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By Rev. Martha Hoverson Saturday, May 5, 2007

Monday, a speeding car filled with pastoral care needs and details about an upcoming sermon series and devising a bulletin for the first week of said series and a late-in-the-day meeting regarding the paper of a person hoping to become a pastor herself, suffered a midafternoon roadside breakdown when I learned that our beautiful, redesigned church newsletter could not be mailed for 39 cents.

The newsletter was not overweight; a call from Bob at the town post office informed us that the orientation of the address box changed the status of the mailing, and each newsletter would require an additional 13 cents postage.

Our office administrator was on her way to pick up a child, attend a class and then go to a second job, so it was clear she would not be available to take care of the problem that day.

Because it was the eve of the first of the month, and we want the newsletter to be not only attractive but also timely, I went to the post office myself. And there I stood in line, for a good, long while.

Of course there is no such thing as a 13-cent stamp. Although many, many newsletters were picked up in church on Sunday, many remained in the box handed to me at the post office window. I stepped out of line to count them -- there were 131 -- and then got back in line to wait some more.

Jim, Bob's comrade, informed me that they probably didn't have enough 10- and 3-cent stamps for my purposes. He went into the vault to see what he could find. He returned with 131 5-cent stamps and 262 4-cent stamps, a daunting sight. I needed to return to the office and pack up my things, check e-mail and phone messages and review a paper for my late meeting.

How would I manage getting back to the post office, too?

I realized I had no choice. I stood at a counter across from the window, placing stamps until my fingers grew numb.

As I worked, I thought about the recipients, the households where the newsletter would be carried by a postal employee, the person who would take the mail out of the box or pick it up on the other side of a slot and be surprised by the new direction and design of five sheets of paper bearing notes and news in the life of our faith community.

I wondered what they would think of the four stamps, Chippendale chairs and American Toleware flanking the flag affixed earlier by a faithful volunteer. I puzzled over the names I did not recognize and smiled at those I did. I'm still new to this church, but I am beginning to know who needs a prayer, even a hasty one.

It occurred to me that there are at least 393 things they do not teach us in seminary.

Long ago I worked in the Children's Room at the Portland Public Library. For about a year, our books were shelved by a young woman on her way to becoming a nun. The longtime staff marveled at how tidy everything became under the work of her hands; had the books in the Children's Room ever been put away so well?

How, we wondered, did she find the motivation in what was really a menial job, something usually assigned to a student coming in after a day at high school.

"I think of each book as a soul to be saved," she told us.

My life as a mother and a pastor consists of endless arrangements and rearrangements on the material plane. I sometimes envy the contemplatives of history the quiet opportunities to listen for God, the protected space in which to watch and pray.

But my calling appears to be to busier spheres.

Between the post office and the church, I saw dramatic black clouds and began to hear the rumble of thunder. On my drive home I saw lightning across the vista of fields and trees on Route 111. I arrived just in time for the late meeting with the prospective pastor.

I imagine she will discover the same gaps in her education someday, will live and learn at least 393 more things about the intersection of the sacred and the ordinary, the mystery of God's presence with us wherever we go.

I drove home in the rain, yes, but at my house, the dogs "oafed" and "wrooed" a happy welcome, the children came to the door to greet me, and the blessed sun shone on our reunion, placing the "Amen" on my day as surely as I had placed the 393 stamps.

The Rev. Martha Hoverson lives and writes in Portland, while serving as the interim pastor at North Parish Congregational Church in Sanford. Her e-mail is