There Were Losses but St. Mary’s Cheers Wins : Religion: Six families lost homes in the Laguna fire but the Episcopal church provides morale boost and moral glue.

Near dusk Saturday outside St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, on a hillside of Park Avenue, the air was thick with the smell of burnt residue from the city’s devastating fire. Inside the red brick church, parishioners weren’t dwelling on their losses, but on their victories.

South and down the hill, the Pacific was in full view with the sun a large ball on the horizon. North and up the hill, winding Park Avenue had been the firefighters’ fire-line on Wednesday night, and dozens of homes above it now stand in ruin.

St. Mary’s had its own reason for sadness. Six of its families--Sally and Gordon Forbes, Bill and Mary Piguet, Patty Smith, Trudi Farrington, Fred Carspecken, Norton and Gay Penney--all lost their homes in the firestorm.

Saturday night’s event had been planned for weeks. The 45-member Episcopal Chorale Society, based in Los Angeles, was giving a special performance en route to an Australian tour. But obviously, said the Rev. Raymond E. Fleming Jr., the church’s rector, “The events of this week give tonight’s session a special meaning.”

Parishioners who hadn’t seen each other since the fire were hugging and back-slapping.

“Barbara, we were worried about you,” a friend said to 75-year-old Barbara Stuart, who had been forced to evacuate Wednesday night, her home barely spared. She hadn’t grabbed up anything; she had jumped in her car and driven to safety.

“It was nip and tuck, nip and tuck,” she said with a hug for her friend.

One special speaker was Sally Forbes, whose spacious Emerald Bay home was in ashes. But she hardly mentioned her loss when she addressed the congregation. Instead, she talked about her husband house-hunting in Orange County when she and their four children were still back East, 35 years ago:

“He called and said, ‘Sally, I’ve found the perfect place to live.’ And it has been too.”

She talked about the spirit of the church, and how it had “woven itself through the fabric of this community.” St. Mary’s has some reason to boast. Laguna Beach’s programs for the homeless, for abused women, alcoholics, senior citizins, its Community Clinic, they all originated at St. Mary’s.

One other speaker Saturday night was a homeless mother of a teen-age boy who had found a home but had no more than a “bowl and a spoon, which my son and I shared.” Through St. Mary’s donations, her house is now overflowing with furniture.

“That spirit must flourish and grow,” Forbes said.

The only time Forbes mentioned her own loss was to grab the hand of Chas Cheatham, director of the visiting choir, which had just sung a vibrant “We’re Just Blessed.”

“I found that last hymn extremely appropriate,” Forbes said. “It was just what I needed.”

Cheatham later responded to the congregation: “Anybody who has just lost a home and still has the spirit to come here and only talk about giving, that is remarkable.”

Forbes, her clothes all destroyed in the fire, came in a green dress she had bought the day before. At a dinner gathering later, she said, “I had thought, well, I’ll wear my gold necklace with this. But then I realized, I no longer have a gold necklace.”

On Wednesday, Forbes had been cooking a pot roast before heading to the Community Clinic, where she is a volunteer.

“We knew there was a fire to the north, but we weren’t really worried. Then our oldest son called and said he thought he’d better come over, because we should water down the house just in case.”

They had barely finished the job, she said, when: “That thing came out of the canyon like a freight train. It had a life of its own; it was yowling and spitting at us. We didn’t have time to grab anything . We literally just started running for our lives.”

The Forbes’ haven’t been idle since. They have bought clothes, already rented another home, started plans to rebuild.

“I’m convinced that each house has a spirit,” she said. “And ours will rise from the ashes.”

She’s even found humor in it all: “Our son Andrew, as we were digging through the debris that was once our home, came across that pot roast. It was the size of a walnut, and he said, ‘It’ll taste more like beef jerky now.’ ”

St. Mary’s has a special guest for today’s service: the Right Rev. Chester L. Talton, the assistant bishop of the Los Angeles Diocese, will speak about the fire.

Gary Erb, assistant rector at St. Mary’s, says it’s fitting: “In times of trouble, the bishop signifies the whole church. It helps us feel we are not alone.”