As in:
The epic and strange match at The Links at Birch Meadows left Stuart in need of some serious contemplation and prayer. It was not that he minded being both exposed and confirmed as a golf prodigy. He couldn’t be upset with that. There were so many other things in life he’d tried and failed at, or just found himself less than adequate with, and some of those things had pushed him toward the priesthood. Now, he’d found something difficult, something he was not just good at, but unbelievably talented. Well, it was just damn hard to fashion a reason why that would be such a bad thing.
But it was, nonetheless, a distracting matter. For one, he’d really wanted to finish playing the round when the match expired after only 16 holes. Secondly, he found himself re-thinking all of his bad shots, including the ugly run of shanks in the middle, and this seemed to him, on reflection, a misplaced use of time and focus for a man who, after all, was supposed to have been called to the austere path of saving souls. Then there was the odd and unexpectedly grave tensions that surrounded the end of the match, and the way Father Lynch looked and acted stricken, as if by winning the match, something more important had been lost. It was written on his face and in the dead silence of the car ride back from the golf course.
On Friday, Stuart visited the shade of an Osage Orange tree where he prayed in the shade for most of an hour and tried to work the jagged edges off the experience.
On Saturday he was back in the confessional, and things were going very well. He capably lectured an abusive boss before handing him extra penance. He’d calmed a young man who despaired that he was near the end of his limits for resisting sins of the flesh. Then he assured a nurse with what appeared to be attention deficit disorder that she would not be going to hell for twice shoplifting without really intending to.
He even imagined, at this point, that transacting a good confession was like hitting a sand wedge stiff. Well, sort of.
And then the curtain opened, again, and into the confessional stepped, and knelt, Father Lynch.
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