Shepherdess without a Flock Ch. 02

"I see," Melissa said coldly. "Well, Pastor Dani, I trust you had your own room."

"Why, yes, I did, Melissa," Dani said with a smile. "Right until we slept together on my last night there."

"Oh, I see. Well, it was very nice meeting you, Pastor Dani. I'm afraid it's time for me to go." Melissa pulled an envelope from the unsorted stack and held it.

"Oh, that's a shame," said Dani. "I would have invited you over to the manse for tea once we were done here. I'll see you on Sunday, I hope?"

"Oh, yes of course, Pastor Dani. I never misses services." Melissa tore the envelope she was holding into small pieces and carried the shreds with her.

"What was that you just tore?" Dani asked.

"Oh, just some junk mail, Pastor Dani. Every church gets it. I'll see you Sunday." Melissa walked away with the shredded bit of mail. Dani tried to see what it was but could only make out a printed return address with a green and purple logo.

"I look forward to it," said Dani. She waited to see if Melissa would use one of the trash cans in the church. Melissa, however, carried the shreds with her to her SUV.

"That's an odd duck," Dani said aloud to herself. "If she called me by my name and title one more time I was going to toss her out a stained glass window..."

Dani finished sorting the mail and delivered the stacks to the appropriate departments. There was quite a bit of junk mail and Dani wondered why Melissa didn't take all of it. She wondered if it was porn or something similarly embarrassing that was delivered to the church.

Dani locked up the church and went home to the manse. She put on a kettle for tea and turned the television on for background noise. She pulled up her blouse a little, so that she could take off her bra. She was not planning to leave the manse for the rest of the day. She had just pulled her bra off through her sleeve when she heard a knocking on her window. She looked at the window and saw a man standing there staring at her. She pulled her blouse down and went to the front door. The man saw her moving and met her there.

"Hi. Can I help you?" Dani asked as she opened the door.

"Hello, Pastor Van Cleef. I'm Dave Amoroso. I'm one of the Elders here. We met at your installation."

"Oh, hi Mr. Amoroso. Please, call me Dani. What can I do for you?"

"I just spoke to Melissa Masters on the phone and she said you had sorted the church's mail. I checked my mailbox but I didn't see something important we've been waiting for. Did you happen to see a letter from St. John's Cemetery?"

"Yes, I have it on my kitchen table," Dani said. "Please wait here a moment, Mr. Amoroso." Dani went to the kitchen, which was only a few steps from the front door, and picked up the envelope. She brought it back and handed it to Mr. Amoroso. "Is this it?"

He inspected it for a second and said, "That's the one. Thank you, Pastor. Have a good night."

"Um, sorry. If you don't mind my asking, what is that?" Dani asked.

"Oh, it's just the check the cemetery sends us in payment for maintaining their grounds," he replied.

"Oh," said Dani. "Ok. Well, have a good night, Mr. Amoroso."

Dani closed all of the blinds on the first floor and took the kettle off the stove. She made herself a cup of Earl Grey and watched television for a half hour before she began making dinner. Just as she sat down to eat her dinner, the doorbell rang. She got up and walked the few steps from the kitchen to the front door.

"Pastor Van Cleef?"

"Yes?" Dani answered in a question.

"Good evening, Pastor. Dave Amoroso said you were home. I'm Tom McNulty. I'm one of the Elders at the church."

"Hi, Mr. McNulty. Did Mr. Amoroso tell you I like to be called Dani?"

"No, he didn't, Dani. Please call me Tom, by the way. I just wanted to make sure you were settling in ok."

"So far so good. Uh, Tom, I was just about to have my dinner. Would you like to join me?"

"I'd love to but my wife would kill me. I'm at church every week. If you find there's something you need here, just let me know."

"Thank you. I definitely will."

"Well, have a good night, Dani. Enjoy your dinner."

"Thank you, Tom. Have a good night."

After that night, Dani got used to keeping her blinds closed after sunset. She found that whenever the blinds were up, visitors would come to the windows rather than the door.

Dani checked the lectionary for Sunday's text before she began writing her sermon. The Hebrew Bible lesson came from the Book of Ruth and the Gospel lesson was the story of the ten lepers. Dani wrote a sermon about being a good companion. She wondered about opening with a joke. Most of the jokes she knew were pretty dirty. That obviously wouldn't go over well with this crowd. Dani began to wonder how long it would be before she swore during a sermon.

Sunday's service went fairly smoothly. Her sermon went over well and most of the people stayed awake. She shook hands after service and Tom remembered to call her Dani. She was surprised there wasn't fellowship after the service so she asked Tom about it.

"Oh, that," he said. "Yeah, well we haven't had a full time Pastor in years. We've been living off supply preachers so the church decided only to have fellowship on Sunday where communion is served."

Dani thanked him and shook the hand of the next person in line.

When he called Wednesday at his usual time, Dani told Frank about her experiences with her congregation.

"Ok," said Frank. "You're speaking a foreign language. Explain some things to me. What's fellowship?"

"It's like a coffee hour. There's cookies and other snacks. People eat and talk to each other."

"That sounds nice," Frank said. "So what's the problem? Don't you have communion every Sunday?"

Dani laughed. "Um, no. We only have communion about sixteen times a year."

"16?" asked Frank. "That's it?"

"The first Sunday of every month and certain church holy days."

"Wow. That sucks. Ok, so what's a supply preacher?"

"Well," said Dani, "in some smaller churches they can't afford to pay a Pastor so they hire a supply preacher. The supply preacher only shows up on Sundays. He or she leads the service, gives the sermon, and that's it. The supply preacher doesn't do counseling or funerals or weddings. Really they just do the sermon and communion."

"That also sounds sucky. Now, what's an Elder?"

"The elders are the leaders of the church," Dani explained.

"I thought you were the leader of the church."

"I'm the spiritual leader. The elders are in charge of the practical things, the politics of the church. When there are things that affect both sides of the church, it goes before Session. Session is the elders and the Pastor of the church. If the Pastor isn't there, it isn't Session; it's an elders meeting. Decisions come up and Session or the elders vote on it. If it's a really big decision, it goes to a congregational meeting and all of the registered members of the church get to vote on it."

"Ok, that part sounds pretty cool. The Pastor can't just change things overnight without reason."

"Nope," said Dani. "Changes have to be voted on."

"So what kinds of things get voted on in Session?"

"New members get voted on," said Dani. "People come to join the church and they attend a new members class. They meet with the elders and Session votes on whether or not to accept them."

"This sounds like some really complicated shit," Frank said.

"Yeah, it can be."

"So, wait. Why didn't your church have a full time Pastor before you?"

Dani answered, "They couldn't afford to pay the salary. They just started getting a grant that would allow them to pay for my services."

"You get paid?"

"Of course I get paid. I'm doing a job..." Dani said.

"You don't take a vow of poverty?"

"No, I do not," said Dani. "The congregation takes care of that by voting whether or not I get a raise."

"How does your church get money?"

"The same way every church gets money. From their tithes and offerings."

"You're speaking that foreign language again. What's a tithe?"

Dani sighed and said, "It's an agreement church members make to give ten percent of their income to the church."

"Net or gross?"

"That's the ongoing debate. The church would prefer gross," said Dani.

Frank scoffed and said, "Yeah, of course they would."

They talked a bit longer until Dani got off to begin writing her next sermon.

Thursday, Dani was in the snack aisle of the Shop Rite when she heard someone from behind her ask, "Pastor Van Cleef?"

She visibly flinched before putting on a bright smile, turning and saying, "Yes. But when the robes are off, my name is Dani."

"Fair enough. My name is Josh. I caught your sermon on Sunday," said the young man facing her.

"I'm sorry," Dani said. "You caught it? I'm guessing you're not a church member."

Josh chuckled and said, "No, that was my first time in a church in a long while."

"So what made you pick that service?"

"I have no clue," he admitted. "I was walking up Main and I heard the church bells and went in for the hell of it."

"Not the best choice of words," said Dani with a smile, "but I'm glad you caught it. Why didn't I see you after the service?"

"I went out the Main Street door and you were shaking hands on the other side."

"That makes sense," said Dani. "How was the sermon."

"Very good," Josh said. "I had no idea the name Ruth literally meant 'companion'. So you think the entire book was really a metaphor?"

"An allegory," Dani said as she ran her fingers through her hair. "It's possible although Ruth was the great-grandmother of King David and, therefore, an ancestress of Jesus. So, it's probably not a good idea to suggest that she's fictional."

"Still, that's pretty cool," Josh said with a smile. "So, what are you up to, Dani?"

"Oh, I'm trying to figure out how to lead service and set up snacks for fellowship at the same time."

"Can I help?" asked a very sincere looking Josh.

"Did you have any plans to catch this Sunday's service?" asked Dani.

"Are those cookies in your basket what you're planning to serve for fellowship?"

Dani smiled and said, "Yep."

"I'm in."

Sunday's sermon was about the woman at the well. Dani pursued what it was like for the woman to meet this man who should have been her enemy who knew all the details of her life. Dani admitted that she would have freaked out on Jesus. The woman, instead, tells everyone in town about this man. This woman was not even Hebrew and she was a believer.

When Dani led the congregation in the Lord's Prayer, Josh set up a table in the narthex and put coffee, lemonade and cookies out. When the service ended, Dani announced that there would be fellowship in the narthex. The food and beverages quickly disappeared. Dani didn't get any because she was at the parking lot side door of the church shaking hands with members as they left the church.

Melissa Masters made no secret of the fact that she was not pleased. She passed Dani without shaking her hand.

Dani and Josh continued doing fellowship. He would come early on Sundays and set things up in the kitchen in the basement. He would be in the sanctuary for the service and would head downstairs after the sermon. The majority of the church members seemed to like weekly fellowship. Only a few of the elders ever participated in the fellowship. Dani bought more snacks each week until she reached a point when there was enough for her to have some.

Josh joined the new members class and would be ready to join the church in October.

In September, the new confirmation class met. There were six teenagers who would be confirmed; three boys and three girls. Towards the end of the first confirmation class, Jimmy Amoroso - Dave's son - raised his hand.

"Yes, Jimmy?" invited Dani.

"Pastor Dani, you're supposed to show us how to be better people, right?"

"Something like that," Dani replied. "We make that journey together in this class."

Jimmy frowned and said, "Then how come when you took your leave of absence to mourn your father what you really did was fly to a tropical island and have sex like a whore?"

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Thank you for reading. Votes and polite comments are desired and appreciated.