Worth A Thousand Pictures

It was in July 1963 that Walt met Allen.  And November when he’d lost him. Five months. Walt had just started as pastor of St. Anthony’s Anglican.  He and Esther had spent nearly 13 years at St. Stephen’s.  Their first home.  Their first church.  Where they’d left little Faith. It had been hard to leave, especially knowing the tiny grave would be an hour’s drive away now. They promised each other they’d come and visit, but he wondered. Esther would be teaching all week, and Walt worked Sundays, and he knew from experience that Saturdays had a way of filling up.  He worried that the little plaque on the ground would get lost in the grass and stepped on and cracked or something. He’d lie awake worrying about that. One of the things he’d inherited from his predecessor at St. Anthony’s was a soup kitchen. St. Stephen’s hadn’t had one. It was in a small town and it didn’t seem to be necessary, but this was an actual ci...

Meg looked at the clock on her dashboard again and did the math in her head.      She had half an hour to get home, shower, do something with her hair, and drive Shane to the hockey banquet. It just wasn’t going to happen. The traffic she was sitting in was so stuck people had started turning off their engines.  She hadn’t got to that point yet.  She refused.  It was admitting defeat and letting the world win.  Life was already too grey without encouraging the universe to dump on you. So she kept her engine running. A few minutes ago, two ambulances had gone by on the shoulder.  She’d listened to the radio report.  Serious accident.  Several cars involved.  She felt guilty for being frustrated.    Then she felt annoyed at feeling guilty. Maybe if she skipped the shower?  That would save some time.  She looked in the mirror at her hair and grimaced.  If only ...

Walt stood at the kitchen counter, stirring the lemonade. Esther had always made it from scratch, but at age 84, he figured he’d earned the right to use frozen concentrate. Through the window he could see Shane in the backyard trimming the hedge, and hear the electric motor. Shane was such a good kid. He’d been over every day for the last week to do yard work, and then to stay for lemonade and a chat. Walt loved these chats. He'd never been a Dad, but at least he had a chance to play at Grampa. Conversation was the nectar of Walt’s existence. He lived for conversation. Always had. Which was good because he’d always, always been someone who people felt they could talk to. There seemed to just be something in him that people saw as warm and strong and honest and true even though Walt had never found it in the mirror. Strange. He’d been the one his friends would tell their troubles to, ask for advice. Listen when he offered it. Even though he’d been just as young a...

Tony had been trying really hard lately. And this is what he got for his trouble. Meg was 15 minutes late. Almost every Friday afternoon for the past year and ½ he'd arrived in this commuter parking lot at 5 min to 6 and pulled into the far corner. He’d park so that there was an empty spot behind him and wait. She’d pull her blue Toyota in behind him and Shane would get out of Meg’s car, throw his bag into the back seat of Tony’s and climb into the front and Tony would pull away. She parked behind him and he never looked in the mirror. If they had anything to say, Shane would carry the message. They hadn’t actually spoken now for almost 2 years. Of course it hadn’t always been this screwed up. There had been good times. He had made jokes and she had laughed. Everything was funny. Early times, they had talked a lot - about all of the things that people in love talked about, and then later about all of the everyday things that couples talked about and then about the baby comin...

Tony was surprised at how full the parking lot was.       He was going to have trouble finding a spot so he headed for the main gate to drop off Walt. He left the engine running and ran around to the passenger side to give Walt a hand getting out.      He told Walt to go ahead and he’d catch up.       Walt said OK but just stood there for a minute leaning on his cane seeming almost nervous.    Then he straightened his fedora and his tie, took a deep breath and started for the gate.    Tony pulled away to look for a parking spot. This wasn’t how he usually spent Good Friday morning, sleeping in would have been nice, with Shane spending the day with Meg and her family, but when Walt had started talking about it and how it was something that he and Esther had done together every year and how this was the first year without her and he didn’t think he could go alone – of course Tony offered.    Of c...

There's been an interesting gamut of responses to the whole Preacher Idol thing. Some folks are hugely supportive and encouraging. A few have been tracking the percentages of votes garnered by my fellow finalists and done the math required to figure out how many votes have been cast so far. (look at the percentage before you vote, look again after you vote, calculate the difference which tells you how much of a percentage each vote is worth. Work that into 100 percentage points et voila!) Some folks are interested, but doubtful. Preaching and contests just don't seem to go together, even though I remember these from my youth group days. (There were never many entrants. Most of us (myself included) entered on the singing track.) However, one woman told me she voted for me in spite of herself. She like the story enough to break her own rule. Once. That vote meant a lot to me. Some folks are downright hostile to the whole idea. Last night at Dinner, I got a rather long lecture fro...