The Lord's Day (XX Pentecost)

On the road southbound from Mt Vernon at 8am, arriving at St Mark's, West Frankfort half an hour later. Presided and preached at their regular 0900 liturgy. It was great to see about a half dozen children in the congregation of 23. After enjoying a post-liturgical potluck, we were back in the YFNBmobile a little past 11. With a bit of time to kill before an afternoon engagement in Decatur, we stuck to secondary roads: U.S. 37 north to Salem, U.S. 50 west (with a stop at Wal*Mart) to Sandoval, U.S. 51 north to Vandalia, then a split-second decision to divert to Springfield and a brief errand at the office. But ... when we actually got close to Springfield, I realized, regretfully, that there wasn't time to go by the office and still be on time for a 3pm meeting with the MLT of St John's in Decatur, so I drove on by our exit and proceeded east on I-72. So we got an unexpected extra bit of central Illinois tourism done. The meeting with the St John's MLT took an hour-and-forty minutes. It was an initial vacancy consultation (the fourth I've done with as many vestries in the last two months), anticipating the retirement of Fr Swan at the end of November. With a stop in Kankakee for dinner, we got back to our Chicago abode around 8:15.

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