As I was cleaning out my bookshelves in anticipation of relocating to the new Rector’s office (we’re shuffling staff offices in the coming weeks), I came across a gift a parishioner gave me some years ago. It is a little tome published in 1875 that contains volume seventeen and eighteen in the “Little Classics” anthology. I don’t think it’s particularly valuable as a standalone book, as old as it may be. The value to me, aside from the value of the gift as a gift, is that the title page bears a stamp at the top: “Anson G.P. Dodge Jr.”.I like having a book in my library that was once held in the hands of my predecessor who is our patron saint of sorts. We cannot argue that he was a faithful patron of this church, and he is a saint of The Episcopal Diocese Georgia. While the parish isn’t named after him, we bear his name, nonetheless. It was Anson (we’re on a first name basis) who built the church, and who serves as a founder of the parish as we know it today, even though our history is much longer than his late-19 th century tenure. Although I stand in “his church” every Sunday, it’s a bit different that having a book that once sat on his shelf.[caption id="attachment_2280" align="alignleft" width="244"]

Anson Dodge, St Simons Island, Christ Church[/caption]This month will mark the 125 th anniversary of Anson’s death. He was only 39 years old when he died, yet his short life was full of generosity and faithful service. While none of us is perfect, and Anson certainly wasn’t either, he still represents an example of devotion to the Gospel and the Church all these years later. We will honor him on August 20 at the 11:15 am service by celebrating a memorial eucharist from the 1892 Book of Common Prayer. We had done something similar in 2015, and it seems like a good occasion to offer it again.I think about Anson often, if for no other reason than his legacy comes up when visitors stop by to see the church he built and where he’s buried (thank you, Eugenia Price!). I know her version is literally romanticized, but I also know that he was well regarded by many when he died, and that the turnout for his funeral was robust. He touched many lives, and because of his good stewardship and legacy planning, his ministry and service continued well after his death – it continues to this day!As I perused Anson’s book, I found there a piece written by Charles Warren Stoddard in 1873 after his first visit to the south seas. The entry closes with Stoddard’s reflection on the loss of a beloved friend:““My asylum is the great world; my refuge is in oblivion. And I turned my face seaward, never again to dream fondly of my island home; never again to know it as I have known it; never again to look upon its serene and melancholy beauty: for the soul of the beloved is transmitted to the vales of rest, and his ashes are sown in the watery furrows of the deep sea!”Anson’s soul has certainly been transmitted to the vales of rest, not just in the physical sense of the burial plot behind Christ Church, but the rest that comes of faith in our resurrected Lord. We who still inhabit his beautiful island home are the furrows which hold his memory and his legacy as it has settled and spread out over more than a century. We hold it for now and pass it along to others; it isn’t ours to keep, or to put on a shelf.Tom+Almighty God, who willest to be glorified in thy saints, and didst raise up thy servant Anson to be a light in the world: Shine, we pray thee, in our hearts, that we also in our generation may show forth thy praise, who hast called us out of darkness into thy marvelous light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. Collect for a Missionary II, assigned to Anson’s Feast day in the Diocese of GA