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The Wineglass: How a Fund to Help Financially Strapped Ministers Saved Christmas
16
PRESBYTERIAN
WINTER 2021
presbyterian.ca
By Stephen Farris, as originally appeared in the Presbyterian Record magazine, December 2014.
My wife, Patty, and I returned from graduate study in England in the au- tumn of 1981 debt-free, but nearly penniless and with a six-month-old baby. That is not at all a complaint, let me tell you. Penniless but debt-free is better off than most graduate stu- dents. Moreover, at least I knew that a job was awaiting me. I had been appointed under the old ordained missionary system to Trinity, Amher- stview, Ont. What’s more, Trinity had a manse. A job, or better, a ministry, an assured income, a home to live in; who could ask for anything more? Well, it turns out that a family setting up a home for the first time does de- mand a few things more. The income was assured but it was also low. As a newly ordained minister, I was on “minimum stipend with no annual increments,” which in plain English meant “not all that much.”
We collected furniture from the attics of all our relatives—I believe “Early Attic” is both the name of a kind of ancient Greek pottery and of a furniture style widely displayed in the homes of new clergy and other impe- cunious folk. We scraped together a down payment for a car and applied for a credit card. The bank authorities turned us down; our income was too low. The local bank manager person- ally interceded for us, however, and we did receive a shiny but very lim- ited credit card. We had been granted what I believe was the lowest possi- ble credit limit at that time, $200.
But life was good. I was enjoy- ing the ministry. The church took a few modest steps forward and, after having lived in dorm rooms, student flats and apartments for our entire married life, it felt good to have to lock both a front and a back door at night. A year soon passed by and the Christmas of 1982 approached at the end of my first full year of ministry. Buying presents on minimum stipend and with a $200 credit limit was a challenge. But we managed barely. It was all made a little easier by the fact that we didn’t need to cook a Christ- mas dinner. Trinity Church held two Christmas Eve services but none on the day itself. Our plan was to drive first thing in the morning to Patty’s parents’ home to spend Christmas with the extended family. So the cupboard and fridge were all but bare—no cake, no fruit, no goodies or Christmas cheer.
My only real difficulty was that I had not yet bought Patty a present and Christmas Day was approach- ing. The morning of Christmas Eve itself had come before I could find the time to go shopping for her. I drove through the ice and snow of the Ontario winter to the nearest mall. The $200 limit on our card had long been reached and I had a little less than $25 in my pocket. Any present for Patty had to be less than that hard and fast limit. I actually found a gift for her—a box of six not particularly lovely but satisfactorily inexpensive wineglasses. It was perhaps not the wisest gift since there would cer- tainly not be enough left to purchase a bottle of wine to go with them. But
at least Patty could open the box, admire them and place them in the sparsely covered shelves in our kitchen. I paid for the wineglasses— in cash, of course—and made my way through the icy parking lot to the car.
I shifted my weight to transfer the box of glasses to my left hand, reached for my keys, slipped on the ice and fell flat on my face beside the driver’s-side door. I could hear what I had done to the glasses but I didn’t have the heart to look. I drove home with self-pity buckled up beside me in the night. I had worked so hard. I had studied so long. I didn’t have a single goody in the house to cel- ebrate with my wife and new son, not even a bottle of wine, and now I had smashed my wife’s Christmas present.
I opened the door and stepped into the manse’s front hall. Patty had been watching for me and grasped immediately that something was wrong; she could hear me clinking. There didn’t seem to be any point in hiding the disaster from her. I said, “Patty love, I bought you some wine- glasses for Christmas but I slipped on the ice in the parking lot. You can hear what happened.” And I held out the box to her.
Patty rubbed me gently and sooth- ingly on the arm and said, “It doesn’t matter, my love. Let’s open up and see if any survived.” And there, amidst the shards, remained two in- tact wineglasses! One for Patty, one for me; who could ask for anything more?
Just then we could hear the mail-
The Nativity Window is one of a series of McCausland windows created over 40 years (the first was in 1894) for St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Ottawa, Ont. This par- ticular one was designed by Yvonne William and was a gift from Maud Helen Fleck in 1934, in memory of the Fleck and Booth families, prominent in Ottawa society and philanthropy, and members of St. Andrew’s. PHOTO CREDIT: EJPHILLIPSON
box lift and clang shut. I stepped outside and retrieved the mail flyers, some late Christmas cards and, to my surprise, an envelope from the head- quarters of The Presbyterian Church in Canada. Inside, there was a letter stating that a donor who wished to remain anonymous had established a fund to give a helping hand especially at Christmas, to ministers paid at, or near, minimum stipend. Inside the letter was a cheque for $387.
A gift I had not expected and could not deserve, Christmas Eve!
There was just enough time to rush to the bank, deposit the cheque, withdraw a little cash, pick up some fruit and shortcake and, above all, get to the wine store to buy one bot- tle of inexpensive wine.
That night after the second service was over and Allan, the baby, was soundly asleep, Patty set out the fruit and shortcake. I opened the wine bottle and carefully filled our two new glasses. A connoisseur would turn up his educated nose at the wine, and the glasses were less than fine crystal, but in the candlelight the wine glowed like the richest rubies. We sat together on the long-used hand-me-down couch, sampled the fruit and sipped our wine. Then, with a contented sigh, Patty put down her glass and stretched out her legs to snuggle into my shoulder...and kicked over her wineglass.
We have moved many times since that Christmas Eve and over the years we have been given or purchased some very fine crystal indeed. But in our china cabinet there sits to this very day one rather plain, perhaps even ugly, but treasured wineglass.
The aforementioned source of help for clergy is called the Fund for Min- isterial Assistance. I hear they are a little short of money this year.
Norman M. Paterson
The Fund for Ministerial Assistance
The Fund for Ministerial Assistance provides financial support to ministers and diaconal workers of The Presbyterian Church in Canada who meet the terms of the fund and who are at, or near, minimum stipend as set by the General Assembly.
The fund has a remarkable history. It was established by an anonymous gift of one million dollars on February 8, 1951. In 1983, following the death of the donor one week after his 100th birthday, the fund was renamed the Norman M. Paterson Fund for Ministerial Assistance. Businessman and Senator Norman Paterson and his wife, Eleanor, who were associated with St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Ottawa, Ont., maintained a lifelong interest in the ministers of the church and their families and they hoped that their generosity might encourage the beneficence of others.
Norman Paterson’s original gift has grown and allows the church to provide eligible ministers and their families a gift four times a year. The fund is overseen by a committee of appointees made up of people from across the church who also serve as the denomination’s Benevolence Committee.
Ministers or diaconal workers within The Presbyterian Church in Canada can apply by contacting Ian Ross-McDonald at imcdonald@presbyterian.ca or 1-800-619-7301.