Another brief, late entry after running wide open with work since well before eight this morning. Four depositions and a mediation in the space of four days. Like I said before, I'm getting too old for this.
Peg reminded me over coffee at six this morning that it's not only her late brother Larry's birthday, but also the anniversary of the day we first met.
That was way back in 2013. I was in my churchie phase of life, and on that particular June 9th I was standing in the sanctuary at Holy Nativity during announcements, talking up registration for the Education for Ministry program. I've spoken of EfM before, a four year program designed to deepen one's understanding of Christianity in context and to systematically build spiritual formation. I was a "mentor", basically a trained facilitator who managed and led the weekly three hour meetings of the ten or so participants over the course of four years. We always had folks graduating, and so always needed to find a couple new recruits over the summer to keep the program viable.
After the service, this striking woman strode up to me, posture erect and shoulders back like she had an agenda and somewhere to go. She had the most beautiful eyes I'd ever seen, truly, although they also appeared weary to me. I knew pretty much everyone then at HNEC, being Mr. Church and all, but this one was unfamiliar.
In an upper class east Tennessee lilt, she introduced herself as Peggy Bowen and announced she would like to join that EfM thing I was talking about. I cautioned it wasn't Sunday School. She didn't care. I cautioned it was expensive, but when I told her it was $350.00 she just smiled and volunteered to write the check then and there. I repeated that it was a substantial time commitment, every week, but that seemed to motivate her even more.
Unbeknownst to me, it was not my stellar salesmanship or rakish good looks that brought Peg through the big red doors that day. Things at home were very bad. Larry was terminally ill. Diving into something new and demanding would be at least a diversion, and at most a vehicle for finding hope and meaning during challenging times.
It certainly wasn't a means of finding a spouse, not back then. We grew to be the best of friends. The rest is history.
A few years later on this date Peg sent me this photo from her alien abduction.
Not really. She was working locums in New Mexico, and sent me this photo when she visited the UFO museum in Roswell. There's that good posture again. Isn't she a beauty?
We had intended at one point to get married on a June 9th after the hurricane, but Mom's health and a risky surgery in Texas led us to push it up a bit. A very happy day that was, exchanging vows in Mom's living room.
Today I have a client meeting in a few minutes, then we'll drive over to TLH to pick up the plane after getting a new magnetometer installed, and then on to Wyldswood for our last bit of time together before I must give Peg back to Guthrie while I stay here and work for the rest of the month. A long, long way from that moment nine years ago today, standing in a church and not realizing where things would lead. Every June 9th I'm grateful all over again.
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