Discovery

Bishop McKendree

Last week I discovered a rare gem of a bookstore off of 86th Street: a shop filled with old books, and yet older books, and first-editions galore. I left with four books under my arm, including a 1921 edition of a biography of John McKendree, the first U.S. born Methodist bishop and successor to Francis Asbury.

This was an interesting read, especially on the heels of completing American Saint . . . the new quintessential biography of Francis Asbury. McKendree was a saint, too. Toward Asbury's latter years, the younger McKendree often carried the older bishop around like a babe-in-arms, totting him from pulpit to pulpit.

This is how I hope to go out . . . with someone carting me around, not having to lift a finger, being fed donuts and coffee cake (pureed) through a straw. I doubt it will be my wife doing the carting, but perhaps I can hire someone young like McKendree to wait on me hand and foot and set up appointments, etc. It was be an interesting retirement. People rarely question invalids, and by the time a person is too old to speak, they are usually regarded as sage wisdom. I suppose wisdom arrives the moment a person no longer has the ability to speak. People listen much better to people who don't have opinions or can't remember names.

McKendree was a saint. And it will take a saint to put up with the likes of me in just a few short years. I won't recognize myself.