The Clear Light of Day: A Novel by Penelope Wilcock

Author:Penelope Wilcock [Wilcock, Penelope]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Christian
ISBN: 9780781445535
Publisher: David C Cook
Published: 2007-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

Six

Esme, watching October come and go, with its church council meetings and Harvest Festival services and suppers, felt uncomfortably detached from her congregations.

I shall be leaving, she thought, I shall be leaving, and you don’t know. Not until the following spring did the leadership team plan to inform the circuit meeting and the chapels of their decision to reorganize the circuit. In the smaller chapels, keeping going felt no worse than the struggle it had been for so long. In Esme’s congregations, even Wiles Green having enough members to remain viable until death took its toll of the elderly congregation, it had crossed nobody’s mind that in the event of a cut in staff their minister would be the one to go.

She had spent time reading up in her bulky (hitherto pristine and unopened) current edition of the Constitutional Practice and Discipline of the Methodist Church, so as to appear appropriately informed when she asked her chairman of district about stationing her for her new appointment. He had reassured her that nothing would happen until next May at the very earliest; nothing would be known until the following September—a year before she would make her move. “So don’t panic yet!” he boomed, in his jovial way.

Esme could see nothing to panic about. She could see that her churches would be well served by her colleagues when the time came for her section to be parceled out into their neighboring sections. She could see that time was being given for careful decisions to be properly made. She could even see that, in the long run, she might come to look back with gratitude; as the other members of the leadership team reassured her when they met a second time to discuss the redistribution of the circuit, the forthcoming move could broaden her experience and enrich her life. It was just that, listening to the others discuss possibilities, and to her church councils talk about futures that only she knew she would not be sharing, something of the old ache of weariness began to return. In the last year, confidence and enthusiasm had grown along with a sense of belonging, in part because the people in membership of her chapels were now familiar to her and she to them. She knew their histories, and their family connections now, the places where they worked, and what their homes were like. Preaching on a Sunday had a deeper pastoral significance. She knew her sheep, and they had come to know her voice, and trust was growing. And then, Jabez … Ember, too, but, especially, Jabez … As she contemplated moving, she began to be more and more unsettled, until the parsonage that had never felt really like home began to seem positively distasteful. Esme stood in its sitting room, looking at the wallpaper and curtains chosen by other people with the criteria of sticking to a tight budget and giving offense to nobody. She looked out through the replacement windows with their

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