When I learned that Fred Jenkins had died, I cried. And I found myself in tears off and on over the next several weeks. And even now.

As I look back on it, I don't think I was crying so much because I had lost a friend (which I did). Because I had met Fred by phone only in 1995, the year I was elected clerk. (It was the first of very many phone calls seeking help that I have since made down to the GA.) Some of you here had been his friend since before I was ordained, so your grief was acutely personal in a way mine could not be. Fred knew who I was, and he always greeted me as friend, which I take as a high honor.

So as I look back now a year, I have come to realize my tears were for me. I am always greeted well when I call down to Louisville, and I always get good advice. So without in the least bit denigrating the work of Mark Tammen and all those good folks there, I am guessing that while it may be possible to fill Fred's position, replacing Fred Jenkins is something entirely different. The comfort I always had when I spoke to Fred was palpable.

But mostly, I think, I cried for the church I love so much. Beyond the qualities of friendship, Fred had a way of understanding and analyzing my problems that generated suggestions that were just plain wise. There was some quality more than a knowledge of the Book of Order. He seemed to understand the order under which we live as a covenant of service to Jesus Christ. The covenant under which we live, which Cliff was describing to us yesterday.

So I cried for us, and still get teary now and then. And the more I mourned last year the more I felt a need to do something. I wore a black arm band for a month, in mourning for me and for our loss, but that seemed not enough to preserve the contribution that Fred made to our covenant life. That gesture would do nothing to foster those values and encourage that wisdom that were always but a phone call away.

I awoke one morning some time after Fred's death with a hope that we could at least hold those values out as something to be cherished and nurtured and rewarded. And that day I placed a suggestion in the Association's presbynet meeting that we establish an annual award to recognize and memorialize those values that always seemed to emerge in the advice I got from Fred: a love of the church; a grace in the face of our frailties; a wisdom that had a quality that always made me believe it is possible to do this job and still be a Christian; and an understanding of how it might be possible that there is a connection between this covenant we have made with each other and our calling to Jesus Christ.

Our executive committee has taken that suggestion and massaged it and worked with it and has prepared the proposal that is before you for the Fred Jenkins Constitutional Services Award. I don't think we as the Association of Stated Clerks can better serve the church we love than to seek out and reward those who serve Christ in our denomination in a way that illustrates the wisdom and values Fred Jenkins always seemed to display, wisdom and values that are so needed in these desperate times.