Abide with Me

by Elizabeth Strout

fault of Life.” One morning, he realized that what he had experienced the day he stood weeping before his congregation, seeing Charlie Austin come to help him, hearing the hymn burst forth from the old organ, was The Feeling. This surprised him: It was very different from the times before, but that’s what it had been, The Feeling. O Lord, truly I am thy servant . . . and the son of thine handmaid; Thou hast loosed my bonds. He looked through the long window. The sky was the pale, sweet blue of a baby’s blanket. He understood again that his relationship to God was changing, as it would have to do. I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving . . . On a snowy day in December, a truck came to move the minister’s things from the