Bodies and Souls Read Online Free PDF Page B

female and male, young and old, strong and meek, made a chant which was pleasing to the ears. Peter thought as he often had before how odd it was that such an artificial gathering of people should produce a genuine and legitimate sound, as if people were by nature meant to read aloud together no less than birds were meant to sing in unison. This weekly harmony, contrived as it was, reaffirmed his congregation’s faith in God, and Peter’s faith in them.
    At the end of the prayer, Peter asked, “Would all the children like to join me atthe front of the church for the Children’s Story?” He walked to the steps and sat on the second one, and the children from the ages of four to ten gathered in a circle on the floor around him. Each week, for four of five minutes, Peter told a Children’s Story—always an easy lesson with a catchy beginning and an obvious moral. Today he talked about the signs of changing seasons: the moral was to welcome each thing in its time. The Children’s Story provided a break in the formality of the service. This morning, as always, there was one child who interrupted to ask an irrelevant question and another who pointed out a new pair of shoes, and the adults laughed and glanced knowingly at one another, pleased with themselves for being grown-up. At the end of the Children’s Story, the congregation rose to sing a hymn while the children filed out. Then Peter settled back in his chair as Reynolds Houston went to the pulpit to read from the Bible.
    Part of the Scripture lesson for the morning came from Mark, the old familiar words: “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.”
    Well, of course, Peter suddenly thought: there’s the answer. If he couldn’t help Suzanna Blair, perhaps someone else could. They were a congregation. He scanned the group before him. Who could best help Suzanna Blair? Possibly Pam Moyer, who was always kind; but no, not quite right, Peter thought, not now. Pam had become very active in civic and political affairs, almost aggressively so; she would be too busy to focus on such a small, personal matter. There was always Norma Wilson, who was kind, too, but she was in her sixties, and Leigh Findly, who was closer to Suzanna’s age, but as adamantly liberal in her views as Norma was conservative. Peter continued to look around.
    When his glance fell on Judy Bennett, he smiled involuntarily and knew his search had come to an end. In fact, he was surprised that he had not thought of Judy immediately. She would be the perfect person to help Suzanna—she would be the perfect person to help anybody.
    When Peter and Patricia and their three children had first moved to Londonton, it had been the hospitality of Judy Bennett that had made that move bearable. The Taylors and their moving van had arrived from Maine in August. The day of their arrival had been scheduled for months, but it had rained in Londonton for an entire week, and theroof of the parsonage had sprung a leak. Because no one was living there at the time to notice it, it had widened and opened, so that the walls and ceilings and floors of the bedroom and the living room collapsed in places. Judy Bennett had gone to the house early, to open it up for the Taylors, and she had met them at the door with the bad news: workmen had come, and were working as fast as they could, but it would be a good week before the house was livable. Before they could gather their wits together to despair, she hurried on: the Taylors would stay at her house for the week—there was plenty of room since her two children were off at prep school, and she’d enjoy having the Taylor family around.
    So the moving company had piled the furniture and boxes into the rooms that were not damaged, and