13

The next morning, Barbara and Sam went to the meetinghouse early to get the coffee started. Before long, Uly Grant arrived with the doughnuts, and folks began streaming in, including Deena Morrison and the Iverson family, with twins in tow, followed by Miriam and Ellis Hodge, who seemed especially cheerful to have survived their out-of-state ordeal and greeted everyone with robust hugs and a few tears.

“You wouldn’t believe it down there,” Ellis told Sam. “It’s crazy.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re back home safe,” Sam said. “It’s good to see you, friend.”

Sam fussed over the Iverson twins, gave them each a doughnut, asked them about school, then predicted they’d be the first twins to serve as president of the United States.

“Don’t be silly. They were born in China,” Fern Hampton said. “They can’t be president. It’s against the Constitution.”

Leave it to Fern to dash a child’s dream.

The twins hurried off to their Sunday school class, while the adults gathered in a circle in the basement dining room. This was the worst hour of Sam’s week, listening to Dale Hinshaw teach the adult Sunday school class. The class was reading its way through the Bible, a verse at a time. Dale would read each verse, stopping after each one to ask, “What do you suppose the Lord is trying to tell us here?” When anyone ventured a guess, he would argue with them. They had been in the book of Habakkuk for several weeks, hung up on the sixth verse of the first chapter, “For lo, I am rousing the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize habitations not their own.”

“Who are the Chaldeans today?” Dale asked. “What nation has set itself against God?”

No one dared answer, for fear of getting him cranked up.

“I would have to say it’s the Soviet Union,” Dale said. That the Soviet Union had gone belly-up decades before seemed not to have occurred to him, and he spent the next hour blaming every modern ill on a nation that no longer existed.

Sam excused himself to prepare for worship. Deena Morrison followed him out. “Boy, I didn’t miss that,” she said. “We either need a new teacher, or need to start a new class.”

“Probably easier to start a new class,” Sam said. “No way he’s going to give up teaching that class.”

“Maybe Judy Iverson and I can work on starting a new class,” Deena said.

“That would be great,” Sam said. “Run it by Jessie Peacock. She’s the clerk of our Christian Education Committee. I imagine she’ll be delighted to help you.”

“Speaking of Jessie, I heard about Asa’s heart attack. How’s he doing?”

“I saw him the day before yesterday and he was feeling much better. I think they’ll be back at meeting next Sunday.”

“Maybe I’ll take him a pie and talk to Jessie while I’m there,” Deena said.

Sam hugged Deena. “I’m glad you’re back,” he said. “Barbara and I sure have missed you.”

Sam had spent Saturday evening softening his sermon. A sermon that in its first writing had been a scorcher against intolerance and narrow-mindedness was, by the day of its delivery, reduced to a flickering candle, a general admonition to be nice to people and love everyone.

At the conclusion of worship, Dale stood, announced that the elders had called an emergency meeting of the church, and urged people to stay.

Gloria Gardner announced the profits of the Chicken Noodle Dinner, then reminded the ladies of the Friendly Women’s Circle to gather Tuesday morning to begin making noodles for the next dinner.

Sam offered a closing prayer. He hadn’t even said “Amen” before Miriam Hodge was hustling toward Dale. “What do you mean the elders called an emergency meeting? I’m the clerk of the elders and I wasn’t aware of this.”

“We sent out an e-mail this past Wednesday,” Dale said. “Don’t you read your e-mails? Something came up when you were gone and we had to meet. We’ve got ourselves a situation and people need to know about it.”

Miriam was starting to remember why she didn’t take vacations. The congregation was making its way to the basement for the meeting. It was out of her hands now.

Harvey Muldock was the clerk of the meeting. He was a nice man, good with furnaces and lawn mowers, but the finer distinctions of chairing a meeting were lost on him. He clerked a meeting like he drove—gas pedal to the floor, no brakes.

“Let’s start with a prayer,” Harvey said, after everyone had found a seat. The crowd fell silent. “Lord, we don’t know why we’re here, but you know why and we trust you to be with us and guide us. Amen.”

“Amen,” people rumbled.

Harvey turned to Miriam. “Miriam, you’re the clerk of the elders. What’s so important it couldn’t wait until our regular meeting?”

“I have no idea. Ellis and I have been out of town. This meeting is a total surprise to me.”

“Dale, what’s going on here? Miriam’s the clerk of the elders. The elders can’t call a meeting of the church without her knowing about it.”

“Says in Faith and Practice they can. If the clerk of the elders is unavailable, the elders can call a meeting. Miriam was out of town, but the rest of us could meet, so we did. We sent everyone an e-mail announcing today’s meeting, and called the folks who don’t have e-mail.”

“Well, what’s so all fire important it can’t wait another week?” Harvey asked.

“Sam conducted a lesbian wedding,” Dale said. “It says in Faith and Practice that marriage can only be between a man and a woman. And Sam knew that and did it anyway.”

“Is that right, Sam? Did you marry two women?” Harvey asked.

“It was inadvertent,” Sam explained. “I didn’t realize they were both women until the service had started.”

“Where was this wedding?” Harvey asked.

“At the Unitarian church,” Sam said. “Their pastor got sick at the last moment, so I stepped in to help him. We ministers do that for one another in emergencies.”

“The Unitarians don’t have any rules against lesbian weddings, do they?” Harvey asked.

“Apparently not,” Sam said.

“Well, then, I don’t see the problem,” Harvey said. “You weren’t conducting a Quaker wedding. You were conducting a Unitarian wedding, so you had to go by their rules. If it’s not against their rules, I don’t see how we can fault you. Anybody else have a problem with Sam helping the Unitarians?”

“I think it’s terrible,” Fern snapped. “He needs to be fired.”

Bea and Opal nodded their heads in agreement. Were it up to them, Sam would be blindfolded, given a last cigarette, stood against a wall, and shot.

“St. Ambrose said, ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do,’ ” Miriam Hodge observed.

“Well, if it’s good enough for a saint, it’s good enough for me,” Harvey said. “Now, Sam, if you ever get sick and the Unitarian minister has to pinch-hit for you at a wedding, we would expect him to do things our way just like you did things their way,” Harvey said.

“I’m sure he would,” Sam said.

“Then that’s that,” Harvey said, standing up. “If we leave now, we’ll get home in time for the Colts game. Meeting’s over, folks.”

“You can’t end a meeting because of a football game,” Dale protested. “You haven’t given everyone a chance to talk.”

“I don’t see how sitting around flapping our jaws is going to help us one bit,” Harvey said. Several people nodded their heads in agreement, all of them men who wanted to watch the game. “Looks like we’re done then,” Harvey said. “Thank you all for staying.”

It was, according to Ellis Hodge, who had attended every church meeting for the past seventy-two years, the shortest meeting ever held in the history of Harmony Friends Meeting.

While Sam was pleased with the outcome, he knew Dale Hinshaw would not go silently into the night, and that even now, in the dark and twisted recesses of his corrupted mind, the man was plotting Sam’s pastoral demise.