My former minister said, “I know what your new parish looks like!” He drew it on a napkin. Helena in the middle, Great Falls 100 miles to the north, Missoula and Bozeman each 100 miles to the east or west.

Usually parishes were like nations with boundaries. This one had no edges, but only me as a connection among them. They were pivot points like giant ag sprinklers. They call them “rain birds.” Not like the furrow irrigation from a dam. That was the denomination.