It was an October Monday morning. Nothing much happened on Monday mornings, especially during the harvest time. The pastor sat in his office wondering how the sermon reviews were going down at the coffee shop. He would give them another hour, and then stop in for his coffee and wheat toast. He would get the summary of the reviews from Maryanne, the waitress.

The door was open, so there was no knock. The man just kind of appeared, leaning against the sill and looking pretty uncomfortable. The pastor recognized the guy as being from town, knew a little bit about his family and where they lived, but didn't actually know his name. He did know that the guy had never been in the church here, and that was probably why he looked so uncomfortable.

The pastor said, "Hello," and the visitor asked i…