PYV (Pretty Young Vicar)

Irenee is cute and can pull off trendy clothes, and I hope that my wife (should she exist) might look something like her when she is forty and, for that matter, I would like to look like the male version of her when I'm knocking on that decade's door as well. That said, there's an inherent sadness in this note: the youngest and most attractive person in our "patch" here in South Lincolnshire is, in fact, a 40-year old mom of three. I haven't felt this parched for young people since I drove from Jacksonville to Duke University with Keri, a feeling like the first drink of water in days.

So Ryan and I are at Lincoln cathedral, a magnificent little town full of character and shops not even mentioned in our guidebook, its cathedral on top of a hill which, within our congregations, is spoken of with the utmost daunting. "Enjoy the cathedral... [fear comes into their eyes] if you can get up the hill!"

It's perhaps our favorite cathedral in England, and we decide to go to Litany? Why not? When in Rome, right? Even though, when we've been in Rome... or other cathedrals in the past three months we've been lame and not gone to experience any services... whatever, so we decide, in despite of not doing as the Romans did in all of our opportunities before, we decide today that we are, in fact, in Rome, and should do as the Romans do. So we go to Litany and pray for the Jesus in our world and the judgment of the Queen.

I slip out after Litany for the WC, and meet the Communion group, only to find that Ryan is sitting next to a beautiful young girl in my seat! After being here in the patch among many elderly, I'm sure the only way he let her purloin my seat was that he was stunned out of his wits.

There's a seat next to her and I take it and she quickly figures out that we have no idea how the order of service goes, so she leads us through the program with a kind pointer finger and a reassuring smile. She is Ellen, a twenty-five year-old vicar-in-training in Scarthorpe, also with an elderly, Anglican congregation, and we immediately all realize that we are awesome and go to lunch. We talk about how Jesus' way in politics is a policy of high and low, walking the fine line between extremes, stepping with prayer the way of peace. We chase the state of the Church for young people down with cost-effective vegetarian food before we realize we have ten minutes to catch our bus, and Ryan and I hug our new friend and sprint away, made faster by the slope of the hill which would be perfect for skiing except for cobblestones and pedestrians.


Sometimes it feels like twentysomethings are a dream left back on the classy, Lincoln streets, but we read about them in books and know they are out, elsewhere in the world. Apart from that, we are blessed with a community of those young at heart as David and Val, in their 80s and 70s respectively, who take us to Lincoln and walk us through the turnstiles of the train station with one ticket for the four of us. Val is behind us, and Ryan or I says, "Looks like you're taking up the rear," to which David leans to the turnstile officer and says, with a gesture back at Val, "And what a rear it is..." Still making people uncomfortable with their flirtation after fifty years. Who says it has to stop?