The Next Chapter

I was talking to Frank Stanton, former Union Mission Board member, partner in the development of the Magdalene Project, Savannah’s first shelter for homeless women and children, and the person who coined the title of my book “Partners In Grace”. I hadn’t seen or talked to him in a year. I remember him walking into my office right after I’d hired Frances Carter. She walked out and he walked in.

“Hey Parson,” he said shaking my hand. Frank’s called me Parson since we met over two decades ago when he’d ask me to speak at his Rotary Club. I had a long pony tail at the time and showed up wearing jeans with a coat and tie (I was a pioneer in the Kroger Bag Boy look!).

“Are you Frank?” I asked the gentleman obviously looking for somebody he didn’t know.

He nodded and I introduced myself. “Seriously?” he asked. “You’re a minister?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

He introduced me and I gave the speech. Afterwards Franks purchased a copy of my first book “The Society of Salty Saints.” We said goodbye and I thought that was that.

The next afternoon Frank burst into my office. “Who wrote this book?” he asked holding the book.

“Um Frank … look at the cover. That’s my name on it. And everybody thinks my name is spelt wrong so it must be mine.”

“There is no way in hell that you wrote these prayers,” Frank insisted.

“OK, you got me!” I confessed. “I broke into a vault in the Vatican and stole them.”

From that day on, Frank and I have been friends. I’d called him asking his advice on things including what my presence in Savannah should be moving forward. Aside from serving on the Step Up Board of Directors the only other thing I’ve done is talk to my friend Floyd Adams who called wanting to know what I thought about him running for Mayor again. (“Floyd, not yes but HELL YES!” is what I said.)

Now living in Augusta but deeply rooted in Savannah Frank and I talked for an hour. We talked about people, things we’d done and plans for the future.

In mid-career, Frank walked away from a comfortable job at an oil company. He cashed in his retirement, life insurance, and took loans out on everything he had to start his own company. In no time, former co-workers were asking him for a job.

“I don’t have a company yet,” he explained to them.

“We don’t care,” each responded.

He told them that they would make less money, have no fringe benefits yet and would work long hours initially. He also promised that they would have fun.

Every one of them quit their jobs to work for Frank.

Within a year they had the fringe benefits. Within two years they had surprised their previous salaries. Several years later he sold the company to a British Petroleum Conglomerate in a multi-million deal. He also signed a contract to continue running the company has he had been with the same staff. That lasted for another 8 years then Frank walked away. Each of his employees did too. Everyone could afford to.

“It’s humbling when people believe in you like that,” he told me on the phone. “It makes you work harder because you don’t want to let them down.”

Frank always blows me away and he was doing it again telling me this story.

“Let me tell you something Parson,” he concluded. “A lot of people believe in you. Everybody understood that you were finished with Union Mission. You hung around a little too long is all. You got some bad advice from people you believed in. But it all worked out. You needed a break.”

I didn’t say anything as I nodded my head in agreement standing on my beloved back deck.

“Parson?”

“Yeah Frank.”

“We’ve all just been waiting … glad you’re back,” he concluded before telling me bye and hanging up.

A John Lennon song is gifted to me as I think about Franks words.

“There are places I remember, all my life, though some have changed … some forever, not for better … In my life, I loved them all …”

And I do. But I get Frank’s point. The things that I’ve loved in the past are gone. They’re mostly really good memories.

But I’m gonna love this next chapter more!