The Lord's Day (XIX Pentecost)

 Up and out of the Doubletree in Mt Vernon in time to arrive at St Mark's, West Frankfort (about 35 miles down I-57) around 0825. Presided and preached, sans any music, for a small but engaged congregation of about ten (decimated by the virus and fear of the virus), under the faithful pastoral leadership of Mother Sherry Black. Then, after taking the "slow road" (IL 37, rather than the parallel Interstate 57) as far as it went, which was just south of Effingham, where I stopped for some lunch, I will arrived at Trinity, Mattoon 45 minutes ahead of a scheduled 2pm general congregational meeting there (about 20 showed up) to discuss the contours of their pastoral hiatus,. It was a productive time. I finally arrived home at 6:00, having taken note of consistently beautiful (in an understated Illinois way) landscapes and farmscapes and townscapes. 

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