At choir practice a fellow tenor said,
“People like that—what does the scripture say?
Better a millstone be hung around their neck.
I don’t think I could ever forgive a man—.”
I swallowed hard, thinking of my dad.
“Doesn’t Christ’s atonement cover that?”
I asked. He stopped. A sister thanked me privately.
A neighbor’s name was splattered in the news.
His daughter’s name was not, but all could figure.
He turned himself in: first to his furious wife,
and then after arrangements, to the sheriff.
I cried for the daughter I could never console.
Should I punch him in the face? An inmate did
just that in his first hour in jail. Sometimes
a beating helps the soul. A bruising for sin.
When I viewed him first in court, he’d fasted away
his midlife belly and pretend confidence.
Stripped of priesthood, stripped of pride.
In the county jail, through plexiglass and phone
I saw the bruise and stitches above his eye.
He said his wife had told him of my dad.
The calling rested on me. I’d surprise him,
stealing time from work, as random as if
the Lord had planned it. Double gate, ID, and keys.
Buy him an orange pop and me a Pepsi.
Sit across a square table in the pen,
penitentiary, from penitent.
He hurt but knew that he had others hurt.
He prayed for hope and listened, never pressed.
He told me he’d never known God till now.
Appalled by his sin was I—was he—but not
by the sinner. I told my wife it felt like
going to the temple. We’d talk of trials,
of joys, of learning to expect the worst
from those for whom a stone would never be enough.
Alan Rex Mitchell has published poetry, novels, doctrinal books, scientific papers, technical reports, and raises top quality American Wagyu at the Bennion Beef ranch, Vernon, Utah.
