I read Cathy Gohlke’s new novel, Night Bird Calling, with great interest.
Gohlke uses themes from My Utmost for His Highest as a catalyst for change in “No Creek,” North Carolina prior to World War II.
The small mountain town in 1941 has been riven by racial divide since the American Civil War.
Problems come to a head when a woman fleeing marital abuse finds solace in her great-aunt’s home.
Lilliana needs to heal, and the old family home is where she begins.
Her Aunt Hyacinth is depicted as a friend and correspondent of Biddy Chambers, as well as a deep appreciator of Oswald Chambers’ devotional My Utmost for His Highest.
She’s also blind, so the town pastor regularly visits to read aloud Biddy’s letters and also My Utmost for His Highest.
What does My Utmost for His Highest have to do with North Carolina?
In and of itself, the devotional doesn’t influence events.
Except, Gohlke uses several readings to mark and affect significant change.
Night Bird Calling touches on abuse, racial tensions, injustice, and desperation.
Gohlke tells the story through the eyes of Lilliana, a woman seeking sanctuary and a precocious pre-teen, Celia, trying to make sense of life complications beyond her maturity.
As both woman and girl struggle to understand their place in the world, Gohlke uses a line from My Utmost for His Highest to set the theme:
“It takes God a long time to get us out of the way of thinking that unless everyone sees as we do, they must be wrong. That is never God’s view.”
My Utmost for His Highest, May 6
No Creek is riven with racial tension and issues of poverty and wealth. Lilliana in innocence steps into trouble when she agrees to help her Aunt renovate the house and then reorganize Hyacinth’s vast library.
What to do with it?
Why not open the retired teacher’s library to all the residents of No Creek, whether Black or White?
Many people don’t like the idea, including members of the Ku Klux Klan.
Dealing with Outsiders in Night Bird Calling
Lilliana is an outsider. She doesn’t understand.
The doctor is a refugee Jew. While he can treat the townsfolk, they don’t respect him.
A young “drifter” and his pregnant wife have nowhere to go. Celia takes them in.
Released prisoners, former slaves, bootleggers; Night Bird Calling has plenty of “different” characters to bring judgment and distress.
In a stirring scene that underscores the theme, the pastor reads a passage from My Utmost for His Highest:
Every wrong thing that I see in you, God locates in me. Every time I judge, I condemn myself.”
My Utmost for His Highest, June 17
Jesus and suffering
Lilliana is afraid–for good reason. Her view of God is distorted–for good reason.
Many people remain caught in a similar vicious trap.
Living with the No Creek folk, hearing wisdom from a variety of wise people who know God, helped free her from the senseless idea she deserved brutal treatment.
A 100-year-old woman confronted Lilliana after her aunt’s death.
“Let those ghosts rest and move on in the freedom God give you. Jesus didn’t die so you can suffer. He died to free you from sufferin’.”
Night Bird Calling
The words startled Lilliana into recognizing she did not deserve to suffer.
They rang true in her ears because she had heard a similar piece of wisdom read recently to her aunt from My Utmost for His Highest.
This is often how God speaks to us–using words from someone else to confirm what we are grappling to understand.
Night Bird Calling contains so much spiritual wisdom!
What’s the answer?
It’s the same for all of us.
No Creek residents have no special evil. We all sin and fall short of the glory of God.
But, in this novel, sin confronts them on December 7, 1941, the day Pearl Harbor’s bombing launched the United States into World War II.
Reverend Willard “was just finishing a long-winded sermon on repentance and forgiveness.”
The church members, that day, were particularly thoughtful given the enormous crises which had hit their community.
And now hit their world.
They took a moment to reflect, gasp, and then hear a call to repentance.
Conviction of sin is one of the rarest things that ever strikes a man . . . when the Holy Spirit rouses a man’s conscience and brings him into the presence of God, it is not his relationship with men that bothers him, but his relaiontship with God–‘against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight. . . .
Anything less than this is a remorse for having made blunders, the reflex action of disgust with himself . . . Examine yourself and see if you have forgotten how to be sorry.”
My Utmost for His Highest, December 7
A few weeks later, the reverend’s sermon also touched Chambers’ words:
Jesus says regarding judging–Don’t. . . . There is no getting away from the penetration of Jesus. If I see themote in your eye, it means I have a beam in my own. Every wrong thing that I see in you, God locates in me. Every time I judge, I condemn myself.”
My Utmost for His Highest, June 17
Convicted yet?
Chambers and Night Bird Calling
Using fine literature as a catalyst for a new project has been occurring throughout history.
Little that Shakespeare (or Marlowe!) wrote originated with him.
Studying history, literature, and ideas encourage creativity in artists.
I think Oswald and Biddy Chambers, both, would be pleased with how Cathy Gohlke used their themes for God’s glory.
Night Bird Calling certainly gave me plenty of food for thought.
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Using My Utmost for His Highest as the backbone of a southern novel. Click to Tweet
Eternal themes: My Utmost for His Highest and Night Bird Calling. Click to Tweet
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