A Letter Makes Ordinary Things Seem Important.

I’m Writing This In Part To Tell You That If You Ever Wonder What You’ve Done In Your Life, And Everyone Does Wonder Sooner Or Later, You Have Been God’s Grace To Me, A Miracle, Something More Than A Miracle. You May Not Remember Me Very Well At All, And It May Seem To You To Be No Great Thing To Have Been The Good Child Of An Old Man In A Shabby Little Town You Will No Doubt Leave Behind. If Only I Had The Words To Tell You.

There Is No Justice In Love, No Proportion In It, And There Need Not Be, Because In Any Specific Instance It Is Only A Glimpse Or Parable Of An Embracing, Incomprehensible Reality. It Makes No Sense At All Because It Is The Eternal Breaking In On The Temporal. So How Could It Subordinate Itself To Cause Or Consequence?

There Are Several Sources For My Appreciation Of Pastors And The Way They Are Described In This Book. One Of Them Is Reading History And Realizing That They Had A Profound Creative Impact On The Middle West And The Settlement Of The Middle West.

I Am Interested In Scripture And Theology. This Is An Interest That I Can Assume I Would Share With A Pastor, So That Makes Me A Little Bit Prone To Use That Kind Of Character, Perhaps, Just At The Moment. Then There Is Also The Fact That, Having Been A Church Member For Many Years, I Am Very Aware Of How Much Pastors Enrich People's Experience, People For Whom They Are Significant. I Know That It's A Kind Of Custom Of American Literature And Culture To Slang Them. I Don't Think There Is Any Reason Why That Needs To Be Persisted In.

Sometimes I Have Loved The Peacefulness Of An Ordinary Sunday. It Is Like Standing In A Newly Planted Garden After A Warm Rain. You Can Feel The Silent And Invisible Life.