Between us
Falling into faith
someone?”
I said, “No.” She asked, “Then what do you
mean by shouting?” I said, “Robbers better beware. A strong man lives in this house.” “Well,” she said, “Wally better beware. Big words want big deeds, you know.”
When she’d gone back inside,
I yelled louder, “My daddy is the strongest man in the world. Big words want big deeds, you know!” In those days a cherry tree spread its branches like a canopy over our backyard. This was my hiding place. Ten feet above the ground a stout limb divided into a horizontal fork, a scaffold on which I would lie face-down to read, to think. No one bothered me here. A hiding place is a secret. No one knew I was here. Even my parents didn’t know. They might open the back door and call, “Wally? Wally?” but couldn’t see me in the leaves.
By Walter Wangerin Jr. W
hen I was a boy I told people that my father was stronger than anyone else in the world. He was a handsome man. He sported a swooping curl above the middle of his forehead. He sought
Wangerin, an author of many novels and books of essays, is an ELCA pastor and senior research pro- fessor at Valparaiso [Ind.] University (walterwangerinjr. org). His “Between us” column appears quarterly in The Lutheran.
my soul with soft brown eyes. When he cut wood to build furniture, the sawdust clung to his forearms. And when he picked me up, it scratched my face with a masculine affection. It filled my nostrils with a woody scent that ever since has reminded me of a small boy’s comfort and his father’s steadfast love. We lived on the near north side of
Chicago. I would take a stand on our front porch and yell, “My daddy’s arms are as strong as trucks! He’s the strongest man in the world!” My mother came out and said, “Are you trying to start a fight with
28 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
I was a tricky kid. Then came the summer thunderstorms. Dreaming in my tree, I was often oblivious to changes in the weather. Only when a midday gloom darkened my book did I glance around. Suddenly one afternoon a fresh wind ripped through the backyard and whacked my cherry tree with such force it tore the book from my hands and nearly threw me from my hiding place. I locked my arms around each forking branch and held on. My head hung from my shoulders over a world of emptiness. I tried to wind my legs around the limb behind me, but the whole tree was wallow- ing in the wind. “Daddy!”
The sky grew black. Dust whirled higher than the house. A lightning bolt dropped from the clouds. For an instant there was an odd, perfect calm. Then the thunder crashed. And
DESIGNPICS
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