“He entrusted to them
his property; to one he gave five talents,
to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then
he went away.” St. Matthew 25:14-15
Last
weekend, I went an apple butter boil, an old family tradition, at a cousin’s
farm in my hometown. By the bubbling
kettle, I struck up a conversation with another cousin, Robin. She plays the organ at Mount Carmel Methodist
Church, a mile or two up the road in Shanktown, Maryland, a place that doesn’t
make it onto the road atlas. Mount
Carmel is a white clapboard chapel, built around the time of the Civil
War. My grandparents were members and
four generations of Michaels sleep in its shady churchyard. I’ve always thought of it as a timeless
place.
But Robin
said things have changed. There are only
twenty of them in the pews most Sundays.
There’s no choir or Vacation Bible School anymore. My cousin Andrew’s baby girl is the only
child. Mount Carmel has never been a big
church, and it has always shared a pastor with the other local Methodist
churches. But it was probably two or
three times that size when I was a kid.
