But then, as time passed so quickly, it was no longer dusk but dark, and somehow it happened, I would find myself with the woman, in her house, or an upstairs half of a house, and a terrible weakness would overcome me in all my limbs, and a roaring in my ears, that I could not resist the woman offering me another beer, or ale; at last, touching me in a way to greatly arouse me, as I would touch her; inviting me into her bedroom, and into her bed that was unmade, and smelled of the woman’s body. And so it came about, not once but several times, more times than I wish to recall, in the spring of 1987 when the shame of my behavior was like an oily rag rubbing across a clean mirror-surface, to cloud it.
Though I was married and rejoiced in my marriage, as in my beloved young children, and though I was determined that I would become a minister of the St. Paul Missionary Church, yet I was with whores often in the city of Toledo, when the weakness came upon me. With just a hurried call to Edna Mae with an excuse that my car had broken down, or had a tire needing to be repaired, I would stay overnight in one of these places; often, I would make the call from the woman’s phone as she stood behind me stroking my back with her warm hands. In my dear wife’s voice a fear of me, and in the background a child’s cry—Dad-dee? Where is Dad-dee?
A woman will believe you, for a woman will want to believe you.
This is the wisdom of Satan. Yet it is true wisdom, though it is of Satan.
Soon, in the spring of 1987, though it was rare that Edna Mae and I were together in that way, Edna Mae found herself pregnant again. But in the agitation of those months, when often I stayed away overnight in Toledo, and missed work the next morning in Muskegee Falls, with no convincing excuse to my employer, and Edna Mae understood that I was not telling the truth to her, yet would not accuse me—she became stricken with cramps one day, when I was not with her, and lost the baby after three months of pregnancy.
In the bedroom of our house this was. So terrible an experience, and so much blood lost, the mattress and box springs would have to be replaced. So awful, Edna Mae would not be well for some time.
And such fear instilled in our young children, seeing their mother swathed in blood, and blood-clots on the bathroom floor, and their mother screaming in agony and despair and their father nowhere near as a husband and father should have been.
The women in Toledo were cast from me in disgust, after I had made use of them. That they did give themselves to me so readily and yet expressed surprise and even hurt when I recoiled from them—this was surprising to me.
On my knees I prayed in secret.
I am ashamed, Jesus. I have used whores, and I have betrayed my dear wife and children.
And Jesus would say, so quietly I could almost not hear—The women are not whores, Luther. They are your sisters in my name. But it is true you have used them, and you have betrayed your dear wife and children.
AT THE MINISTRY SCHOOL they seemed to know, how Luther Dunphy had become a troubled man. For my grades in the second term were lower than in the first term, for often I did not hand in my assignments at all. Reading was ever harder for me, and caused darting pains behind my eyes. If I slipped away to a tavern at noon, and returned for my afternoon class, a smell of ale emanated from me, and my appearance might have been flushed and disheveled and all in the classroom knew what a sinner I was, what a failure. There was a satisfaction in this, in the eyes of the others. For even a Christian does not know himself blessed unless he knows how another is not-blessed.
The dean called me to his office to say how disappointed he was, and how disappointed Reverend Dennis was, that I was doing so poorly in my classes, after “allowances” had been made for me to enroll as a special student.
(Allowances? I was not aware of these, I was sure. The requirement of graduation from high school had been waived, but this was all that I had been informed.)
In a vexed voice the dean asked if I would like to withdraw from my classes? He could return to me some of the tuition and fees, if so; for he knew how I and my wife had sacrificed to allow for my enrollment at the school.
In an instant I was sober. I told him No! I would never give up.
“I would sooner die, than give up my calling to spread the word of Jesus.”
THE ST. PAUL MISSIONARY CHURCH of Jesus does not condone violence against individuals or property. The Church has always decried all acts in violation of state and federal law and is not associated in any way with radical organizations like Operation Rescue.
The Toledo School of Ministry declines to release the academic transcripts of Luther Amos Dunphy to the media. It is a matter of public record that Mr. Dunphy graduated with a diploma in Ministry Science in May 1987.
It is not corroborated by any official spokesman for the St. Paul Missionary Church or the Toledo School of Ministry that Luther Amos Dunphy joined the militant anti-abortion movements Army of God and Operation Rescue because he had been unable to secure a position as a minister. It is a matter of public record that Mr. Dunphy was a lay minister attached to the St. Paul Missionary Church of Muskegee Falls, Ohio, in the years 1988–1999.