St. Patrick Presbyterian Church, Epc

Jayber Crow is a novel by Wendell Berry that I have been thinking about recently, as I ponder generosity and building a new addition which will include a playground, pavilion and kitchen at St. Patrick. It is a story of a boy orphaned at age 10. After his parents die, Jayber is sent to an orphanage. He grows up rootless and placeless. When he leaves to make his way in the world, he tries preaching but drops out of seminary because he doesn’t really believe all the religious nonsense they are teaching him. Thirteen years later, he winds up back to his hometown which, though he was born there, holds no memory to him.  By default, Jayber Crow becomes the town barber and part-time grave-digger for the town. He comes as a stranger but winds up finding himself, as he is generously taken into the community of Port Williams, a small rural town in Kentucky. In later years, he speaks of what that felt like: “There are moments when the heart is generous, and then it knows that for better or worse our lives are woven tog