Decade

"You know, we just don't recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they're happening."

-Moonlight Graham, Field of Dreams

I've probably told this story before.

In 2013 I served as a mentor in the Education for Ministry program at Holy Nativity Episcopal Church. It was recruiting season, the time when I scrambled to assemble a large enough group of thoughtful, diverse, inquisitive folks to make the academic year work. So on this particular June morning, Steve yielded the floor to me during the announcements portion of the 10:30 service, giving me a few minutes to talk about the program and ask that those in the pews prayerfully consider whether they might want to give it a try.

As soon as the recessional went silent and the service ended, she strode up to my pew.

Oh, that walk! She always moves with this combination of grace and a gait that suggests she's going somewhere, shoulders thrown back and eyes fixed on the target.

She didn't have any questions. "I want to joint your program."

Who was this person? I recall she was fashionably dressed in her casual yet elegant way, without recalling anything more than the impression her attire left.

But the eyes. I do recall she had the prettiest eyes I'd ever seen, big and expressive. And tired. She looked tired to me.

I tried to dissuade her, explaining that this wasn't a Bible study. She said she didn't care.

It's a major time commitment, three hours every Wednesday night.

Not a problem.

It's expensive, $350 for the year (I think, as I look back on it).

How should I make out the check?

So Peggy Bowen joined EfM, that very day, leaving me with a check and a promise to fill out the application that was a formality imposed by Sewanee, which administered the program.

That was exactly ten years ago. Well, ten years and a couple hours. An encounter that lasted less than five minutes, but marked a chronological dividing line in my life as decisive as "B.C." and "C.E." on your calendar. Everything in the era one might call "A.P.", or "After Peggy", has been as wonderful and painful and filled with passion and triumph and tragedy as any life could be. But on that sunny, warm June morning in Panama City I never would have guessed that this rather direct Southern Belle would end up being the love of my life. An earthquake happened in my world at that moment, a seismic break in my life, and I didn't even feel it. And although it's her story to tell, I don't think she felt the significance of the moment, either.

Years later we planned a wedding on this day, also her late brother's birthday, but were overcome by events and moved up the ceremony so we could marry in my mother's living room just a couple days before Mom underwent a very dangerous surgery.

And here we are, Peg the same beautiful, determined woman I met there in the sanctuary ten years ago, me a little grayer and paunchier. But this June 9th the moment isn't lost on me. It's the anniversary of the day I started living into the good part.