Arriving at the office, Lois greeted me as usual with mail and schedule in hand. We exchanged our normal greetings and pleasantries before I stepped into my office. Something still felt out of place, but I couldn’t put my finger on just what it was. I looked around the office. I scanned my desktop – things appeared to be in order. Still, something left me feeling a little unsettled. I began to think back through my departure from the office the day before. What time had I left? What was I doing before I left? Had things been moved around? What was this uneasy feeling?
Unable to find any answers, I resolved to make this as normal a day as I could. My normal routine of correspondence in the morning and studying in the afternoon, sure to be punctuated by a visit with Jesse around two and hopefully a call from Dan Hiles later in the day, should have me home in time for supper and leave me, I imagined, feeling pretty satisfied. So, I dove in – email, letters to the couple of visitors from Sunday, and returning a couple of phone calls were atop the list.
My email was filled with the usual suspects: an offer to enlarge my… well, you know… a handful of offers to greatly increase my libido and at least one plan guaranteed to help me score a fortune by flipping real-estate. There was also the weekly appearance of an email from a widow of a Christian government worker in some far away country who wanted to wire $50 million dollars into my bank account. This morning there was even an offer to cleanse my mailbox of spam! Alas, there were a few legitimate emails to respond to. I typed away.
I turned my attention to the stack of mail Lois had handed me. The usual there too – catalogs and sales flyers. I chuckled as I thumbed through the stack. Pastors get the most boring junk mail – lectern, seating and baptismal font catalogs; Choir robe and sanctuary banner companies; tape duplication services – does anyone still use cassette tapes?
A plain white envelope with a return address that I didn’t recognize caught my eye. I figured that would be worth a read, and put my letter-opener to work.
The letter itself was printed on Corinth Covenant Church letterhead. I looked back at the envelope. It struck me as strange that the envelope didn’t carry that same artwork. The letter began:
Reverend Haas;
Members of our search committee were given your name by the denomination as a Pastor who might be interested in considering a call to serve in a new community. Enclosed please find...
What? Who is giving out my name? Where did this come from? I reviewed those words again: ‘were given your name by the denomination as a Pastor who might be interested’. Angrily, I tossed the letter back into its envelope and set it aside to wait for Dan Hiles’ call later in the afternoon. Maybe he could explain this to me. As I read through other mail, my mind continued to stew over that letter. I was having a difficult enough time discerning what was happening, and how to respond. Why would anyone be telling any church anywhere to contact me? This was really a low blow.
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