As an apology for not outputting for the last couple of years, and as a thank you to those who posted reviews for me, here is a teaser from Adelaide II, right now known as
The Shepherd's Gift.
Evensong
over she grabbed everything from her box on Emma’s desk, pulled Malik’s pile
out of Emma’s inbox and added everything to the diocesan financial statistics
binder that Emma had made up for her and started up the narrow staircase to her
loft.
She
looked down over her shoulder at the door to the office to confirm that all the
bolts were shut. She wanted to make sure
she had no lip from Emma in the morning.
She
squeezed in the door to the loft making sure Arthur didn’t escape. He’d become an escape artist of late,
probably trying to return home to Welborn.
She didn’t blame him. After today
she might want to return home to Welborn.
Fully
intending to eat dinner out of the microwave, she took a shower and sat down at
her desk with the papers with Arthur as a paperweight.
She
studied Malik’s suggestions marked them up with stickies. He was good.
Very good. Not sure she deserved
him. Already the “interim” part of his
titles had been erased from her brain.
She was trying not to look at Emma’s fat binder so next she sorted
through her inbox.
There
were three formal pleas for funds from three very small parishes in the
mountains. She moved them to Emma’s
binder.
There
was a letter from a discernment committee recommending one of their
parishioners for postulancy as a priest.
She carefully read the recommendation.
The person would need financial support.
She had a fund designated for support for candidates but this person
wanted to go to Seminary in California. She wrote a note to Emma to have her
set up an interview with the recommended person. The major question in her mind was whether
she wanted to support anyone for holy orders who would not be staying within
the diocese. Should she be requiring
them to sign a letter of intent to stay in the diocese? Could she require him to go to school locally
and reduce the diocese’s financial liability?
The
next sheet was pink and was typed in Emma’s usual style, formally addressed to
her and signed with Emma’s full name.
To:
Bishop Adelaide Wasserstein
From:
Emma Jane Baron
Bishop:
From time to time I will
have questions that I think require your attention. They will be placed in your box on these pink
sheets.
I
just wanted to establish this form of communication.
Emma
Jane Baron
Adelaide
snorted and reworded the communication to “read this or else.”
The
next letter saddened her. It was from an
80 year old priest in a small town in the west of the diocese. He’d retired years earlier but taken on his
old church again as a supply priest when they couldn’t afford to hire a full
time priest.
Now
he had been diagnosed with end stage lung cancer and needed to let his church
down easy. He was formally requesting
time to come and see her here in Turner City.
Adelaide
wrote a note to herself to call him and then go visit him and perhaps his
church on the next available Sunday.
Pink
sheet.
To:
Bishop Adelaide Wasserstein
From:
Emma Jane Baron
Subject:
Need to plan visitation schedule
ASAP
Emma
Jane Baron
Adelaide
put on her slippers and crept down the stairs.
She found that every lockable cabinet and drawer in the place was locked
but, using her office skills acquired during her years in Wall Street, she
jimmied open the cabinet where Emma kept the paper and found a packet of a particularly
obnoxious puke green color which she hijacked up to the apartment.
To:
Emma Jane Baron
From:
Bishop Adelaide Wasserstein
Subject:
Pink memos
Great
idea. My replies will be on puke green.
I leave the visitation
schedule in your capable hands. Leave me
one blank Sunday each month for emergencies.
Schedule me a visit ASAP with the priests attached.
Bishop
Adelaide Wasserstein.
There
was a second visitation request which she clipped to her green memo and then
another pink memo.
To:
Bishop Adelaide Wasserstein
From:
Emma Jane Baron
Subject:
Bishop Cutter
He needs a part time
secretary. Suggest you rescue Maria
Hernandez from Burger King. She could
also staff the Hispanic ministries committee and maybe the Diocesan Ministry
School.
Hopefully
she can type.
Emma
Jane Baron
What
would she do without Emma? She scrawled
HIRE HER across the pink sheet.
Adelaide
started to look over what she now called the insolvency binder but she knew
that she was now totally incapable of making figures stick in her brain.
She
stopped for a moment to pray.
“Dear
Lord help me to, well, do the right thing.
Help me to understand the mission of the church and to guide the people
of your church to that mission. Help me
to listen for you and know your leadings.
Just help me. Amen.”
Then
she scrawled on another blank piece of paper: “Comprehensive plan”, stumbled to
her bed and fell asleep despite the fact that the lump she had crashed on was a
hissing ball of fur.
Copywrite 2015 Christina K. Wible
