Tales Of Corwin

The next day, Mark was working in his office, still tweaking the sermon and the service for Sunday. It was the third Sunday of Advent, coming up: Gaudete Sunday, the Sunday of Joy. Personally, that was no problem: he was feeling pretty darned joyful about a lot of things right now. But Gaudete Sunday was always a bit problematic, because he knew some of his people were struggling with loneliness and hard memories during Advent. And for those people, the lectionary wasn’t offering much help this week. The Apostle Paul was blithely telling them to “rejoice always,” while at the same time John the Baptist was calling them a “brood of vipers.” Mark sighed and wondered (not for the first time) whether there might be a job where you could serve God, but still take a couple of weeks off at Christmas. When the intercom buzzed, it came as a relief. “There’s a Mr. Jackson, Max Jackson, on line one,” said Mrs. Fludd. Mark considered. “Do I know Max Jackson? Do you?” “No, I don’t know him,” said Mrs. Fludd. “There are