For as long as she could remember, strangers had approached her in restaurants, movie theaters, grocery stores, even at school functions, just to tell her how blessed she was to have such an honorable father. She never knew anonymity. There always existed an expectation of the preacher’s daughter to exemplify beauty, grace, humility, intellect, and especially wholesomeness. In her youth, she resented being in the public eye; she had not asked for it nor pursued it: Why do I have to carry the burden of my father’s fame? She spent her teen years isolated; any boy she may have been attracted to would have been subjected to unfair and unbearable scrutiny—not only from unrelenting public speculators but from her father whose regard for keeping up appearances was more stringent than the public’s could ever be. Left with few alternatives, she decided not to rebel against the vision her father had of his only baby girl, not to resist the will of her admirers, not to be the person she truly desired to be—a free spirit, perhaps an actress or a physicist: She never felt authorized to determine her future. She went into the ministry not because she got The Call but because it was the only way to assure peace with the external world. After awhile, the conflict that raged within herself became normal and she no longer noticed it… until he arrived. She had never known anyone like him: He didn’t need doctrines and dogmas to be moral, he didn’t need a community of conformists to be disciplined. He and his God were One, and that was enough for him. And that was enough for her. He never asked her to leave the ministry, but when she resigned, the public placed the blame squarely on his shoulders.
June 5, 2013
