He was a year and a half into severe
grief when the congregation basically
said enough is enough when all the

stats were still looking really good —
good income, good attendance, good
youth group, good Christian Education

program, really good everything as the
institution measures it, and so he sub-
mitted a nice letter of resignation, which

needed to be approved by the higher
judicatory, but which he was pretty sure
would happen with a safety package

for him and the concerns of the con-
gregation accounted for, and so it was,
and then the congregation embarked on

a “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” the
wilderness of an eighteen-year journey
into dwindling and dwindling statistics

until the whole thing almost collapsed
and then they hired a kid, like the kid
who then wound up in severe grief,

through no fault of his own and things
picked up until the new kid had an affair
and things took another nose dive and in

the  meantime, the guy in deep grief, has
gone on to live a full life and a fine spiritual
existence without the institution and the

people in the institution, who, like Alfred
E. Newman, look around and, in true comedic
fashion, like those who make things happen

and those who watch things happen and
those who wonder, “What happened?” ask,
blankly “What just happened?”