resonant | Strange messengers

If this were a story instead of real life, it would actually be finished instead of just inspiring me to speculate. But it's a pretty cool story anyway.

St. Sapient is involved in a lawsuit with the city. It's a long story, but to sum up: in the 1950s, a parishioner gave the church an adjacent lot with a house on it; the church didn't have a pressing need for the land and didn't have the money to tear the house down; in between, the neighborhood became a historic district, and now tearing down anything requires permission from the city's historic preservation commission; and they say no way.

So the house sits there, costing the church several thousand dollars a month in utilities and security and the sort of minimal repairs necessary to keep the roof on and the raccoons and drug users out, while the lawyers try to persuade the city to allow it to be torn down.

Pastor Fixit has left the church and is now a chaplain at the local hospital, but she has to stay in touch because she's heavily involved in the lawsuit. Meanwhile, we hired a sweet but slightly corny retired guy to be our new interim: Pastor Singalong.

So Pastor Fixit stopped by yesterday to give us the latest lawsuit update, and the Head Monkey dragged a dusty, smelly box out of his office and said, "This might interest you."

The box contained two old-fashioned leather binders full of mostly hand-written pages. Here's the story he told about it.

Wednesday was the Head Monkey's wife's birthday, and he planned to leave early to meet up with some other people to take her out to dinner. But just about the time he was getting ready to leave, an elderly man waylaid him in the lane.

"He was either a township assessor or a township inspector -- I never did figure out which one, because I'm telling you people, this man had the worst stutter I ever heard. I mean the worst. It was taking him sometimes thirty seconds to get a word out. I was in a big hurry, but I didn't want to interrupt him or fill in the blanks on him or anything --" (the Head Monkey's daughter is a speech-language pathologist, so he knows what you don't do to stutterers) -- "so there wasn't nothing I could do but be patient."

After nearly an hour's conversation, it developed that the man had gone to turn some teenage squatters out of an abandoned house in an outlying village, and in the attic he'd found this box, and these books had the church's name on them, so he'd brought them to us.

Pastor Fixit started idly looking through the books, and then the looking became less idle, and then it became avid. "Look, these are minutes from the thirties and forties," she said. "See, here's an action the board took on the building of the parish hall. When I was preparing for the lawsuit, I stared at microfiches for hours but I never could find this stuff."

Now, one of the things that came out of her microfiche sessions was an agreement with the city from the 1970s that promised the church would never be held responsible for the maintenance of the lane -- something that saved us a lot of trouble and money, since the city has been, yes, holding us responsible for the maintenance of the lane. So we know that there's all sorts of useful stuff in the old records.

"You know," I said, "if it turns out that there was some critical information from these records that would help us win that lawsuit, and they were hidden in the attic of an abandoned house in the country until a stuttering township assessor brought them to us ..."

"... then," Pastor Singalong said, "we know how an angel talks."

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Oh! Pastor Singalong for the win! Oh my goodness, what a fantastic story. Oh, my pastor dad would have adored that story.

I never knew you were a PK. If I knew you better, I could tell if you fit the pattern.

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bead - 2009-09-06 23:12 (UTC) - Expand

OOH, goosebumps. Well done Pastor Singalong. :-)

I felt vindicated, because I've been telling people all along that Pastor Singalong is sharper than they think he is.

That is an awesome story. Wow. Stranger than fiction indeed.

Definitely! I'd love to know the story of how the books came to be out there in the first place. They're so old that the permanent record is hand-written.

That is a good story.

(And, just because this is sort of my baliwick: has anyone talked about giving the house away if someone will move it? We've had good luck with that locally, from time to time.)

I'm told they looked into it -- this is before I got involved enough to know anything about the problem. What they were told was that it could be moved, for a price in the millions, but it would require cutting down all the trees between the house and the historic street, and then all the trees along the historic street until they got to their destination. Some of those trees predate the founding of the city, so that was a no.

sara - 2009-08-29 03:38 (UTC) - Expand

resonant - 2009-08-29 03:51 (UTC) - Expand

AWESOME.

Pretty cool, huh?

Holy WOW.

I thought it was pretty wild.

Addendum: The Head Monkey called up a guy who was a pal of his at his first job and said, "Hey, something today reminded me that I never apologized to you for making that crack about your stuttering in 1975."

Every bit of me that can goosebump just bumped.

Yeah, I thought it was kind of cool-spooky.

"... then," Pastor Singalong said, "we know how an angel talks."

I love that :D

People shouldn't underestimate slow-talking old guys, I'm telling ya.

:D This was just beautiful! I think I would love to meet your Pastor Singalong.

He's easy to underestimate. I've been saying for weeks that he's sharper than he appears.

That is awesome.

Thanks!

Oooooooooooh.

I thought so too!

Oooooh.

Yeah, pretty neat, huh?

A stuttering angel! I love it.

Who's to say?

What a fantastic story! And even better because it's *true*!

I thought it was pretty neat.

So freakin' cool!!

I thought so!

What a lovely story. I hope it turns out as well as it is charming.

I hope so too!

That is absolutely awesome.

It is, isn't it?

Way, way cool.

"fear not"

...what a cool story! totally deserves to be fiction....

Thanks! If only we knew how it ended ...

Aw! That's a lovely story.

I read this on LJ last night but failed to comment. I love this story to pieces, and think your Pastor Singalong sounds like the kind of pastor I could be fond of. :)

He's kind of corny but sweet. And sharper than he looks.

::is gobsmacked::

I know, right?

Wow, this was not only a lovely story but truely inspiring. Honestly, it make me smile while I rubbed down a few goosebumps.

I thought it was pretty cool. Because of our location, we get all sorts of strange 'uns here, some of whom may not be what they appear.

That is very neat. Even if there is nothing about the lawsuit in the books, the history in them has to be fascinating (if a bit dry due to being meeting minutes) :-)

Almost certainly true!