Sunday with Our Sub

I was vestry on duty (VOD today). So just after the early service off to the side in the foyer, I was talking to Renee and Julia Rusling, often our “substitute priest” when Patricia is on vacation. She’s tall and thin and just a very peaceful presence. We were trying to figure out about acolytes (I’m not naming names) but Ethan Stansbury rose to the occasion and served even though he wasn’t on the schedule, and what’s more, had almost gotten out of going to church in the first place. That is to say, we were doubly grateful when he robed up and carried the cross.

At the early service, there were just four of us, plus Renee and Julia at the altar. I have to say it was kind of luxurious and intimate to have a whole priest to just four people. We of course were seated in the back of a near empty church but she walked toward us, and spoke with some papers in her hand that she never looked at. She proceeded to talk about letting go of our storylines and just breathing in the moment. The spaciousness of God. The key to the Kingdom of God is being in the moment, she said, to let go of grasping and fear. To stop trying to control and allow yourself to be surprised by what happens next.

Then onto coffee time—and as usual—we’ve come to expect—that when there is a fear of a shortage of goodies for coffee time, all of a sudden there is an abundance. Cookies come out of nowhere, ripe fresh figs, grapes, a gorgeous key lime pie, crackers, cheese.

In the kitchen, Lucy Kaltenbach reminds me of Elizabeth Mark’s upcoming croning, a sort of rite of passage celebration when you hit your jubilee as a woman, your 50th. (I’ve asked to be invited). I’m excited about it mainly because when I was in my mid-20s, I had a dream of myself at 50. I had some gray hair, some wrinkles, I was surrounded by books and complete peace and happiness. I heartily congratulated Elizabeth on her upcoming croaning, given that I’ve been looking so forward to my own.

Eventually things wound down. I was walking around turning off lights and peering in rooms when I saw through the clear class and wooden front doors Peachy contemplating the garden. I shouldn’t have interrupted her thoughts but I was curious to know what she was thinking. I heard the language of gardeners, as she showed me the color scheme in the latana’s, about irrigation, about bulbs I can dig up and take home next Sunday. We ended at the massive, heavy fig tree, where huge, heavy figs are being enjoyed by squirrels and birds and probably a few humans, too.

Peachy held my coffee cup while I pulled down a branch to pick a fat fig but I accidentally snapped off a branch with it. I followed directions, put in dirt and water it and it will grow roots. Set it in the kitchen window sill. I did.