I was out preaching at a distant parish this morning—our family joke is that everyplace is an hour away from Evanston—and after I got a little lost on the way out, things settled in and the early service went pretty well. Between the services, I talked with the chalice bearer for the 7:45 service and with his wife. It turned out that her dad had gone to Seabury, so we reminisced about the seminary, its faculty, and parish life in general.
After a while, she asked what I taught, and I answered that I teach New Testament and Early Church History, with a little Greek thrown in. She said, “You know, my dad left a lot of his books to us, and I know there are a few Greek books downstairs. You’d be welcome to have them, if they’re not too old.”
I observed that Hellenistic Greek hadn’t changed much since the sixties, and that I was hesitant to diminish her store of memories from her dad, but that I was always delighted to find an appreciative home for books. “Well, we have a ton of them; you should take any that you like.” Again, I demurred, by she noted that her husband would be thrilled to clear the space in the basement. “All right,” I conceded, and her husband gave me directions to their home; I could stop by after the second service.
“Do you need any vestments?” she asked. Well, I have only the ones I was wearing,plus one alb and a cassock. “Because I have some of his old stoles and chasubles, and you should look those over, too.”
I drove home with three boxes of books, some quite delicious, and a lovely purple chasuble, two red stoles, a somewhat worn cincture, a red cope(!) (when will I wear that?), and—amazingly—a lovely cappa nigra, a liturgical cloak often worn at funerals, but useful on any number of outdoor occasions. Mercy sakes! What a kind, generous soul—and she wasn’t even a blogger!
Posted by AKMA at October 6, 2002 09:58 PMSpam
Posted by: Spam at September 26, 2003 09:27 AM