastor leaned forward. I had to look at him. He said, “Kathy, I am absolutely sincere when I say you haven’t done anything wrong.” He sat back in his chair. “You should embrace that at an intellectual level, even if you can’t quite convince your heart of it. You haven’t done anything wrong.” He waited. “I mean it.” He just didn’t seem to get it. I said,“But . . . He interrupted. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”
