While the Cat's Away...

The Nate I left in Flagstaff was not the same Nate I met in Las Vegas. The same was true for me, I’m sure. The North District of the Desert Southwest Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church was a rough assignment for the D.S., no doubt about it. Covering a geographical area that included northern Arizona and the southern tip of Nevada (Clark County) plus three river towns in California, just the logistics of traveling from one parish to another was daunting. Added to this was the fact that there were no really large congregations in the sparsely populated area. Trinity Heights in Flagstaff, and University and Trinity in Las Vegas, were the only churches that had memberships in the 750 range. And yet, UM polity required the district superintendent to make the rounds of each and every parish at least once a year. To have been a pilot with a plane would have been nice, but Nate and Alita did it in their little Ford Escort, a feat of which even Francis Asbury would have been proud. The down side to all this was that Nate wasn’t able to pay very close attention to each church individually and with the exception of Don Smith’s complaint about John Cox’s lackadaisicalness, Trinity was all but being ignored by the very hierarchy that should have been keeping track of what was going on there. And so, when I came to Nate with my list of concerns that included everything from misuse of church funds to sexual improprieties he was at once both perplexed and unconvinced. I’ll never forget the meeting he arranged with Don, himself, and me at Trinity. Meeting in the annex which had been taken over by Rick and his now gang-like youths, Nate asked Don point blank if there was anything to the allegations I was making. Red with anger, Don denied everything and accused me of trying to ruin his ministry and his wish to retire from Trinity. Unfortunately for Don, Rick’s timing couldn’t have been worse as he secured a high-interest loan on a used 15 passenger van, apparently on his signature alone by representing himself as a clergyman appointed to Trinity! (I still cannot believe that he was working by himself.) In combination with all the other shenanigans that Rick had been pulling off under Don’s “supervision”, Nate had little choice but to approach the Staff-Parish Relations Committee to “consult”.