Saturday, 6/16 – Virginia Bristol

It ended pretty much like it started: driving down I-85 in a 12 passenger van carrying six people with St. Philip’s in common, and a mission on our minds. The difference was that a week before, we were headed to Mississippi with some of us facing an unknown challenge and others looking forward to getting back to work. Now on Saturday the 16th we were making our mental transition back to our daily lives in Durham, heading back home, and wondering how this weeklong experience changed us and those whose lives we touched.

The 16th started out a beautiful morning in Ocean Springs. Andy and Maggie had departed a day earlier by plane, so there were six of us to get a send-off from Jim, who had joined us the previous evening for Compline. Jim is a very tall, thin man with a straw cowboy hat, a loud booming voice, and an eagerness to pass along a message – in others words – preach.

Randy was the champion of the trip because he drove all 12 hours from Durham to Ocean Springs. He was behind the wheel again, happy to drive on the return trip, if he could first stop at the Tatonut for coffee.

It’s interesting how dynamics can shift over the course of 15 hours when a group is confined in a van moving 70 mph. Because Randy did all the driving, his reward was to choose 90% of the music, except when Chris requested the Daniel Johnston CD he had just received for his birthday (6/15). Rebecca reacted with some vehemence against this choice after only 2.5 minutes. Jackie stayed out of all major decisions, happily munching M and M’s, and joined with Virginia in a rousing discussion of the “just in” Nifong resignation, outpatient mental health treatment, and the varying degrees of sanity among us. We must have asked Rebecca the same question about the search process a hundred times. Sue quietly navigated, as books were read and naps were taken. We were quite entertained by text messages from Andy, now back home, who teased us about stopping along the way to repair a wayward leaking sink.

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