Shades Of Mercy - Softcover

Lustrea; Anita B; Dahlstrand R

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802409687 ISBN 13: 9780802409683

Publisher: Moody Publishers, 2013

Synopsis

What is the good life that we so often hear talk of in our modern age?

Is it cars that drive fast, houses that resemble castles? Is it unbounded sexual pleasure, unrestrained personal gratification of all one's desires? Is it quiet and solitude, individual removal from the storm and thunder of modern society? Or is it obedient Christian faith that causes spiritual corpses to burst forth with godly passion and holy worship that transforms one's own life, one's environment, and one's eternal destiny?

This other way of life proceeds from an ancient book that lifts life in this age and all mothers to another plane. This is the truly good life, the path plotted for the steps of mankind by almighty God. It involves sacrifice, and hardship, and hard work. It means self-denial, self-abasement, and an others-centered mindset. It is radically God-centered and deeply rooted in Scripture. This, and no other path, offers the souls of humanity lasting happiness.

For Jonathan Edwards, submission to God and His will was the path to true fulfillment and the good life.  Easily accessible and readable, you do not need to be a scholar to enjoy these insights about Jonathan Edwards and his writings.

About this title

About the Author

ANITA LUSTREA is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute, a seasoned radio veteran, and co-host of Moody Broadcasting¿s Midday Connection (www.middayconnection.org). She is the co-author of Daily Seeds from Women who Walk in Faith, Come to Our Table: A Midday Connection Cookbook, and author of What Women Tell Me. Anita lives in the western suburbs of Chicago, Illinois with her husband, Mike, and their son. Check out Anita¿s website for more information www.anitalustrea.com.

CARYN DAHLSTRAND RIVADENEIRA is a writer, speaker, and works on the worship staff at Elmhurst Christian Reformed Church. She¿s the author of Known and Loved: 52 Devotions from the Psalms (Revell, 2013), Grumble Hallelujah: Learning to Love Life When It Lets You Down (Tyndale House, 2011) and Mama¿s Got a Fake I.D.: How to Reveal the Real You Behind All that Mom (Waterbrook, 2009), as well as hundreds of blog posts and magazine articles. Caryn is a regular contributor to Christianity Today¿s Her.Meneutics and to Re:Frame Media¿s Think Christian. Her work also regularly appears in Relevant and FullFill, along with several other media outlets.Caryn lives outside of Chicago with her husband, three kids and one pit bull. Visit her at www.carynrivadeneira.com. Find her on Facebook at (facebook.com/carynrivadeneira) and on Twitter @CarynRivadeneir

From the Back Cover

Someday
. . . her father will see Mercy for the young woman she has become.
. . . Mercy and Mick can move their relationship out from the shadows.
. . . Mercy will leave Maine’s Northwoods for the world outside.

Although other parts of the country were changing, the Maliseets of Maine’s Northwoods were still relegated to shanties on the local garage dump. Those who found work were farmhands, not bosses. And, of course, a Maliseet boy could never date the farmer’s daughter. Not ever.

All of that began to change in 1954. As racial tensions escalate, Mercy and her Maliseet boyfriend find it nearly impossible to hold onto their someday dream . . . then disaster strikes, looking surprisingly like the grace of God.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

SHADES OF MERCY

A Maine Chronicle

By Anita Lustrea, Caryn Rivadeneira, Pam Pugh

Moody Publishers

Copyright © 2013 Anita Lustrea and Caryn Rivadeneira
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8024-0968-3

Contents

Remembering................................................................
9
Part 1: "When you've been given much, much is expected"....................
11
Part 2: "But what doth the Lord require of thee?"..........................
89
Part 3: "I am with you"....................................................
203
Epilogue...................................................................
255
The Maliseet Today.........................................................
257
Acknowledgments............................................................
259

CHAPTER 1

Early June 1954

I shoved The Catcher in the Rye between the mattress and boxspring when I heard Mother yell up the stairs, although I probablyneedn't have. When I asked Mother for money to buy the book,she made it clear that it wasn't one Mr. Pop would condone. Butshe gave me the money anyway.

I figured a book tucked below the mattress, hidden by a stackof quilts and under a layer of ruffles, was one Mr. Pop would notfind. And, therefore, could not disapprove of my reading.

"Mercy," Mother called again more insistently, this time fromthe landing, halfway up our staircase.

I cracked the door open—enough to poke my head out andlet the cat in—never letting go of the glass knob. "Be right down."

"Please hurry. You need to get something in you. Your fatherwants you to go get Ansley and Mick."

I couldn't hide my smile.

My mother smiled back, shook her head, and waved her dishragin the air. I watched her walk back down the stairs. Watchedher graceful hand, still lovely after all that hard work, as it glidedalong the polished oak banister.

I closed the door and leaned for a moment against its darkpanels. My smile spread wider across my face. Plenty of fifteen-year-oldswould've balked at the idea of a drive into town, to whereAnsley and Mick and all the Maliseet lived in the Flats, built overtrash in our town dump. But not me. I'd go anywhere, do anythingto be with Mick.

Though, of course, Mr. Pop didn't know this. He couldn't knowthis.

To him, sending me—"You're as good as any son, Mercy"—wassimply prudent. I was a good driver, able to navigate the longroad into town in any weather. And I was fearless. Unafraid ofpounding on the plywood doors of the Flats, unafraid of pushingthem open, stepping over and between bodies that huddledtogether or crisscrossed on the cold floors. Unafraid of clappingmy hands, of announcing myself, even of shaking Ansley, Francis,Newell, and Clarence awake if I had to.

I suppose I should've been afraid, should've been more awareof the dangers that a teenaged girl stepping into a shack full ofpassed-out men might have presented. But these men wantedwork, needed work. My presence was their manna. My knowledgeof that kept me safe. Well, that and knowing Mick made theserounds with me.

I slid my nightgown off my shoulders and grabbed my shirtand blue jeans from the back of my desk chair. My flannel sleeveslid across the top of my desk and Lickers leapt toward it. Shepinned the sleeve like she had a mouse's tail. Her claws dug intothe slick-stained wood and dragged back.

"Lickers! No!" I swept my arm across the desk. Lickers leaptwith a meow. No.

I ran my finger over the scratch and shook my head, tried notto cry as I thought back to what it took to get this. All last harvest,I'd worked for this desk. And even before with all the rock picking,clearing the fields of rock so the plows could ready the ground.Then I'd spent so many hours, days, weeks bent and sore pickingpotatoes out of the hard, dry earth. Filling the basket, emptying itinto the barrel, filling the basket, emptying it into the barrel. Onand on. The repetition might have made me lose my mind were itnot for our farmhands Bud Drake and Ellery Burt and their encouragingbanter.

But besides the long, hard hours, I got tired of being alone.Even though I was with a crew, no one else filled my barrels. Whenencouraging words failed to do the job, Bud's comments turnedharsher toward us: "You're too far behind." "Your barrel isn't fullenough." "Don't forget to put a ticket on your barrel when it's full."

You'd think we'd never done this before the way he nagged.Then again, Bud was only trying to please Mr. Pop. As was I.

Plus, I was focused on a goal: my new desk. So I put up withnagging and hard work and then the waiting—through the endof last October and first half of November—for the Sears truck todeliver this next piece of furniture to the farm. The one I'd longedfor more than even the dresser or the bed, which I'd worked for theprevious harvest.

The desk represented so much of what I'd wanted. A space tokeep my pens, my journals, my books, and my sketch pads. Andthe mirror above it—the place I could sit and not only feel likeme—the real me—but also see me: the young (was I also smart?Maybe even pretty?) woman looking back at me in that mirror.Instead of the sturdy farmhand Mr. Pop apparently saw.

So once again, I looked in that mirror and took a deep breath.Now wasn't the time to cry about a silly scratch. Not with Motherwaiting to fill me with biscuits and eggs and fresh milk. Not withMr. Pop waiting for me to bring back his workers. Not with Mickwaiting just for me.

I put arms through sleeves and legs through pants. Pulled myhair back into a ponytail and gave Lickers a final glare. She lickedher leg. She never noticed me.

* * *

"Morning, Mercy," Bud said, scraping his fork against theplate. "Truck's all gassed up and ready for you."

"Thanks. And morning to you both." I latched my hand aroundthe porch post and swung a bit as I balanced on the top step, likeI did every morning when I stopped to talk to Bud and Ellery,farmhands so trusted they were like family. Family that ate on theporch, that is.

I turned and raised an eyebrow at Ellery, wondering if hisstandard reply to Bud's greeting, usually some silly adage passeddown through five generations of solid Maine stock, would makesense this morning.

"When all is said and done, Miss Mercy, don't let the door hitya where the good Lord split ya."

Ellery shoved another biscuit into his mouth, and I laughed.This old chestnut even got a snicker out of Mr. Pop.

"So, Ellery, Mother put the last of last night's cheddar in thoseeggs this morning. What'd you think of it?"

Publicly, he'd eat anything. But privately, this man with thejoke had quite the sophisticated palate. Sure, he'd eat anything. Butknew what he liked.

"Wicked good," he said. "Butcha know, that creamy Kraftcheese melts smoother than the cheddar. Wonder if she might trythat sometime."

I shrugged. Ellery slurped his milk and continued: "Hey,watcha think of them wax cartons they're puttin' the milk in thesedays? I want the glass bottles back. This'll be a fad, you just wait."

"I'll mention it to her next time she places her order with Mr.Callahan," I said. "You should've been a chef, Ellery. Could've beenthe new chef at Nelson's. I hear they're hiring."

"Nah," said Ellery, "I'd've missed all this."

I followed his arm as he waved it out across the farm. Thisplace was beautiful. Not just the house and the porch that Motherhad made so lovely and welcoming, with tidy and warm places foranyone and everyone to sit and feel at home. But the land. It wasn'tan easy land to farm, with its hard-packed rocky soil and shortgrowing season, but Mr. Pop always reminded us that it was thebest. It was the very hardness of this place that made it so amazing,he said. The blessings of this place came right out of its trials.

Mother pushed open the screen door. "Mercy, honestly. Haveyou still not gone? Stop bothering Bud and Ellery and get on yourway."

"She's no bother, ma'am," Ellery said and winked at me. "We'rejust talking about your delicious eggs."

Mother smiled, lowered her eyes, and stepped back inside. Shelet the screen door slap closed behind her.

"I'll see you in a bit then," I said and hopped down the stairs,landing hard on my sneakers. "Wait. Mr. Pop said to ask you whereyou'll be when I get back with the Maliseet workers."

"Oh, I suppose the three-acre field would be best to drop themoff. If you manage more than five of them this morning, bring halfdown back and the others to the three acres, off the back road."

"All right. See you when I get back. Want me to feed the chickensand let the pigs out into their pen after that?"

"No, I'll send Bud out to tend to the animals this morning."

Mr. Pop loved his animals. He might act annoyed with Lickers,but he loved seeing her pounce on mice in the shed or in the barn.And the pigs, well, we only had four, but he had them named beforethey'd been in the pen ten minutes. There was Gracie, after thebeautiful and elegant movie star Grace Kelly, then Dorothy, namedafter Uncle Roger's wife, Dot. I'm not sure how I'd feel having apig named after me. Aunt Dot just laughed. I guess Mr. Pop knewshe'd respond that way. Then there was Gertrude. Mr. Pop neversaid, but I always believed she was named after the most annoyingwoman on our party line, Mrs. Garritson. If you ever needed toplace a call, you were almost guaranteed to be thwarted by Mrs.Garritson yapping on the phone. George rounded out the pigs, andno one knows where that name came from. Mr. Pop just pointedout that "He looks like a George!"

We had twenty laying hens that we simply referred to as the"girls." Keep the girls fed, safe, and happy, and you'll always haveplenty of eggs. That's what Mr. Pop said.

He always treated his farm animals well. They had names, agood place to live, and good food to nourish them. We all knewthey'd be food on our table one day, and he wasn't afraid to slaughterthem, but he treated them with dignity and respect all of theirliving days. I can't tell you how many times I heard Mr. Pop say,"Beware the farmer who treats his animals poorly. You could probablymake a case that he doesn't treat his family all that well either."

* * *

The truck rumbled past the buttercups and clover down lowon the roadside and the devil's paintbrushes and lupine in littlepatches here and there. I never tired of driving into town alone. Itgave me time to think. Going the main road meant I could keepthe windows wide-open and catch the breeze. The main road wasone of the few paved ways to get into town. There was great beautyin the back way, either the Ridge Road or the Border Road, butthe dust from the gravel made you close the cab up tight. Today Ienjoyed the wind in my hair.

Mr. Pop had taught me to drive when I was eleven—four yearsbefore. It was standard practice for fathers to teach their sons todrive at that age or even younger. Teaching daughters was somethingof an anomaly. I'm sure plenty of the folks in town—and evenon the surrounding farms—raised their eyebrows a bit when theyfirst saw me at the wheel, bouncing and lurching down the backfarm road as I learned to work the clutch on the old Ford potatotruck. Who knows what they must've thought hearing those grindinggears halfway into town, watching me slide around corners inthe muddy buildup at the end of the potato rows. However, thepeople of Watsonville, Maine, were plenty used to Mr. Pop tellingthem I was as "good as any son—if not better" and had been usedto seeing me raised as the son he never had.

And certainly by now the sight of me, Paul's daughter, in thatold potato truck was a regular one. I waved at Pastor Murphy andMrs. Brown chatting in front of Fulton's on Main Street, knowingthat the place I was headed, and what I was off to do, still offeredplenty of fodder for gossip.

It had become clear enough by last summer when I was fourteenthat I was no son. And that Mr. Pop still sent me and my "buddingwomanhood," Mother called it, to round up his Indian workersleft many people shaking their heads and clucking their tongues.

If it had been any other father besides Paul Millar sending hisdaughter, it'd have been an uncontainable scandal, boiling over theentire town, through the farms, into the logging camps, and evenacross the border into New Brunswick. It'd happened with otherstories.

But Paul Millar was a trusted, esteemed man. A true man ofGod and of honor. Although many folks questioned his decisionsregarding me and the people he chose to hire, no one could questionhis heart and his mind. He was a good man. And everybodyknew it. Everybody liked him.

Which meant that when Mother took me shopping in town—steppinginto Fishman's and Woolworth's, our favorites for achocolate soda and to look at magazines, pens, and diaries, orinto the Chain Apparel and Boston Shoe Store for school clothesand shoes or browsing the beautiful dresses in Woodson's thatsometimes made Mother tear up as she rubbed her fingers againstthe fabrics—no one dared ask the questions they were desperateto. When we stopped into the IGA Grocery Store, Miss Maude'scheckout line would grow uncharacteristically quiet. She may havestarted her gossip about us the moment the bells jingled behindus, but at least she didn't pry for information. Not the way she didwith other people.

* * *

I slowed the truck.

"Molly! Molly Carmichael!" I yelled and waved out the truckwindow. But Molly just grimaced and waved me on. I stopped thetruck midstreet to watch her kick off into a run. I hadn't gotten achance to talk to Molly much since school let out a few weeks ago.And I missed that. Molly was the only one I could talk to aboutMick, the only one who understood. Molly's older sister Marjorieand Glenn Socoby had been seeing each other on the sly since lastEaster. Glenn was a Maliseet, like Mick. I was tempted to turn thetruck to follow her, find out what was up, but Mr. Pop would'vehad my hide. I'd have to catch her another time. Mick, Ansley, andthe others were waiting.

The truck croaked and lurched forward, causing heads to turnagain on Main Street. But I kept my eyes on what lay ahead: thestately Second Baptist Church. I always wished we went there.Not just because our friends the Carmichaels were members, butbecause of its ivory steeple cutting into Maine skies, its creamycolumns standing firm in front of scrubbed-each-summer claybricks, and its English-born-and-bred preacher, Second Baptistbreathed sophistication. Even though my family's First Baptist hadbeaten Second Baptist to the punch years ago and won the BaptistChurch Naming War, somehow our little country church, tuckedback among potato fields, seemed like the loser.

Especially since Second Baptist got its new sign—the oneEllery called a "braggin' sign." Today it read: "Sunday at 9 a.m.Love Thy Neighbor." I'd have to tell Mr. Pop this one. I knew whathe'd say: "Better we love our neighbors all the time, Mercy. Not justnine o'clock on Sundays."

CHAPTER 2

The stench of rot and decay and animal waste hit before thesight of it.

But whenever the Flats came into view—after that bend justpast town, after the buildings give way once again to the pines—thesmell made sense. Because it isn't just the dump itself but theyears of that putrid smell that clung to shack walls, if you call corrugatedcardboard or tin (with tar paper stapled to it) walls. Thatgag-inducing odor steeped deep into old sofas and sunk down intochewed-through mattresses.

This is how and where Mick and the rest of the Maliseet lived.This is where our town had relegated them. But the proud Maliseettried not to focus on the trash and the ugly; instead they set theireyes on the surrounding beauty. After all, here the rolling brookhugged the country road and sparkled as it ran over rocks andrapids. High white birch and tall pines peppered the landscapeacross and behind the dump. In fact, in many ways the mound oftrash itself blended in. Were it not for the shacks, the rectangles ofgray—the soiled mattresses that the Maliseet slept on under opensky—the stray, jutting bits of broken chairs, and piles of tin cansand cereal boxes that the people of Watsonville drove out and piledonto the heap every Saturday, one could be hard-pressed to distinguishthis hill from the other ones that rolled their way out oftown.

Mr. Pop had taught me to stay vigilant for the dangers thatlurked along this inviting gravel-covered road: moose, deer, andbear could wander out at any moment. But as I drove out this day,the words of Second Baptist's braggin' sign reminded me of anotherdanger Mr. Pop often warned me of. "Be careful," he would say,"when people fail to treat one another with dignity."

I hadn't always understood when he said this, but as I parkedthe truck at the base of the dump, a chill ran through me, suddenlyunderstanding. I'd always figured the black bears that sniffedand poked around through the trash were the greatest danger here.Perhaps I was wrong.

"Hey! Hurry up!"

I jumped at the knock at the truck window. Mick.

"Come on. Before everyone's up," Mick jimmied the handleand opened the door for me, grabbing my hand as I stepped out."Over here."

He looked around and pulled me toward a pair of smoke-streakedyellow cellar doors.

"Old Man Stringer dropped 'em off yesterday," Mick said. "Hewas too drunk to haul them up all the way. But wanted us to have'em. 'They sure don't work for my shack, so I thought maybe they'dwork for yours; Old Man told me."

(Continues...)

Excerpted from SHADES OF MERCY by Anita Lustrea, Caryn Rivadeneira, Pam Pugh. Copyright © 2013 Anita Lustrea and Caryn Rivadeneira. Excerpted by permission of Moody Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Moody Publishers
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802409687
• ISBN 13: 9780802409683
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272