Grace comes late

I'd have gone through seminary and ordination and all the years intervening for that one moment.

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

Marilyn Robinson's 2004 novel Gilead takes the form of an old and dying pastor's letter to his young son, the product of his late-in-life marriage to a much younger woman. Yet the focus of the novel is another man's son, that of another old and dying pastor, his friend since childhood.

John Ames and the man he calls "Old Boughton" grew up together in Gilead, Kansas, and have stayed there all their lives, pastoring nearby churches. Boughton had his own son at a more typical age and named him after his friend, John Ames Boughton, called Jack. Yet Ames has never warmed to his namesake. Jack was a sneaky, thieving, mischievous boy, and adulthood hasn't brought much change in his character. What's more, Jack has always been an agnostic, skeptical of the faith both his father and his father's friend hold so dear. Now he has returned to Gilead, presumably because his father is dying, yet he seems to spend most of his time at the Ames house, befriending both Ames's wife and his little boy. Ames worries what might happen in these relationships after his death.

Yet Jack has problems of his own, problems he wishes to discuss with Ames, but the latter's coldness to him prevents the confidence and the confession he desires. Grace comes at last, both to Jack and to Ames. The letter to his son probably reveals more about himself than Ames intends, but someday when he's old enough to read and understand, the son may find grace, as well.