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Thursday, January 8, 2015

The 12th day of Christmas: a woman in orange is waiting for me

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Charles tells me a woman in orange is waiting for me.  I anticipate and am right. I know her from work around the Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing. And SPSA. And Westside Campaign Against Hunger. She’s from a Hindu sect that sponsors a women’s homeless shelter nearby. She knows we housed people during Occupy and is hoping we can take some of her women one night a week. Makes me a little nervous, but….I ask her to write me up a proposal to share with my Session. We’ll consider it. As long as they’ve got someone for sleepover, well, it could work…

ETHEL is hard at work in the Sanctuary. Ralph is auditioning a new violin player.

Pat O want to show me the construction work being done in the chapel. The old closet, actually once the office of the Gray Panthers and later West Side Peace Action, has been removed as well as the small attic. Many things have   been revealed. The workers have  not recognized the large, long wooden boxes as actually bass organ pipes. I show Pat parts of the pipe that can be tuned to adjust the sound. Years ago, when I saw the pipes, I thought they had never been installed, like so many other incomplete projects at West-Park. But when Austin Organ reps came to examine our organ, they found that eccentric organist Allan Van Zoeren had actually removed the pipes to change the sound, making it his creation in 1954. Van Zoeren would ultimately move to Portland, Oregon and found his own internationally famous organ company, yet one more West-Park/Portland connection.

And then, for the first time in six years I saw the wooden cross candle holders from the sanctuary, the candle holders that were used to dramatically and romantically light the sanctuary during the Christmas season. Just in time for Twelfth Night and Epiphany. Next year, for sure….

Late in the day, it’ getting colder, Dion drops by to say Hi. His time at his old place has finally ended. And he will do anything to help. Dion is one of those truly good people. Way will come, as the Quakers say.





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