Ignoble Contentment
By Timothy W. Tron, May 2025
Granger Orien Darby was a man’s man. Some might say he had a god complex. Of course, it didn’t help that his parents, humorously or not, named him such that his initials leaned in that direction. Successful in the corporate sales world, he had amassed an extensive portfolio comparable to that of any director-level executive in the oil industry in just twenty years. Along with his prosperous climb up the corporate ladder, he was an avid outdoorsman, often finding time for hunting and hiking whenever his travels allowed. Sturdy, muscular, with a head full of hair, he belied his late fifties for someone easily in their late thirties.
He had recently purchased a summer home in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. The affluent small town was perfect for him and his second wife’s social life as well as for his passion for the outdoors. There, they quickly blended into the country club cliques and became happily acclimated to mountain life, or at least for the few months they called it home, jettisoning off to Florida when the first few snowflakes began to fall.
One day, while on the nearby golf course, a group of men approached him and his wife and invited him to attend a Christian gathering on Tuesday mornings known as the Men’s Connection. Figuring it couldn’t hurt, and besides, he hadn’t looked into going to church while lounging around during the summer months, Granger said, “Sure, why not?” After all, he and his wife were faithful members of First United Methodist Church in their winter home in Florida. If nothing else, he could at least make more connections, which might prove helpful for his sales team later on.
So, when he showed up that early Tuesday morning at the charming Chetola Resort, he immediately felt at home when the golf shirt-attired, elderly gentleman working the door welcomed him in. “Frank’s the name, and you are?”
“Granger O. Darby,” he replied with a firm handshake. Frank, likewise spending a life in sales, was quick-witted and caught the potential for an acronym. “G.O.D., huh?” smiling suspiciously while maintaining a tight grip on Granger’s hand. “Have you come to part the sea for us, or are you just someone who has fallen to the capricious nature of garrulous parents?” Granger was slightly off guard, even though he thought he had heard all the nuances of people’s perceptions of his initials. The quick quip from Frank made him pause and caused him to reconsider why he had come. The guy before him dressed in the part of the country club set, yet he spoke to a truth that went beyond the genial greeting. Maybe it was just that he hadn’t had his coffee yet. Perhaps he was just overreacting. “Relax, be cool,” he thought inwardly before he finally responded.
“Since I didn’t bring Moses with me, I guess the latter,” he joked as both men laughed.
Frank showed Granger to the free coffee, where he gladly accepted the offer. The room began to fill slowly as mostly elderly gentlemen came ambling in, sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs. Before he knew it, they were seated, and someone asked if anyone needed prayers, either for themselves or for someone they knew. From there, they transitioned to praise, and soon enough, someone stood up to share a message from scripture, interlaced with experiential anecdotes along the way.
“So far, so good,” Granger thought, “Nothing spiritually crazy, no Pentecostal snake worshipping, no speaking in tongues. They all seemed like a bunch of thoughtful, concerned, respectable men.”
Thinking he would escape without having to make any commitment of faith, he merely hoped to be there to make connections. Toward the end of the meeting, they began to talk about their commitment to serving the community. The idea was that they hoped to have a plan for working with or witnessing to students on the nearby App State campus by the fall semester. It was then that one of their younger members, probably in his early sixties, stood up and spoke about the apologetics club on campus, Ratio Christi, and how they could definitely become an integral part of that organization if they felt led. Something inside Granger seemed drawn to the slim, thinning gray-headed man with a trimly kept beard named Tim Tron. There was enthusiasm, a passion he hadn’t seen in a long time that mirrored his own attitude toward life. Something inside said he should speak with him and try to learn more about his character before he left. He was always looking for someone to give him another inspirational tool for his sales team.
When the teaching ended, before he could reach Tim, he dashed out the door. Someone told him that Tim had to get to work on campus and could seldom stay after. Wondering how he might catch up with him, another member suggested meeting the next morning at his favorite coffee shop near the campus. Intrigued, Granger made up his mind to do just that. He wasn’t going to let something that intrigued him escape that easily.
It was a clear, crisp morning the next day when Granger pulled into the Local Lion at 7 AM. The “Open” sign flickered on as he shut his car door. If he didn’t find Tim, at least he’d have a head start on the day. A mid-size SUV was already parked in the front spot for customers. Walking in, sure enough, just as the elderly gentleman had said, Tim was seated in the back, laptop open, the light from its screen illuminating his face in a ghostly fashion. If he didn’t know better, he’d say that the dude had spent the night. Tron looked up as Granger walked in, smiling, recognizing him from the day before, and waved him over to join him. Tim didn’t waste any time, immediately asking Granger to share more about himself, which he was happy to do. The peculiar man patiently listened, asking questions for clarification as Darby spoke, not interrupting, but somehow, it seemed as if he was steering the conversation toward something less materialistic and more spiritual, the more they talked. Granger was caught a little off guard, since he was the one who usually directed the conversation. After all, he was here to learn more about this guy, not the other way around.
Yet, the more he answered Tim’s questions, the more he felt he understood him. Finally, Granger insisted that this curious man tell him more about himself. As Tron spoke, he said he worked with college students on App State’s campus through the apologetics club, Ratio Christi. His position as Co-Chapter Director wasn’t his full-time job. He worked in the Computer Science Department, his tent-making job, he mused. His real passion was serving the Lord. He talked about how today’s college student is seeking answers about spirituality, wanting to find their “own” faith, not their parents. “These kids are hungry to be fed,” he said with a deep furrowed brow of conviction, “they’re desperate, they don’t want to be comfortable. They want to find God on their terms, not their parents. They’ve been made uncomfortable by coming to college, which has allowed them to step beyond those comfort zones of life and seek something greater than what they knew at home.” Then he said something that hit Granger like a granite wall, “Granger O. Darby, are you willing to become desperate? Can you become uncomfortable enough to seek something deeper in your life?”
At first, Granger was amused, but Tron was laughing. His face was intentional, his gaze was direct and unmoving, eye-to-eye. Darby felt a redness growing on the back of his neck as anger began to boil up from his gut. How could this guy, someone who barely knew him, question his faith? Or was he?
“You see, Granger,” continuing to make eye contact, “in 2015, I left everything behind. I purposely became desperate to seek God and to serve Him fully. From that day forward, I was never comfortable being complacent; just attending church on Sundays wouldn’t work for me. Serving God meant much more.”
By now, Granger had begun to calm down as he listened to Tron’s story. He began to wonder how anyone in their right mind could leave everything behind – career, farm, friends. Not leaving him to wonder, as if reading his mind, Tron continued to share how, at each step of the way, through arduous steps after another, God provided for him and his family all that they needed. And now, God had brought him here, to App State, to a truly international mission field.
When he had finished, Granger’s head was swimming with turmoil, questions he couldn’t answer, and something of a contempt for this little man sitting before him, quietly sipping his dark brew. It was as if Tim’s question had opened up a side of himself that he had avoided looking at for fear of what it might say. All his life, he had pushed the envelope, pursuing his goals, closing deals, not allowing “No” to stop him in anything he did. But inside, he was never satisfied. The goals achieved only made him seek another, and another, until it seemed there was nothing that could truly make him happy–not the cars, the boats, the houses, the trophy wife, none of it. Sure, it felt good for a while, but with every new purchase, the shine quickly faded, and he was back to searching for that something to fill the void within. Yet, he couldn’t agree to that feeling controlling him. It was a fact of life, he would tell himself, and that was just how it was meant to be – we should always strive to be more.
In closing, Tron again asked, one last question, “So, Granger, I ask again, what’s it going to take to make you desperate?”
He left the coffee shop more confused than he had anticipated. That odd little man had seemingly turned his world upside down with little to no effort. What was wrong with being comfortable? Why did he have to become desperate to seek God? The nerve of this guy! Didn’t the preacher on TV say that God would reward him if he were a good Christian? If he understood Tron correctly, he was saying that to truly find God, you had to step outside of that wealth and comfort. How absurd!
Yet, the more he passed it through his salesman’s mental filter, the more the thought of becoming uncomfortable to truly find God seemed counterintuitive. Granger didn’t know it then, but he was starting to feel God’s conviction upon his life. But this was something foreign to his thought process. He wasn’t the touchy-feely kind of person. He needed to get some air, something to clear his mind. It was too early in the morning to start drinking, even though that was a consideration. Instead, sensing he felt like escaping something but couldn’t put his finger on what it was, he called his wife to let her know that he wouldn’t be home for their morning tee-time, but instead wanted to go for a short hike to clear his mind; besides, it was going to be another picture-perfect day. She understood, and besides, she needed to run some errands anyway.
It was around 10 AM when Darby’s black convertible BMW pulled into the trailhead’s parking lot. He grabbed his monogrammed hydration pack and hiking boots from the trunk, then headed out after making some minor adjustments to the straps. He wouldn’t be long, so he didn’t bother taking any trail food other than what might already be in the pack. He was a mile or more up the trail when the morning fog had lifted off the upper reaches of the peaks above him, revealing golden cumulus clouds against an azure, blue sky. “Simply stunning,” he bemused, trying to rid himself of the recent conversation. Granger’s pace was hard and fast. He hadn’t stayed in shape to allow days like this to bother him, so a good, rigorous morning climbing Grandfather would work any bitterness from his mind. But the farther he climbed, the more he couldn’t shake the conviction he saw in Tron’s eyes. The man was something of an oddity. Something about someone who would throw everything away just to become desperate: it seemed so preposterous.
As his mind worked over this tribulation, he didn’t notice the turn in the path, and soon found himself following a far less traveled route, until he stood upon the edge of a precipice that fell away into the depths of the valley before him. The location was known to rock climbers for its extensive and challenging angles, but not to typical hikers. Being off the beaten path, it was ideally suited for their reclusive sport.
Far in the distance stood blue mountaintops, their whispers inaudible but falling upon currents that carried wisps of clouds between them. For a moment, he stood in awe of the creation before him. “I need to capture this,” he said to himself as he grabbed the cell phone from his hip pocket. He took off his backpack to air out his back, which had been sweating from the intense pace he had kept. Holding up the device above his head, he did his best to steady the camera while backing as close to the edge as possible. He shed a broad Granger smile, posing. Suddenly, a blast of wind caught him slightly off balance, and then, from the depths of the earth, the ground began to shake. The massive boulder upon which he stood began to toss to and fro like a child’s marble on the edge of a stair, ready to drop into the chasm below. Now, unable to stand, Granger’s balance was at the mercy of the wind and earth upon which he tried to steady himself. For a second, he thought he might hold, but in the blink of an eye, he quickly saw the cliff face before him; his trajectory was down, down, down. A crash, a crack, and then the softness of a treetop, like a cradle, caught his limp body. Small rocks followed, ricocheting off the surrounding cliff as the dust settled and the earth and man stopped moving.
Somewhere in the distance, a raptor cried out, its voice echoing off the mountainside. Nearby, a man’s body hung limply by one leg from the top of a massive tree. Its gracefulness now burdened with a heavy load, causing it to tilt awkwardly to one side. Tiny drops of blood dripped to the forest floor far below as a man’s life hung in the balance.
[To be continued…]
