Chapter 1

Meetings

David Blake was holding office hours, which meant that any student could speak to him then. When, as usual, none of his students took that opportunity, he could get some work done. This time, he was reading about the changes in Roman marriage laws in the period before Paul wrote. Single women were still, theoretically, some man’s ward. But they could -- and did -- choose the man. Now, how that change affected Paul’s audience -- and Paul’s thought -- was a horse of a different color, but first he had to be clear about the change.

Which was fun, since he was far from certain that the Romans -- much less their subjects from Tarsus -- were clear about the change. Did the legal fiction of wardship satisfy only the necessity of seeing the law as unchanging? Was it the way people looked at the institution, and the actual pattern of actions was seen as an exception? Did some classes see it one way and others see it another?

He was half relieved, half exasperated, when his phone interrupted him. “David Blake.”

“Professor Blake, I’m Edward Campbell. I’m Jennifer Saunders’ district superintendent. She tells me that the two of you are engaged.”

“Yes, Reverend Campbell.”

“Congratulations. Now, I’d like to talk with both of you. She suggested that your schedule is more fixed than hers, and that I should make the appointment with you.”

They set the tentative appointment for the coming Wednesday at four.

When he’d got off the phone, David called Jen. “Is Wednesday at four possible? Campbell is on his way back from Chicago then.”

“You couldn’t schedule it during one of my committee meetings?” Jen asked. “Meeting the DS is church business, after all.”

He knew just how she felt. “Sorry. Besides, Campbell might see this as your personal time. The DS is your pastor as well as your immediate superior.”

“And who isn’t my immediate superior? There’s Pastor-Parish, the Administrative Board, and the Council of Ministries.” He was shocked that Independence had both the latter two, small as it was. “That’s beside the Trustees.”

He’d been there, done that, got out. “You forget the Worship Committee. And the Board of Trustees is your landlord, not your boss.”

“We’re too small to have a worship committee. But we do have the United Methodist Women, active in the cold months.”

“And they all expect the pastor to do just what they say, even if they say different things.” He’d been through that.

“Not in Independence,” she said. “They’ve all lived in each other’s laps so long that they agree on almost everything. If they don’t, they know who’s on which side.”

Jen got back to the subject. “Wednesday at four is great.”

“Lovely,” he said. “I said the parsonage. This is personal business, after all. If you want it in the church, I’ll call him back.”

“No reason. I thought of this after I spoke with him. I was afraid you were going to have to drive to his office.”

“Look, think about this.” He wondered how to put it so that she didn’t hear it as a demand. “He might well want to perform the wedding.”

“Seems reasonable to me.”

“If you want to say ‘yes,’ do so. If you want to say ‘no,’ don’t say anything. Tell me later, and I’ll say the ‘no.’” After all, he had people mad at him who had one hell of a lot more power over him than Campbell did.

“There is so much we have to decide.”

“And not just about the wedding.”

“Are you making a list of things we have to decide about the marriage?” Jen asked.

“Started it. Have you?”

“Only mentally.”

“Love you.”

“Love you, too,” she said. “And the next time I’ll see you is with my DS watching.”

“Well, I’ll be there; he’ll be there. I’m sure he’ll have an appointment afterwards. I won’t.”

“You do now. When do you want the wedding?”

“I’ve said it’s your choice.” He had opinions about almost everything. Where he was indifferent, she’d better decide. Otherwise she’d turn into a wimp. Somehow, that wasn’t how he pictured Jen. “The honeymoon has to be after the end of school, though.”

“June wedding?” she asked.

“Sounds great.”

“I’ll be here through Conference. So, you need to check out the place you’ll be living. Is the bed the proper firmness? That sort of thing.”

“I love you, Jen.” And he was glad she’d said that. He’d need a Trojan, and he hadn’t thought about bringing one to a session with a DS.

He left the seminary just minutes after the end of his last class. Even so, he arrived after Campbell. He checked his watch. Not quite four.

“I’m wearing two hats,” Campbell said. “Three, really, I hope I’m your friend, and -- as a friend -- I wish you two all the luck in the world. As your pastor, I’ll want to make sure that you understand the step you’ve decided to take. But I’m also Jen’s DS, and I have to see what is good for her and the church in the way of assignments.”

“We’d really like something closer to Garrett,” Jen said. “This year doesn’t matter so much; we aren’t planning the wedding ‘til June. But the commute from Evanston would be a killer.”

“You aren’t pregnant?” asked Campbell suddenly.

“No.” Jen sounded less offended than he felt.

“Then I’d suggest that you take a second year here. I’ll be perfectly honest: this church is a one-year assignment in most cases. But you are starting one major life change; you don’t want to start another.”

“Jen’s a traveling preacher,” he said. He didn’t want her to start out her career with a rebellion, especially a selfish rebellion. “She goes where she’s assigned.”

“I know that,” Campbell said. “And -- if she insists -- she’ll get an assignment with a shorter drive for you. I can’t promise that, of course. But, as a practical matter, she can probably depend on it. What I’m suggesting -- as her pastor as well as a member of the Cabinet -- is that she ask for a second year here. I think it would be best for her. The year after, we’ll know what you want; we’ll know that it is reasonable; it’ll be one of our priorities. The year after that, of course, I won’t be a DS.”

“I can handle the drive for a year,” David said. It was worth it for the cabinet to see Jen as cooperative. He’d make damn-well sure that being married to him wasn’t going to harm her career.

“We’ll talk more,” Jen said.

“Good!” Campbell said. “A couple should make their decisions together. Do you want me to perform the service?”

“Would you like to?” Jen asked.

“Very much.”

“Then yes.”

“That doesn’t need a confab?” The DS raised an eyebrow.

“That,” David pointed out, “was a question that could be foreseen.”

“And is the ceremony going to be here?”

“I’ve been warned of a mutiny if it isn’t.” Jen was joking.

“You’ve both done counseling?” Campbell asked. “Had courses in counseling?” Jen and he both nodded their heads.

“There are two ways of handling that,” Campbell continued. “I could do a nominal counseling session -- ‘You know what the questions are; what’s your response?’ I’d rather go the extra mile. What do you think?”

“Probably,” David said, “that’s for the best. There’s lots here that isn’t in the sort of wedding Jen is likely to perform in Independence.”

Campbell smiled. “Where do you see the problems?”

“In each of us,” David said. “Internally, I’m quite an opinionated guy. Externally, Jen’s a preacher. That lays all sorts of demands on her time and her attention which the traditional wife doesn’t have. And it doesn’t help that it’s a role where my opinions happen to be strong. Of course, my career ain’t a bed of roses, either. What happens if I publish something that Jen disagrees with? What happens if it causes a controversy with her peers -- or with you? Anyway, these aren’t quite the problems I counseled on, nor -- I suspect -- Jen. You’ve probably had more experience, if not lots.”

“A clear-headed analysis,” Campbell said.

“The word on Professor Blake at Garrett,” Jen said, “was that he is always clear-headed, even when he is wrong-headed.”

That was a kind way of putting it. “The word on Blake at Garrett is that he is always wrong-headed.”

“We’ll need more sessions, then,” Campbell said. “Here?”

“Okay by me.” He was used to commuting every Sunday. He’d have to do it every weekday next year. A few more commutes wouldn’t kill him. Anyway, he’d need more time with Jen checking out the bedroom.

“Many of them,” Jen said. “You’re in Chicago often, Reverend Campbell. Maybe we could schedule one -- or even two -- there. I’ll have to go in sometimes. That would be more convenient for you than meeting here.”

“If you have to go in,” Campbell said. “Driving is part of a DS’s job description, otherwise. It would be more convenient for David as well.”

“I thought of that,” Jen said.

“I’ll send you some thoughts,” Campbell said. “Some questions for you each to answer. Some things we have to discuss; others don’t need my presence. There’s a lot to marriage which has to be decided. It doesn’t matter whether you go one way or the other; you have to both go the same way. If the wife expects the husband to take out the garbage and the husband expects the wife to, you’ll get a huge pile of garbage in the kitchen before that question is resolved.” They both smiled at that.

Jen ushered him out. They watched him drive away. “That wasn’t so bad,” David said. “Funny, I’ve been on the other side dozens of times, and I was always amazed that the couple was nervous. What was I going to do, after all? Now, the shoe’s on the other foot, and I find that I was nervous. What was he going to do, after all?”

“He might ask if I was pregnant.”

Oops! And he’d thought that was wrong when it happened. “Darling, I’m sorry. That must have made you feel rotten.”

“Not actually,” she said. “He had to know. It’s something you suspect, these days, whenever you see an engaged couple. He doesn’t need to know whether we’ve gone to bed together, and he didn’t ask. My mother asked the pregnancy thing.”

“Mothers always do. It’s one of the things they worry about.”

“Y’know, it would get me a new assignment.” Well, that answered his question about kids. She certainly wasn’t totally opposed.

On the other hand, they shouldn’t have a kid out of spite. “And it would spoil your record for the rest of your career, to say nothing of how he’d suspect the reason. It’s not as if you hadn’t answered already. Let’s play this straight.” How could he express this properly? “The cabinet can decide many things about our marriage. There’s no reason to allow them to decide about when we have children.”

“You’ve thought about that?”

“It’s on my list of questions,” he said. Not yet on his list of answers. He wanted kids, Jen’s kids. He didn’t want to share her just yet. “We’ll each write our answer separately.”

“You’re uncompromising,” Jen said.

“I’m trying to compromise fairly.”