Just For The Moment

From the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, Linda, Tass and I arrived in Apalachicola twenty-nine years ago this summer, as I reported in to become Vicar of Trinity Episcopal Church for the next fourteen years. Some months before we arrived I had wrestled with two calls, whether to accept this pulpit and Altar or St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Mount Joy, Pennsylvania. Linda had had her heart set on that beautiful old stone church, matching rectory, and stone parish house on a quiet block in that lovely Pennsylvania Deutsch Country town with the Amish folk near by and in easy reach of her Harrisburg friends. She had driven over from Harrisburg several times to imagine where our furniture would go and measure for rugs and draperies, and parishioners had arranged for Tassy's acceptance and gifted classes in the local school. 

We had been just days from accepting that call when my mother phoned to tell me the Apalachicola pulpit was vacant. The story is longer than that, but Linda and I had had a pact, laid on by me I suppose, that at the right time after Navy retirement we would move home to Panama City. All those Navy years, every time we had leave, we came home to Panama City where I was born and grew up, and where I longed to return. Not a Florida or Panama City native, Linda was less certain and absolute in her desire to come back, but the dream and determination never left me.

On one occasion, in Florida to teach one of my graduate political science courses at the University of West Florida, I discussed my struggle with my parents, a struggle because it was ripping and tearing and tense in our home; and I remember my father saying of the Apalachicola church, “Bubba, that may be your destiny.” That didn’t decide for me, but it opened a new perspective as I wondered, "Are you speaking to me again, Lord?" 

The story has been told here before, that upon returning from Florida to Harrisburg that week, I went directly to my bishop’s office and informed him of my call to Trinity, Apalachicola and my decision to accept it. Bishop Charlie McNutt, who had served some years as Canon to the Ordinary for the Bishop of Florida in Jacksonville when Trinity was part of that diocese, looked at me stunned and said, “Apalachicola? I know it well. It’s the end of the earth. Whatever will you do there?” I said, “I’ll eat oysters and mullet.” He said, “And when you get tired of oysters and mullet what will you do?” In that instant God confirmed my decision as I realized there was no point in trying to explain to this kindly friend, not a Floridian, that one who has grown up on the Florida Gulf Coast never ever gets tired of oysters and mullet!

Tass was twelve years old, entering seventh grade, when we arrived. She grew up there, graduated from Apalachicola High School, which was good for her and to her, went away to college, met and married Jeremy, and moved away before Linda and I did.

We retired from parish ministry in 1998 and moved home to Panama City, still and always remembering our fourteen years in Apalachicola as a highlight. Last Friday, a week ago, we returned for the weekend, staying in the rectory, and filling in for the rector, who is away on sabbatical. Caroline and Charlotte learned about the house where their mother grew up, and the church where she was married. Immediately upon arriving the girls ran through the old 1900 house, upstairs to their mother's old bedroom and I overheard a shout, "It's awesome!" 

It is.

It was a perfect revisiting and welcoming back, a welcome of pure love. We were thankful for the blessing of being there again for the moment, a lovely place and the only town that nudges Panama City for center of my heart! 

Tom+