robed up and with my cousin at her ordination

In the top photo I'm posed in all my ministerly glory: robe, stole, and Book of Common Worship with some notes. The bottom photo shows the commission of my cousin, Cheryl's, ordination. I'm behind her. Cheryl is soon to be the as(sis)(cociate)tant Dean of Students. It was a bouyant moment. That was last Sunday week. This last Sunday I preached at her pulpit while she was at the Wise family reunion. This has become our running joke: each year she goes to the Wise reunion and I, a Wise, substitute for her.
Fellowship Presbyterian is located along a country road - the original roadbed still curves through the churchyard and is now the driveway. The old white frame church burned down in the 1950s and now the church building is a brick A-frame with large picture windows. It's a fine example of 60s style.
Behind the church is an extensive graveyard behind a stone wall. In the near corner is a Wise family plot. Imagine my surprise. Alas after the 1890s no Wises died here. Where did they go? Presbyterian Wises are rare in these woods. I figure that when the early Wises left Virginia they were Anglican. But somewhere they descended into frontier Baptists. By the 1900, in my group of Wises, they were the worst "landmark" Baptists (a group of Baptists that believed that education was a tool of the Devil - and therefore clergy needed to be as ignorant or more ignorant than their congregation. Look them up in Ahlstrom's Religious History of the American People). It cheers me up that at least some of my relatives had the sense to be Presbyterian.
Presbyterians are not immune to ridicule though. Walker Percy has a good morsel about them in the Movie Goer. His protagonist, Binx Boling, relates that 5 of his 6 aunts are of the highest Brahmin sensibilities - the 6th is still a Presbyterian.
It's true, to a Presbyterian from Massachusetts, a Presbyterian from Georgia looks just like a Baptist. Our regional penchant for revivalism and agrarianism and general anti-intellectualism is the great leveler. All the differences we perceive about each other fellow southerners are miniscule when viewed from any objective perch. And to us, they're all alike as well. Objectivity only going so far.