Got word a couple of days ago that Jo Adair Trussell died after a battle with cancer that was, all things considered, mercifully short. Jo was my secretary at First Methodist of Fordyce when I was down in the piney woods of south Arkansas trying to help build the kingdom back in the day. She was also a loyal friend, a 'work spouse,' a surrogate mother, a comrade, and a confidant. Physically she was strikingly attractive and elegant in a delightful, willowy way, but even had she been plain, those in her sphere would have been drawn to her because of the unparalleled loveliness within.
Sadly the word 'pious' has taken on a host of negative, pejorative connotations. When we hear it we think of the thin-lipped, grim pharisees among us who shamelessly exhibit a personal relationship with the Diety like the tabloids reveal the latest on Angelina and Brad. This is unfortunate. I wish we could rehabilitate the term and use it in the sense John Wesley did when he talked of 'vital piety,' a life rooted in and built upon the spiritual verities and mysteries that run in the deep waters of human existence and experience.
Jo was a model of piety - never arrogant, always open, forever humble about her limits and limits of her understanding, devoted, peaceful - but pious, nonetheless. I sense the world shrank a bit when she passed out of it. I certainly did.
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