Free The Color of Ordinary Time by Virginia Voelker

myself.”
    John nodded, and conversation for rest of the meal perished on the spot.
    When everyone finished eating, and the table was cleared, John and I headed out to our cars. He waved to me as I pulled into the parking lot next to St. Paul’s. I waved back, but he had already driven past me, so I was pretty sure he didn’t see the gesture.
    The paraments at St. Paul’s were my second personal ritual of the summer. I had made them all the summer before my father and I parted ways. He’d been out on his crusade when I had finally convinced Pastor Fritz to baptize and confirm me. I’d been taking membership classes on the sly for two years, but Pastor Fritz wasn’t subversive enough to baptize a minor child without parental permission. So we made a deal, and Pastor Fritz baptized me after my father left town that summer, about a month after my 18th birthday. The paraments were my confirmation project. Materials paid for by the church; labor all done by me. When they were finished, ten days before my father came home from his crusade, I was confirmed as an adult member of the congregation.
    Mrs. Clack waved to me as I passed the church office. She was on the phone talking to someone about Charlene’s latest adventures. I didn’t see any sign that anyone else was in the building as I proceeded up the short staircase to the sanctuary level of the church.
    St. Paul’s was a smallish church, with plain cream walls and very little in the way of embellishment. The air of solemnity and solidity the church exuded were similar to that of many of its members. This was a hard working church. A plain spoken church. A church that knew that work was worship. In keeping with the simple beauty of the place, the paraments I made were simple. The green set on the altar that day was embellished with embroidered sheaves of wheat and bunches of grapes. From a spot in the middle of the center aisle, next to the front pew, they looked to be in good shape still. I would check them last.
    The sacristy was a small room, reached by a door hidden in the wall to the right of the altar, but the paraments at St. Paul’s were kept in a larger room just off the front of the sanctuary. Before the church had been added to in the sixties, the room had been a classroom. After the addition started being used, the old classroom became the banner room, used to store paraments, banners, and other things that wouldn’t fit in the tiny sacristy.
    I love the banner room. I did most of the work on the paraments sitting at the large table that sits square in the center of the room. Rumor had it that the table had been built in the room, and could never be moved out, as its builders hadn’t made it small enough to get out the door. I had never tried to move the table out. I’m not sure anyone else actually had, either.
    That day, I propped the door to the banner room open with the brown rubber doorstop that always sat behind the door. That way Mrs. Clack would be able to find me easily when she came looking. Then I placed the green-flowered tote bag with my sewing kit in it on the table. I opened one of the four huge windows. Somewhere nearby someone was cutting grass. I could hear the motor, and smell the sweet green aroma. Then I turned my attention to the four large wardrobes along the wall between the classroom and the sanctuary.
    I started with the purple altar antependium. Purple, the color of the penitent. The color of royalty. It hung in the wardrobe beside its matching stole, chasuble, and antependium for the lectern and the pulpit. I carefully took the cloth and spread it on the square table. Then I went over it slowly, looking for a loose thread here, or a missing bead there. Most repairs I would do that day. A hanging bit of fringe was easy enough to secure. Other jobs I would write down in a little notebook I carried just for that purpose.
    The altar antependium required no repairs, and, as I started to fold it to fit it on its hanger, I became