She herself became a candidate for moderator of the General Assembly two years later. And then, as I indicated, she served so effectively to ensuring that special committee, our task force of the assembly on homosexuality. And she has continued, interestingly, as in she went back to school, she has completed her work as a student at the Colgate Rochester Divinity School. By all means, talk to Virginia. She's a great spirit, a marvelous human being.

How did you arrange to cover your regular position during the months you had to be absent from home during your year as moderator?

Several months before the Louisville assembly, we, the associate pastor, left for another position and in anticipation of my possible election, the session invited a man of some experience from this church in this presbytery to come onto our staff as the associate pastor. That was a wise decision, as it turned out, because he did bring effective leadership during that period. Our familiar practice has been to seek assistant or associate pastors from seminary graduates. And in that situation we chose well to bring a man who had already had some good pastoral experience of the session, invited several guest preachers during that year so that he didn't have to bear all of the load of preaching along with the administrative and pastoral duties. Although he did a good deal of preaching. And as I've indicated, I was back to preach about once a month. And but he did all the the basic leadership. And it was a great tribute to him and to the congregation that there was no slippage during any of that period. In fact, the congregation flourished very well.

Dr. Morris, several years ago, the past moderators began to serve an additional one or two years on major boards of the church. How do you feel about those experiences?

Well, I think perhaps you're referring to the fact that it's been the practice that moderators served in connection with their moderator earlier served as a member of. And during the period that I was involved as chair of the General Assembly Mission Counsel during my year moratorium service, I served my first of three years as a member of the General Assembly Mission Council began to get acquainted with the work of that body. And then immediately in my second year, upon finishing my year as moderator, I began to serve as chair of that body. And then finally, a third year as as a member of those were very demanding responsibilities. As it turned out for me. I think in in normal circumstances, that responsibility of work with the General Assembly Mission Council was a big responsibility for me. It was not normal in the sense that the General Assembly Mission Council was going through some significant leadership executive leadership changes in the summer that I began serving as chair of that of the GMC, Gordon Sukhodrev was elected executive director of that body. And in the fall, Gordon was diagnosed with cancer and he died shortly thereafter. This created an unusual or difficult problem of leadership within the General Assembly Mission Council. And I found that as the chairperson of that body, I had some additional both pastoral responsibilities for a staff that had been deeply affected by his illness and death, as well as some functional leadership responsibilities. So that I was in New York at least once a week for a matter of months, and our session here had to wrestle with that additional involvement coming after that moderator earlier and that. Was not quite as easy as for them to do, although they were very gracious about it and we worked it out, but it it did represent for me an additional period of absence and involvement at the G8 level that had not been anticipated either by myself or by our congregation or by my colleague decreed. But again, everybody rose to the occasion and we we lived through it. And I should have to say that also during that same period of time, I was continuing as co-chair of the Joint Committee on Reunion so that you had a number of major responsibilities that carried over into the second and third year of my growing out of my moderator territorial year.

This congregation, I would have to say, has been simply magnificent in the way that it has, in effect, loaned me and my time and energies to the life of the larger church. And that continued until nineteen eighty three when we finally completed our work of of reunion. It's only been now for about two years that this congregation has had me full time as pastor, but they've simply been wonderful, I should say, that they have not treated it as an exercise in sacrifice. They have seen it as an opportunity for them to be intimately linked with the life of the whole church. And it shows in the kind of congregation they are and the way that they support the life of the whole church and the way they affirm their role as a congregation of connectional body so that there's been gained along with the pain for all of us.

Certainly your responsibilities during your moderator here were very exacting. And I wonder, is it too much to ask a person to serve at after after the years moderator so fully as a volunteer for that period?

I think this is a very legitimate question in the church today. It is not assumed that the former moderator in his or her years of continuing service with the council will chair that body. That's not assumed. And I think that's why the council elects its own chairperson. And I think that's probably the way it should be, because I think that it does indeed exact a heavy involvement for an individual. I'm thinking of laypeople who serve in that office as well as pastors and the kind of time and energy that the job calls for. However, there seem to be plenty of candidates who are willing to serve in this capacity, and I guess I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Dr. Amar, thank you very much. On behalf of the Presbyterian Historical Society for these remembrances of your year as moderator and the most wonderful year, I suspect, and one that you'll never forget and think that your work is extremely important. And being a moderator of the General Assembly must have been a memorable experience for you.