After the conversation in the church I walked down to the Saint James Path. As I began to travel in a large circle around what was once farmland I saw a nine-year old Mary A. in my mind's eye. A small, but determined girl, she could drive a team of mules and work a farm even as a child. Perhaps it was this early training in the company of mules that gave her the independent spirit for which she was well known.

The Saint James Path winds down from the buildings, crosses a small wooden bridge and then levels out at the new tennis courts. These are not the courts on which Mary A. had played but even so the sight of the asphalt, the fences and the nets was enough to spark memories. Here I heard the echoes of psalms, not the lovely and peaceful 23rd psalm we have recited, but those psalms of battle, murder and sudden death.

The cadence of these imagined psalms were set by the "thunk" of tennis balls against cat-gut and the text of these psalms was strong. Grown men would quake on the courts when Mary raised her racquet- I'll let you decide on the spelling of that word- but suffice it to say that she was a fierce competitor and a very good player.

Mary played in a pantheon of strong women. They were not contained by a single sport. One court was as good as another. Bibber Dow coached a basketball team that was a force with which to reckon. Mary's hair had turned white at a young age. This led some people to misjudge her. That was their misfortune. On a Hopkins basketball court a Hopkins player called Mary "grandma". I suspect the comment was meant to diminish Mary's efforts. If you knew Mary you knew that such a comment would be like trying to put out a fire by pouring gasoline on it. Guess who won the game.

Mary was not only strong and fast she was smart. Ed remembers that Mary never stopped going to school. She had several degrees. When Mary was in grade school she skipped two grades. Then she completed high school early. Her education was not simply in the classroom. During World War II she traveled as a nurse to India and Figi.

She saw the kinds of things that wound your heart and age your soul. Those who go to war in whatever capacity come home with costly wisdom. Mary was always smart, the war made Mary wise.

The last leg of the Saint James Path took me past a family out for a walk. A child ran past me with the energy and confidence of youth. I remembered that when Mary married Howell she gained an instant family- two boys, Howell's mother and an aunt. It was like entering a novel in the middle of the story. But Mary's strength, skill, determination and love marked her place in their hearts just as readily as her hair clips marked her progress through the romance novels that Mary loved to read.

I came to the end of the path. There in the back of the Saint James Center is the window of light. The center of the window forms a cross-large enough to see from the far end of the path and big enough to tower over you when you stand at the foot of the cross.

Mary stood at the foot of a cross more than once in her life, as most of us will. She watched young men die in the war. She buried her husband, Howell. She faced the prospect of her own death, and then she died. But the cross is the key to the whole path, the cross is the place that changes all of this from death into life.

The point of all this reminiscing is to bring us round back to the beginning- to bring us to the altar. The walk along the Saint James Path took us in a circle. Our lives have a pattern. We are born, baptized, confirmed, married, and eventually, blessed and buried- ashes to ashes, dust to dust. In between there is glory and sadness, challenge and grace, light and shadow. But a life well lived is a life preserved. A life well lived, in faith, is a life that never ends.

We feel the weight of loss, the surprise in her departure from our sight. But Mary has gone on to freedom. Her movement is no longer hampered. She has no need of oxygen bottles. The Good Shepherd of whom she sang a thousand times in this church has led her into the courts of God, and to the water of life. Death was but a doorway. We blinked and she was gone. But the loving Christ, the host of our feast, has made a place at the other end of the table for Mary. This altar to which we will shortly come is the near end of a table that stretches from here to eternity.

We gather at this end to receive the bread and the wine. Christ and the communion of saints gather at the far end, He as the host, and all of us-living and dead-as His gathered beloved.

Mary and you and I gather in a circle around this altar, a circle strong enough and large enough to extend beyond the boundaries of this life. Let us remember all the joys of Mary's life as we receive communion. Let us remember the gift she was to us. Then let us give thanks to God for this life and the life to come. AMEN.