A Tiny Congregation with a Literary Reputation Christ Episcopal Church, Island Pond, Vermont 13 Pentecost, 14 August 2005

Like many small American towns, Island Pond, Vermont, has long since resigned itself reality that its best days are behind it. And like many churches in these towns, Christ Episcopal Church has a fine old building which its tiny congregation can hardly maintain, and a budget too small support much ministry. What draws a reviewer here is that it's setting for a notable work of literary non-fiction which with love, humility, and wit reminds us why life and mission of such a church are so profoundly important. For over twenty years Garret Keizer was minister of this church, and halfway through his tenure he reflected on it in A Dresser of Sycamore Trees: The Finding of a Ministry (New York: Viking, 1991). He begins book autobiographically. In 1980, at age 26, after completing a master's thesis on George Herbert, he was preparing teach high school English in northeast Vermont. But seeing other possibilities too, including ordination, he made a brief retreat in a monastery ask God clarify his vocation. God didn't answer directly or immediately, but, presently, an unexpected ministry did open him at his new church in Newport, Vermont. Inspired and encouraged by its gifted priest, whom he identifies as Father Castle, he was soon catechizing, visiting, and handing out pamphlets entitled Nuclear War in Vermont. Then he tried preaching. Before long he was leading services and ministering at second point of parish, Island Pond. He continued there even after Father Castle moved Harlem, while keeping his full-time secular job, as Amos had done-hence title of this book. The bishop instituted him of parish, to my knowledge only lay vicar in state, and I know of none elsewhere. Keizer was later ordained. Two years ago he resigned become a full-time writer from his home in another Vermont town. In new arrangement in Island Pond, a priest from Lyndonville is contracted lead services two Sundays a month; four congregational lay readers take turns officiating on other Sundays. Keizer still sometimes attends Christ Church-though, unfortunately, he will not be there when reviewer happens visit. The visitor drives through a beautiful countryside of lakes, forests, and hills, the most untamed land in most rural corner of state as Keizer describes it, and arrives at an unattractive grey town of about 1000 souls. As name Island Pond acknowledges, it sits on shores of a lake two miles long within which stands a 22-acre island. But lake is virtually invisible from town, since frontage is private property. The oldest residents can remember when this was a thriving place. The Grand Trunk Railway chose it in 1850s as major junction and rail yard between Montreal and ice-free seaport of Portland, Maine. At its height around 1912 town boasted five hotels, several lumber mills, a large round house, and thirteen railway tracks. It felt connected everywhere else on continent by passenger train, and its situation on border between Quebec and New England, with two languages in use, gave it a cosmopolitan flavor. But Grand Trunk's business plan was badly flawed, and its route faced stiff competition. In 1920s town briefly found a new niche in bootlegging, but with repeal of prohibition and development of low-maintenance diesel engines, it was left a depressed place in remote countryside. In 2000 average household income was reported as $25,000. But, after all, faith and ministry are at least as important here as anywhere else. Keizer's ministry, which was by no means unusual, involved listening people with cares-a grandmother's worry about a grandchild, cash-strapped farmers who sell everything wholesale but buy everything retail, a man burdened with grim memories of soldiering days-and incorporating their concerns into prayer. It involved giving a footbath once a week an old man in a nursing home. …

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