sometime in the late spring of 1994...

...Melusina & I were in the French Quarter, New Orleans, coming to the end of a day's adventure as a part of her greater visit from Oregon. I called home (Baton Rouge) to check in... and heard the news: Fr. C had received a call from St. John's, Stockton, to be their rector.

It all comes back to me...the phone around the corner...the fading day...the smell of the sidewalk...and, most clearly, the abject terror.

Between the time of the whispering of a call, and the concreteness of it, I had come to regret the possibility of it and had laid aside all of the prior glowing enthusiasm of a new life in Stockton, hoping it might not happen. Yet, I knew we would accept.

Six months before, we had heard from the Bishop's office, who had kept a file on Fr. C, post-seminary and had their memory jogged with his recent article in The Living Church. When I came out to Stockton for a Christmas visit, Fr. C asked me to stop in at St. John's and 'count the stained glass windows': for such a brilliant scholar, he truly thinks with his heart (Incidentally, as I left after the service, someone followed me and invited me to coffee hour. Nice.). Some time later, there was church to priest-to-be contact and an on-site visit by Fr. C. In our camp there was much excitement...chatter of living near my family (Lord have mercy, when he went to seminary I was upset at him for going to Nashotah when he could have gone to CDSP in Berkeley in my family's backyard....!) and the excitement of a new ministry.

In my remembering, there was a long period of waiting for the phone to ring. It could have been a week. It could have been three. It just felt long. And it was certainly long enough for me to think through The Cost. Immeasurable and deep. For the life we were to leave was rich, full, vibrant -- most especially on the part of our children, two of whom would be entering 9th and 11th grade. Their private episcopal school (free tuition!!!) was a Mr. Roger's neighborhood of fascinating learning and joyous camaraderie, nurturing a richly-textured family that went beyond its mere boundaries into every microscopic aspect of their lives.

And yes: The Cost was accurately counted. It hurt hugely for some time after we moved. I wondered if we had 'heard it (the call) wrong'. The children's lives here were, in practically all ways, the antithesis of the cocoon they had left, most noticeably at school. S2 removed the bandana from her backpack after being asked 'what gang are you in?'. J learned to say, 'excuse me' when a person slammed into him in the corridors and acted like it was his fault. Respect was lacking in the classroom...no 'yes ma'am, no sir'...

Yet for all this...(thank you, Gerard Manley Hopkins)...yet for ALL this...we would, each of us, rise up and call ourselves blessed beyond belief for our time here, none trading it for any other. The Holy Spirit was busy from the beginning, like a grace-filled spider weaving a complex and gossamer web as a platform for sheer grace, which surprised us and exceeded our dreams. Our lives at St. John's -- rich beyond all measure. And the mission church we left in Baton Rouge? Flourishing, also.

So, the message is clear: Expect God's grace to abound. It does, even when I think otherwise. It has, even when I think I've gotten in the way of it. It has, and will, here. It has, and will, there.