$17.00 in an Envelope

     I snuck into the Church office at 5:30 a.m. on a Thursday to complete the last grim ritual of retirement… cleaning out my office. What with the Covid-19 virus and the importance of physical distancing at this time, I was not going to take a chance on meeting someone.

     Going through my drawers putting things into boxes, I discovered a couple things: First, I am apparently a pen hoarder (or worse, maybe I stole them from others.) No single human being needs that many pens in that wide a color selection — blue, black, green, red, even orange and purple. Second, in the lower side drawer, I found a nondescript, white envelope with $17.00 inside.


     It took me a moment, but then I remembered. This used to be Barbara’s envelope. She was an

elderly woman who lived month-to-month on a meager Social Security check. Like many folks who make a marginal living, things often got tight toward the end of the month before her check would arrive. As her priest, she would approach me for help, always embarrassed, always grateful. She never asked for much… one week it would be $5.00, maybe the next, $10.00. I told her she didn’t need to pay me back, but she would not accept it unless I agreed that she could. She had her pride, and I was careful to honor it.

     But the bookkeeping! There is not a church of any stripe I know that has not had an issue with money going missing somewhere in its past. For that reason, churches tend to have pretty strict policies about dealing in cash. I would give Barbara whatever she needed, but I had to put in a form to be reimbursed from my discretionary account. When she dutifully paid me back, I had to fill out another form and make a deposit. It got to be an awful lot of paperwork. Finally, I decided just to keep a Barbara envelope with $20.00 in my desk. When Barbara needed a little help, I had the cash; when she paid me back, it went back into the Barbara envelope.

     I had not thought of Barbara in years. She traveled on to her greater reward long ago. But just for a few moments, I sat there alone in my empty office at the end of my career and thought fondly of her. And I know when I see her again, and we are surrounded by the angels in glory in that place outside of all places and in that time outside of all time, her first words to me will be, “I owe you $3.00.”