Like all genuine love affairs, it had stormy moments, feisty pushings and pullings, seasons of disillusionment, and the fullest, most absolute fidelity of which we flawed humans are capable, responding to the total fidelity of God.

Janet taught us that passionate Godlovers are not sweetly pious people driven by the need to keep everyone happy, to compulsively smooth every ruffled feather... God-lovers are not always nice, but they are real. And Janet was one of the real-est people I have ever met.

Janet rarely spoke directly of her primal bond with God, although most of us--if we were paying attention--were exquisitely blessed by rare but profound occasions of transparency when Janet told us--in her typical plain speech--of the Most High in whom her life found its center.

But though she spoke of it rarely, this love affair was evident in everything about her life. And we were the direct beneficiaries of that love affair--it gushed forth and spilled over onto all of us. In her tribute to Janet, The Rev. Anne McConney writes:

Yet if one could say only one thing about Janet, It would be that she was a lover, a blunt, practical, downright and sometimes peppery lover, whose love ran in deep channels, not for display.

She knew in the core of her being that Love is no more and no less than the commitment brought to it, and her commitment was as solid as it was unfailing.

She loved her church, loved the spirit that informs it, loved its global reach, loved its national polity. And for her this all centered and found its reality in St. Martin's, the church she helped build into a force for good in its community.

Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun, and left the vivid air signed with their honor.

Stephen Spender

A force for good in the community. And how. In 2001, a Lilly Endowmentfunded study identified 25 Episcopal churches among the 300 outstanding congregations in the United States. One of them was St. Martin's. When I called Janet to tell her of this wonderful tribute to her and to all St Martins' folks, her response was unforgettable and utterly characteristic:

"Well, what the hell is this all about? I didn't know anything like this was going on!"

Then, equally characteristically, she deflected the credit: "the people of this congregation work hard and are very committed to ministry here...they are the ones who earned it. I can hardly wait to tell them."

She loved us all...so passionately, so feistily, so tenaciously. She loved the precious people of St Martin's. Her love was about just plain sticking together through every kind of challenge: frozen pipes, broken toilets, tragic fires, dreadful human losses, frightening financial struggles--broken well-pumps and broken lives--of unemployment, of failure and triumph.

Her complete love drove her to be God's advocate--drove her to be your advocate, so that we would never ever ignore or forget those of us "up here in the willy-wags." Janet was pastor, advocate, agitator--for the entire community and for all the small rural churches with which Maine is so very, very blessed... Janet, you put the willy-wags on the map!

This spilling-over love affair which Janet had with God was the fountain from which her tenacious love of each of us flowed and overflowed.

We need more of this love in the church: this love which dares to take a position, which gets "into it", which wrestles with feisty candor, which hangs in until reconciliation, and justice and new life emerge, however long and bumpy that road may be.

For God is Love, and love is about truth. Janet not only knew this in her head, she lived it in her life.

I read from greetings sent to us all on this occasion by the faculty of Bangor Theological Seminary:

The Rev. Dr. Janet McAuley has been a feisty friend of Bangor Theological Seminary. Since her move to Maine she has supported and assisted us in a variety of ways. Her mentoring of students has been invaluable. Whenever she came to meetings--formal or informal ones on the Bangor campus--her blunt, insightful and faithful witness enriched our lives. We expected that she would "speak the truth in love" and we were never disappointed on either count.

The amazing thing about love affairs: they take us where we would never have chosen to go. And there, we find our true peace. For a multiply-degreed scholar like Janet (who at one point in her career knew more about the contractile filaments in a muscle cell than any other person), who loved the formality of high Anglo-Catholic liturgy...for this love affair to take her to rural Maine is the strongest evidence of the immense power of love which, as Jesus said, and St. John's Gospel spoke it: "Follow me." Janet followed, and found her true peace, here in the heartland of rural Maine.

In love affairs, we are always longing to communicate with our beloved. About everything, big or little, simply to be in touch.

A sunset, a special moment with a beloved person or animal, an insight, a lament, a word of comfort, a question which begs an answer, a summons to shared work on the Divine Lover's behalf.

Janet was a prodigious communicator. One of our diocesan staff remembers fondly the weekly Monday-morning phone call. All of us have received emails and notes and phone calls, because Janet knew that love drives us to communicate. As God communicates with us in so many ways--consummately and ultimately in the Word made Flesh, Jesus our Brother and our Saviour--Janet was always in touch...in the dailiness of life, as Christ is.

Her communications might be pithy [I quote here from actual communications I have seen]:

"I think that The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire should be required reading for all Americans."

Or newsy: "V is visiting her grandchildren, X is home from the hospital, Y is awaiting the results of his tests, Z is finally back in church after her snit."

Or philosophical: "I think, given some time, A might make a fine priest, as soon as he gets through this patch of difficulty...whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

Or cranky: "B needs to remember that we are NOT Portland up here. We aren't going to function like Ivy-league people from Cape Elizabeth."

Or supportive: "You are doing a great job in a tough situation...and people really appreciate your presence...your efforts...."

She was always in touch. She watched over us, paid attention to us, came around to see us, spoke the truth to us. Just like God does. I loved to make pastoral calls with Janet, riding with her in that VW Golf filled with dog and cat hair, and old paperwork and bags of whatever she was getting ready to take to wherever. On the way she always told me each person's story. On the way back, she told me the rest of their story, as the recent visit may have elucidated it. In touch. She was always in touch.

Out of that love affair by which Janet and God and we and all creation (including the animals!) are really one, Janet stood by us, watched with us, shared joy and sorrow with us, fussed at us, cheered for us, ...and broke the Bread of Life with us.

Most every email we received from Janet-and I received many, and I know many of you have too --ended with these exquisite words: More Later. Love, Janet+.

OK, Janet, you feisty lover, you...you have left us for the arms of your first love...

But we are counting on you for "more later"...as each day passes.

Stay in touch, will you? And keep loving us, please? From wherever you are right now, we hold tight to your promise, in our grief:

MORE LATER. LOVE, JANET+.