We made It!

After two nights on the road and after putting 1200 miles behind us, we arrived at Holy Trinity Monastery at 10 a.m. yesterday.    With Morning Prayer at 10:15 and Mass at 10:30, it couldn't have been better timed.  Folks on their way to prayer stopped to greet us as Joe - rather than joining them - plugged in the electricity and turned on the water and I checked out the interior of Home-r to make sure all was well.   By the time we scurried up the stone strewn drive (there aren't any paved streets at HTM)  walked past the fountain that wasn't 'founting' and through the heavy oak doors, there wasn't a seat to be had except for in the choir where the community members sit, smack dab in front.

We've sat there before when the tourists are here in full force, but I'm more at home in among the throng.  However, yesterday it allowed for a chance to see several of the folks we'd been looking forward to seeing:  Marilyn and Ray, Clara and Lyle, Nancy and Jim, Kathleen, Nancy and David, as well as Robert and Dorothy and Florence and Tom.  Jim and Judy had gone to Mass in Benson on Saturday night, two couples aren't here yet - Mary Jo and Harvey and Rose and Lee, and Thelma is visiting one of her kids and won't be back until the end of the week, so I couldn't put a bead on them.

Now you're probably wondering, "Why is she telling us all these names?"  As I wrote them I wondered myself, but then remembered a wonderful women I'd worked with several years ago, Sr. Bessie.  With a heart as big as her girth, she loved to talk and when we would travel up and down the hollers she'ld tell me about Nancy and Walter one day, Sr. Pauline on another day and very often a story about her friend the Bishop or any number of other people.  At first I'd think to myself, "Bess, I don't even know these people, why are you telling me all this?" But in time, when she'd mention one or another of her countless friends or relatives I'd say, "Oh, how are they doing?" or "How did that work out?"  (whatever 'that' was.)  In other words, they became my friends, too.

So consider yourself introduced, it's quite likely you'll hear stories about these folks, too.  My hope is that you'll come to consider them your friends, too.  We're all a little quirky, but we're all good folk!