REVIEW OF CHRISTY
Christy, a historical novel written by Catherine Marshall and loosely based on her own mother’s experience, recounts a young woman’s struggle to come to terms with evil in the world and to find her faith. Christy Huddleston was 19 years old in 1912 when she heard the “altar call” and left her comfortable home in Asheville, North Carolina to teach school in the remote Appalachian town of Cutter Gap. This struck home to me as I read this as a young woman raised in the Presbyterian tradition. I had sat on the same pews at the Montreat mission house that Christy had received her calling on. I likely heard similarly stirring words, perhaps felt the tug and pull of the Holy Spirit. I also wanted my life to count for something.
Christy arrives in Cutter Gap in the middle of a snowstorm and is immediately thrust into the harsh realities of the place. She encounters a people very much in touch with their Scottish heritage. Feuding and grudges are central to their relationships, and they still call their families clans. Their English is sprinkled with Anglo-Saxon and Gaelic words, and they still tell “haunt” stories passed down from the 17th century. There is no plumbing or electricity, and only a few books and supplies for the one room schoolhouse. The children go barefoot all winter. They don’t know America the Beautiful to sing on the first day of school, they can’t recite a home address because they don’t have one, and the stench in the classroom is overwhelming due to lack of personal hygiene. There are ignorance, poverty, and superstitions to overcome. This is all Christy can see at first, and thus feels that she has made a mistake in coming.
Over time, she sees beauty in this life as well. They are musical people who celebrate with dance and song, with dulcimers playing age-old ballads brought with these people from Scotland. They “sing the moon up” on the porch at night. They appreciate the glory of the terrain around them. They love each other fiercely and without pretense.
Fairlight Spencer, a beautiful mountain woman, becomes Christy’s closest friend. They wander all over “her” mountains and she shows their grandeur to Christy. She teaches Christy what herbs go well in what dishes, where the prettiest wildflowers are, how to make homemade dyes for weaving, the location of the best picnic rock, and more. She makes a quilt studded with the moon and stars, and Christy is amazed by its loveliness. One day gives Christy a blue robin’s egg on a bed of green moss with no words, but Christy knows it’s just for her to enjoy the beauty of its colors. Christy says, “I might never have discovered who I really was and gotten answers to the relentless questions that had brought me to the Cove without those quiet hours spent with Fairlight in the mountains. I do not know why it is that an intimate contact with wildlife and a personal observation of nature helps so much in this discovery. But that is so…”(1)
Christy teaches Fairlight to read, and Fairlight teaches her how to find beauty amidst the harshness of life. Close contact with God’s creation helps her to find joy in herself, and to see herself as part of that creation. She sees a vital connection between herself and the creator of beauty. “I might have felt unimportant pitted against the awesome might of the mountains. I did not. Rather, on the mountain top I found something important that I had never known before: an awareness of a vital connection between me and the Authority behind all this beauty.” (2) We first must be kind and gentle with ourselves and love ourselves as a creation of God…. the reason we must accept other people is because God receives us just as we are. His command is to love other people as He loves us.
So she first loves herself, then it extends to others around her, loving them with their faults. She comes to understand that with such deep friendships in Cutter Gap, or “the Cove”, family feuds make more sense. You feel another’s sorrows as your own, celebrate their joys as yours. She learns not to be so quick to judge people, to see beyond the filthy clothes and pungent smells, as she comes to truly love them. Her compassion grows. There is Ruby Mae with her long red hair, who adores Christy and follows her around like a puppy, and Creed Allen with his pet raccoon. There is Little Burl who endears himself to her the first day when he comes to “swap howdys”, and tells her once “If God loves everybody, then shouldn’t we love everybody too?” (3) This really spoke to me, as sometimes I am quick to judge a person and make assumptions about them based on outward appearances.
As hardships are thrown her way, Christy struggles with the hardest question for a Christian: why do bad things happen, especially to good people, if God is loving? Ms. Alice Henderson is perhaps the greatest influence on Christy’s quest for meaning and faith and helps her find answers to these questions. She is a Quaker woman who sometimes resorts to “thees” and “thous” in her speech, and who truly leads by example. Her love for the mountain people is always evident and unchanging. “The secret of her calm seemed to be that she was not trying to prove anything. She was-that was all. And her stance towards life seemed to say: God is-and that is enough.” (4)
When Tom McHone, a good man and the husband of Christy’s good friend, is shot in the back because of a family feud, Christy experiences a crisis of faith. Alice suggests that she talk to God directly: “And ask God. Ask Him ultimate questions-about the why of things: about your place in the world, about life, and death. Ask, Christy, ask. Seek. You’ll find. The promise is sure.” (5) God doesn’t promise bad things won’t happen but does promise to weep with us, walk beside us, and never fail us. He aches when we ache. We can pray and look to His words for guidance. He has given us the tools. Christy finds comfort in common humanity and the stories in the Bible of men like Job and the psalms of David who are asking the same questions. Alice says, “either God exists, or He does not. If He does, either an individual has a relationship with Him, or that relationship has been severed. Indigestion or arthritis can’t change the bottom fact that God is or the unfailingness of a single one of His promises”. (6) This is a hard concept for me as I like to be in control rather than trust another, but I have faith that all of our troubles and challenges work together for good, a good that we can’t see sometimes. Yet with the solidarity of the biblical stories and the promise of God’s companionship, Christy begins to trust.
Dr MacNeil, the only doctor In the Cove, and the man Christy comes to love by the book’s end, challenges her to explain what her mission is. He asks her, “what’s your working philosophy of life?” (7) She is left speechless and parrots others’ platitudes; she can’t explain or answer. He is basically agnostic, but teaches her much about herself and how to reconcile the hardships of mountain people with hope and love, if not faith.
When Fairlight dies of typhoid, Christy faces the ultimate question of faith. She wants to be assured that there’s a heaven. At her death, Fairlight says, “the shadders a-comin for me!” (8) She is literally walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Shortly after that, Christy too faces the possibility of death. As she wakes from her typhoid fever dreams, she hears Dr. MacNeil praying for her and calling her back. She reaches for his hand, and it ends with one of my favorite ending lines of any book. It is filled with hope. “And the joy of the children was in his voice.” (9)
Death has always been a fearful concept for me. If only we knew what happened after our last breath! I have had to say earthly goodbyes to people I have loved fiercely, and the only thing that makes this part of life bearable is His ultimate promise. Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” (John 11:25) He assures us that whoever believes in Him will never die and that He goes to prepare a place for us in Heaven.
This book spoke to me. When I read it at 18, I too was struggling with defining who I was and my place in the world. I, too, found a calling as a teacher. I felt so many of Christy’s emotions: inadequacy to make an actual difference in the world, fear at what the future held…I have found it hard to voice why I believe what I do when asked, and I have found it hard to translate that faith into action. It was a refreshing thought that God loves us so much as part of His creation, so we must love ourselves. I sometimes need to retreat to my favorite mountains to see God and know that I am worthy of that total and tender love as part of His creation. I am a worrier by nature, and this book gives such a good perspective on the mending power of love. With God’s promises comes a peace around us when we face trials in this life, and the ultimate promise of eternal life to come. Love yourself, love others, and rest in the fact that “God is.”
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