The Pastor

The Pastor

Christine Pennylegion

Strangely it's not parishioners who call at 10 pm,
though I called my own pastor once that late
from a gurney in a hospital hallway, to tell him
I was there. These days the emergency calls
about broken marriages and broken minds
and the earth being flat and this damn pandemic
scraping our wounded places raw all come
floating out of the past: men he lived with
during university, men from his old softball team,
men who, like my husband, all turned forty
this year or last and are suddenly faced with
the questions they've spent a lifetime putting off.
He takes their calls, prays, argues, pulls out his hair,
organizes barbecues, calls the police.
They don't tell you this part in seminary,
don't tell you the way people offer you their neediness,
their precious and sacred weaknesses,
don't tell you how to listen for the bewildered child
underneath the adult belligerence,
don't tell you the breathless miracles God spends
upon the people you'd last expect,
the people you never thought would get it,
the people who call the pastor at 10 pm
hoping that he will or that he won't pick up.

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Christine Pennylegion
Poet & Mother

Christine has lived in and around Toronto, Ottawa, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Windsor. She holds a BA(Hons) in English from the University of Toronto, and an MAR from Trinity School for Ministry. Christine spends her days changing diapers, washing dishes, and reading good books. Read more at christinepennylegion.com.

Photography by Mathias Reding