Called to Love

By Russ Durbin

An old-fashioned love story. David Russell, star reporter for the Indy "Tribune," agrees to help a small rural church as a temporary lay preacher. What he finds is something he doesn't expect--love and a personal crisis. Challenged by the girl he loves and jobs he loves, David begins to understand the meaning of love, faith, and commitment. Ultimately, his future depends on his choices.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Russ Durbin
• Release date: Sep 9, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301343911

Russ Durbin

Russ calls himself a "Pennsylvania Hoosier." Born and raised in Indiana, he has lived in Bucks County, PA, for 30 years. He began his career as a newspaper and broadcast journalist in news and sports. After a career in corporate communications, Russ has turned to writing fiction, specializing in short stories. Genres include westerns, sports, historical, romance, and character delineation stories.

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CALLED TO LOVE

By Russ Durbin

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2012 by Russell L. Durbin, RLD Publishing

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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Cover Design: Charlene Lavinia

I have called you by name, you are mine. Isaiah 43:1

Love one another as I have loved you. John 15:12

CHAPTER 1

OMEGA

I rose and took my place for the last time. It was with equal parts of regret and anticipation as I surveyed the faces before me.

My eyes sought one particular face. She was there in her usual seat, smiling at me with tears in her eyes. She was more beautiful than ever, I thought.

As the opening chimes sounded, I remembered how it all began.

ALPHA

The Westminster Chimes of the ornate grandfather clock announced the time, three o’clock.

The starched collar of my white shirt chafed my neck. I wanted desperately to stick my finger in the collar and loosen it. I didn’t; it didn’t seem appropriate.

"What am I doing here?"

The clock ticked loudly in the quiet room. As I looked about I felt out of place with the walnut-paneled walls, plush carpet, leather chairs, and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with all sorts of impressive tomes.

"Why had I let Bill talk me into this?" I wondered.

I jumped when a pleasant-sounding voice behind me said, The Bishop has been delayed. He will be with you in moment.

Thank you, I said, without looking around. It was the Bishop’s secretary, I knew. She had ushered me into this private ecclesiastical sanctuary a few minutes earlier.

I took some deep breaths and tried to relax. After all, the Bishop was just a man like me, wasn’t he? He put on his pants one leg at a time, didn’t he?

Why was I uptight? As a news reporter for the Indianapolis Tribune, I had interviewed dozens of entertainment celebrities, politicians, government officials, sports stars, police, business leaders and everyone else from kids to homeless people. None of those encounters had been as daunting as this interview.

My jumbled thoughts were interrupted as the Bishop swept into the room.

Mr. Russell, I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. He thrust out a large, bony hand that swallowed mine.

Bishop Cairns was an impressive man. Standing three inches over six-feet tall, he towered over my five-ten. He was lean, slightly hunched, but appeared fit despite his sixty-plus years. Shining silver hair fell in easy waves over his large forehead.

Gesturing for me to return to my seat, he settled into his well-worn leather swivel chair behind a walnut desk that could easily have passed for a conference table. It was as impressive as the man.

Fierce blue eyes beneath bushy grey brows belied the smile on his face. Those eyes could freeze a person, I suspected, if he were displeased. However, I thought I detected a slight twinkle as he glanced at the folder in front of him and then focused on me.

Bill Winslow tells me you are just the man for a job I have, he said. Are you?

I have no idea, Bishop, until you tell me what the job entails.

"Didn’t he tell you?

Rev. Winslow told me there was a small, rural church in Harmony County that had an immediate need for a Sunday preacher, I replied. I know nothing more.

The Bishop’s blue eyes coolly assessed me and I felt as if I were a kid in Sunday School again.

My mother, God rest her soul, had been a devout church-goer and had insisted that I go with her to the Willow Grove Methodist Church. My dad went occasionally when Mom had insisted and when he wasn’t working. In my memory, he never expressed much interest in the church, its rituals or its politics.

However, my dad had been an avid reader of the Bible as well as newspapers, magazines, and books of all kinds, mostly non-fiction. Interestingly enough, he could quote large passages of scripture by heart. It seemed to me that, despite his eighth-grade education, he had greater knowledge of what was in the Bible than did some of the pastors serving our church.

If everybody lived their lives according to the Ten Commandments, he often said, the world would be a much better place.

On other occasions if the subject came up, Dad would point emphatically with the stem of his briar pipe and say, Now you take, Jesus, the carpenter. He had the right idea about how to live and how to treat people. Then he would proceed to support his statements by quoting scriptures.

But Dad died when I was a teenager, and Mom passed away shortly after I graduated from the Ernie Pyle School of Journalism at Indiana University. Thanks to my writing skills, I got a job at my local newspaper, the Willow Grove Gazette.

After a couple of years at the Gazette writing obituaries, sports, government news and whatnot, I moved on to the Indianapolis Tribune, and my journalism career as a feature writer took off. My byline appeared regularly, often with a thumbnail photo of me inserted in the story.

So what was I doing in the Methodist Bishop’s office? I was not there to interview him for the newspaper. Instead, I was the one to be interviewed.

Even though my parents were gone, I had continued to attend the Willow Grove Church, mostly out of habit formed when I was a kid and had no say in the matter. I wasn’t particularly religious, but I had tried to be a decent sort and live by the rules of the church.

Methodist pastors would come and go, all appointed by the Bishop. Some were dry and dull; some were pretty good in the pulpit; and some were especially good at raising money and schmoozing the parishioners who had it. The pastors I had known ranged from unassuming salt-of-the-earth types to the pompous, impressed with their own self-importance.

Then, this new pastor was appointed. The Rev. William C. Winslow stepped into the pulpit and people in the church began to sit up and take notice of what he was saying. He was