Tessie D

Angel and I have been coming in early for breakfast again. He brings me a glazed donut and a kolache every morning. I brew a pot of coffee, and we sit at the little table in the kitchen before starting our work for the day. It’s how I’d imagine what married life might be like with him in a few months.

This morning, we were talking about our parents — well, Angel was talking more about his family than I was about mine. I still haven’t shared too much about Momma and Daddy with him. It’s not that I’m ashamed of them. Shame assumes that I’ve done something wrong, that I have some sort of character flaw that I should feel bad about. Which I haven’t. And, which I don’t.

But, if I’m honest, I am embarrassed by them. By our poverty. By Daddy’s mental health. Especially when I see how different Angel’s family and mine are.

“I talked to my father last night,” Angel says just as I’ve taken a sip from my coffee. I inhale too quickly and burn my tongue.

“You did? Did you tell him about us getting engaged?” I asked.

“Not yet,” Angel said, looking out the front window. “I was going to. But then he started in on wanting to know how much longer I planned to be at the dairy. He went on a tirade.” Angel lowered the tone of his voice to mimic his father: “Surely, I’ve learned all there is to know about farming. Surely, it’s time to move on and go back to college. Surely, I can at least find a position as a manager so that I can stop working as nothing more than a hired hand. Surely, I can at least start thinking about buying my own land and at least make something of myself,” Angel rolled his eyes. “I know he’s still disappointed that I’m not going into the ministry.”

I was struck by how similar our families were.

“My parents aren’t that happy with me, either. My mother doesn’t like the idea of me living here with roommates. She’s disappointed that I’m not already married,” I said.

Angel’s face softened. “Well, we’ll remedy that soon, won’t we?” He reached out and squeezed my hand.

I smiled back.

“I want a different sort of life. I don’t want to be a minister and serve in that way. He doesn’t understand that. He said that if it’s about making money, I can make a good living as a preacher in a big church.” Angel lowered his voice again to mimic his father’s voice: “The prosperity doctrine doesn’t mean that you have to live as a pauper in service of the Lord.” You can have both the physical comforts and spiritual riches. I told him that I’d prefer to be in worship with nature, and he called me a pagan, liberal hippie.”

“How does someone even respond to something like that?” I was dumbfounded. I’d never heard of a “prosperity doctrine,” and I didn’t know of any wealthy preachers. I thought that most preachers adhered to the “wealthy man in Heaven, camel through the eye of a needle” doctrine.

Angel laughed, “I reminded him of Psalm 24:1, ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.’ And, then I suggested that maybe he was right: We’d all have been better off if our modern religions were derived from Greece rather than Jerusalem.” 

Angel stirred his coffee and went on, “He said that he didn’t understand my interest in farming and nature. That I wanted to be disconnected from civilization so that I could live a sinful life without being accountable to his family, community, or God. I told him that God was just as present on the tractor as he was in the church and that I didn’t need other people to make me accountable. My moral compass remains constant, regardless of whether God or anyone is paying attention to me. I could hardly call them morals if I only lived by them when I thought someone was paying attention.” 

Angel laughed, “Then, just because at this point, I had nothing to lose, I asked him for access to my college fund. To put down as a down payment on a house and some land.” 

There it was again: the differences between us. He could argue with his father in one moment and ask him for money in the next. And, it would be there: Money set aside for college. Money in the bank in a savings account. Money that a parent could just give to a child without having to ration or go without later.