Living in coronavirusworld 45: Do your part....

5/6

                                                          True "liberty" is responsibility

Between Cinco de Mayo and my son's birthday comes today, May 6th, Karl Marx birthday.  

I’m wearing my “Pittsburgh strong” t-shirt, using my mug. 

"Pittsburgh strong"

These came out in response to the Pittsburgh synagogue shootings in October 2018. I wear it today in response to mu friend Barney’s report that one out of five Pittsburgh people are unemployed and in one 5 day period, 1.65 million Pennsylvanians applied for unemployment assistance. 

Our Underground group gathers again over coffee and on ZOOM. After reading my reflection on Kent State (see yesterday’s blog) my friend Steve H wants to know “why?” What kept me going. All these years? What enabled me to stay in the struggle? The answer was (relatively ) simple. I grew up in a working class town. Only around 40% of my classmates went on to college. It was still possible to work in  the mills and have a decent middle class life and send your kids to college.   A disproportionate number got drafted and sent to Vietnam and many came back and were never the same (PTSD)  and some just left and never came back. Our 1972 reunion saw many draftees and vets trying to  make sense of experience. 

Let me be clear. I fought against the draft.Was glad when it ended. But I am now sure that the reason the Vietnam war ended was because  the draft and shared risk turned the country against it. When I tried to turn in my draft card and it came back (long story,) when I kept my exemption and so many others had to go, I felt I owed them something. Like a lifetime commitment to try and make this a more just, humane and sustainable world. That was my why.

In talking about Kent State, Steve P remembered being at Yale in New Haven and the Black Panther trials and the thousands who came to New Haven  for that and the school going on strike, all in the weeks before Kent State. Steve H was just a kid in South Africa, wondering why Americans were so unliked. Clyde K was an academic involved in campus organizing. Steve H talked about how it’s hard to hold on to principles and friends at the same time. 

In looking ahead, as always, Steve P brings an historic perspective. The role of slavery in our original constitution. How the New Deal saved capitalism. Large economic expansion ultimately depends on violent coercion and post covid19 we have the potential to become a more violent and dangerous country as the capitalist class tires to hang on.  

Sam’s hope kind of keeps me going, She believes change will evolve organically. Now we are forced to be in the moment. Are we capable of self-government? Hopefully. 

We are like sheep without a shepherd.

What does it mean to be  a failed state? In 1989, the USSR was a fractured state. What emerged was not a democracy  but a new Russia run by gangsters. As Joel says, change does not always correct, sometimes it just switches. Steve P adds, Someone Weil said the opiate of the peoples not religion, it’s revolution.  Aristotle said democracy is dictatorship of the poor. 

Clyde reminds us that the Christian Right, the previous Moral Majority, the Tea Party,  are not forces in themselves, but tools.

(Russ recommends the podcast “Scene  the Radio” and the new series The land that has never been yet . ( https://www.sceneonradio.org/the-land-that-never-has-been-yet/ )

 Andre wants to know, when we say Can we change? Who is we? Better? Or Worse?  Is it just tribalism?

Steve P rejects moral equivalence. It's not just tribalism. Calling out bad behavior is not morally equivalent. People whose core value is to love one another can not be a tribe. 

For me, “Christian” reality is both tribal and universal. I’m also troubled that tribal can mean many things. My friend and colleague started a new ministry called T.R.I.B.E. , not T-r-i-b-e. That stood for Transformation Realization. Inspiration. Belonging. And Expression. (https://www.janegalloway.com/tribe)

Joel calls our attention to Isaiah 6: "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.  With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."

We talked about the coal being the word of truth and its effect as cauterization.

We are left with the problem of how will we talk with one another. I speak of the cognitive dissonance between principle and person. What I learned at Oakdale about “sometimes you just have to set Principle aside and what’s right.” The difference between Eastern Oklahoma Presbytery where differences were accepted within the family (he may be crazy but he's ours) and the meanness of  Pittsburgh. That meanness has now infected the whole country. That resolving on behalf of the person often requires knowing the person.  And how listening is essential. Like Mennonites teach and mediators practice, don’t let someone respond unless the the other person is certain they have been heard.  Steve P points out how this is embedded in Roberts’ rules of order. 

May we have the opportunities for conversation, for listening. 

                                                                                                      ****

The Presbyterian Health Education and Welfare(PHEWA)  board meets for the first time in a year and a half at least. We welcome new representatives from our networks serving on the front lines.  We have serious concerns about our denomination’s upcoming virtual assembly and the need to speak a word to the broader church and society exegeting the current Covid19 crisis and calling for a faithful response. We hope to finish that statement by the end of the week. 

                                                                                                      **** 

On my walk, I notice the LED message above the NYPD cruiser, “Do your part, stay six feet apart.” 

'"Do your part...."

I’m on the street for the 7 PM cheer. Pots, pans, cheers, car horns. It’s kind of moving. 

The 7 PM cheer on 118th

                                                                                                  ****

I make another pot of chili. The day ends with another editor of the Gluey Zoomy Show. Thanks Joel and Carrie! 

Living in cornavirusworld 42: Reflections on the "Good Shepherd"

5/4

...and the braking of bread....

At the beginning of our Bible Study tonight, I bring up that it is the 50th anniversary of the shootings at Kent State. And I ask what we remember. Russ was a grad student Michigan who thought, “Well, that’s it…”. Marsha asks “the end?” and Russ says, “No, the beginning.”  As for Marsha, she was a grad student at Washington U. in St.Louis where the ROTC building was also burned. She remembers thinking, “Well, there’s work to be done,” much as she does today. I have recorded my memories in yesterday's post, but my biggest point was how my friend Del, who was an eye witness, saw two groups of working class Ohio young people, neither  of whom wanted to be drafted or go to war, turned against one another. “The guys who were shooting at us were us,” he said, “that’s what they do to us.” And the rest were too young to remember.

Yesterday was the fourth Sunday of Easter, traditionally known for reasons not entirely clear, as “Good Shepherd Sunday.”  We decide to start our discussion by reading the 23rd Psalm, as a way of centering. Marsha reads from the King James Version, which is how we hear it in our heads.  Russ reads it in the Message, Gene Peterson’s rewrite.  (Bible passages follow.) We talk about why it’s so important, so beloved by us. Because we remember it. Because we hear it so often, and yes, at funerals. And I add because of the sense of “abundance,” and Marsha says, ‘Yes, like the banquet in the presence my enemies, I still don’t get why that’s good, I’d rather eat without them around.” She also wonders “why sheep? They’re dumb and run off the side of mountains. Is that us? “ And Leila says that they are in need of someone to look after them and trusting.  And it’s a bit like Lou Reed, “Well, I guess but I just don’t know.”

Our main text is the classic John10: 1-10.  I say that verse 9:40 tells us that this is from a conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees. Russ reminds us that it was written  as much as 30 years after the fall of the Temple. The first 5 verses  are the closest that any passage in John comes  to being a parable. It's based on a realistic picture of a Palestinian sheepfold, an enclosure usually with four stone walls. In my doctoral studies, we read the theory that sheep folds were the first step away from nomadic life and the walled enclosure became the model from which eventually cities would grow. Ironically, by the time Jesus came along, shepherds were the only ones to sleep outside the city walls, even farmers would come inside at night. So shepherds were already somewhat othered. (Jesus is a good shepherd.) There is already romantic nostalgia in the shepherd image harkening back to “little David” who became the great king. 

In verse 4 where the shepherd “goes in before them,” the language is as of a military procession, like Palm Sunday, giving us a bit of a subversive use of image.  Verse 4 also gives us the image of the sheep “knowing his voice,” an image of intimacy, like in John's resurrection story, Mary doesn’t recognize him until she hears his voice(20:16)…In verse 6 where it says”… they did not understand..” That’s a pretty common theme. (Mt. 13: 13-15, Is. 6: 9-10, Mk4: 11-12).  In verses 7-10, Jesus presents himself as the gate, the shepherd image come is at verse 11. 

In verse 8, Jesus refers to “robbers.” The actual word, however is “bandits.” This is important because bandits in Jesus day was a word used to describe anti-Roman guerrilla revolutionaries who would lie in wait and ambush Romans. In Matthew 27:38, Jesus is crucified between “two bandits,” meaning Rome executed him as a revolutionary. Talking to the Pharisees, Jesus is setting up a contrast for how to respond to the occupation. The Pharisees' way, the revolutionaries' way, or his way.

                                                 "Good Shepherd," Jefferson Airplane

                                                 "Blood Strained Banders" Jimmy Strothers

                                             "Blood Stained Banders" Mike and Peggy Seeger

The bandit language reminds me of the song, “Good Shepherd,” the Jorma Kaukonen Jefferson Airplane  version.  Turns out the song goes back to Methodist minister Rev. John Adam  Granade in 1808. It made its way into African American culture and the form that Kaukonen learned was recorded first by blind prisoner Jimmy Strothers in 1936, collected by Alan Lomax and transcribed by Rachel Crawford Seeger.   Strothers called his version “Blood strained banders. ” One scholar said his version was “ ..a dark homily that bubbles up invective for the devil that huddles behind every stranger’s face.” Later three Seeger children, Mike, Peggy and Penny; would record that version as well.   Kaukonen would make the widest known, maybe even definitive, version. Lomax was convinced that for Struthers  ‘Blood stained bandits” referred to the Ku Klux Klan.  The three groups we’re warned against are:

*Blood stained bandits

* Gun shot devils (think recent armed demonstrations in the Michigan State House)

* Long tonged liars (well….)

Maybe in this coronavirusworld we need a good shepherd. 

OK then. Maybe the reason this is ‘Good Shepherd Sunday” is that in the middle  of Easter season, we need to get clear what this resurrection is for. What is Jesus’ job description? As he says in verse 10, “….that they might have life and have it abundantly.” Someone once said that Christians tend to fall into one of two camps, either “pick up your cross and follow me” or “have life and have it abundantly.” Most Presbyterians tend to fall into the ‘Pick up your cross” side. That was sure my experience. Interestingly, it is the Black Church  and other communities of struggle that have embraced the abundant life side. The fullness of the 23rd Psalm. In John, Jesus uses that phrase six times. So we have to ask, what is the nature of abundant life in coronavirus time?

Jesus’ desire for us is to live. What does that look like collectively?  For today we look at Acts 2: 42-47.

42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.43 And fear came upon every soul; and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Verse 45 could have come right out if Marx. Or perhaps Marx came out of Acts 2: 45.

The collective life involves:

*Study

*Breaking of bread

*Prayers

It’s interesting that worship took place in the temple. They went there regularly. Their principle community ritual, the breaking of bread, took place in the home. The implications are clear. It is not a building that defines the community, it is their life together. Coronavirus time is for us to be communities without buildings. Post virus, we will be in a different  world economically and hopefully many other ways as well. This will call us to be a different church. What we learn during this time can help us prepare. 

                                                     **** 

I see on 116th street the “social distancing “ footprints from last week. Leading to the Food Bank door. Another way to break bread and share “..as any and need…” 

stand here

And the popular street corner memorials apes as frequently as the emergency vehicles….

another memorial

23 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

1-3 God, my shepherd!
    I don’t need a thing.
You have bedded me down in lush meadows,
    you find me quiet pools to drink from.
True to your word,
    you let me catch my breath
    and send me in the right direction.

4 

Even when the way goes through
    Death Valley,
I’m not afraid
    when you walk at my side.
Your trusty shepherd’s crook
    makes me feel secure.

5 

You serve me a six-course dinner
    right in front of my enemies.
You revive my drooping head;
    my cup brims with blessing.

6 

Your beauty and love chase after me
    every day of my life.
I’m back home in the house of God
    for the rest of my life.

John 10:1-10 (RSV)

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber; 2 but he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the gatekeeper opens; the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 5 A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6 This figure Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

7 So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers; but the sheep did not heed them. 9 I am the door; if any one enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

The fiftieth anniversary of Kent State, May 4th 1970: a memory

May 4th, 1970

I was a 20 year old junior at the College of Wooster.   A small, church-related college less than 50 miles from Kent State. I was living in a semi-off campus house with a colorful cast of characters. Our top floor room had a homemade bed of cushions on the floor ready to welcome itinerant friends, poets, filmmakers, musicians, draft resisters, philosophers, yeah, friends.  My roommate, Bob D, back from a junior year in Colombia, was teaching me the art of hospitality. The once staid Presbyterian school had been going through its own “cultural revolution” with constant challenges to long standing rules and customs. By 1969, even the members of the jock fraternity Delts were against the war and long hair was common for all. 

I don’t remember how I first heard about the shootings at Kent State.  We were aware of what had been going on that weekend, with the ROTC torched and trashing of stores downtown in response to Nixon’s Cambodian incursion. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised. The previous fall, Linda, my partner in a folk duo, and I had won an audition to perform at the Ohio Folk Festival at Kent State.  I remember how the campus, one of Ohio’s historic “normal schools,” or teachers’ colleges, had gone through a building burst in the1950’s to accommodate a rush of returning soldier GI Bill students. Acres of functional form buildings sprung up, not completely Soviet style, but close enough. There was no feeling of ivy-covered academic sanctuary. And seeing a poster, in between sets I found myself in an SDS meeting where a rational discussion of fighting for peace was underway. There was an edge to the place.

Word of the shootings spread.  And about four o’clock, there was a rally planned for the Wooster town square. I was asked to perform and found myself on a flat bed truck being used as a stage. I was singing a “protest” song I’d written, “Hello grandfather.”  I can’t remember all the words but it had a line, “…we’ve got to burn those children ‘cause they might be communists..”  Yes, subtle. I looked up and on the rooftops of all the buildings surrounding the square were armed Ohio national guardsmen with rifles trained on us. It took my breath away. In my own country, soldiers pointing guns at me as if I were the  enemy. It felt worse than being in DC  the previous November with 5 busloads of Woo students (and half a million others)  for the November Moratorium march. I remember turning a corner, walking into tear gas and seeing trucks transporting soldiers, looking young and scared. (That was my last experience of tear gas until last October in Chile.)

A guy shorter than me with a Buster Brown hair cut and a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western hat took the stage.  He waved a white t-shirt. With red blotches and declared “Today I took this shirt off one of our brothers gunned down in Kent State. Brothers and sisters, we need to fight back, pick up the gun..” I looked at the shirt, looked up at the soldiers with guns looking down on us, and said to myself, “Nah. Nope. No…”

Later that night, we were hanging in our room.  The “four Bobs”…me, my roommate, Bobby who I had begun to perform with in a folk rock group and Bob ("the Druid") a poet from Montreal. And our friend Malcolm, my girl friend Gail, maybe more. There was a knock on the door. It was our friend Del. He was a working class guy from Cuyahoga Falls. Wiry hair and wire frames. A poet. Always with a paper back book or writing pad in his hip pocket. For financial reasons, he’d had to transfer from Woo back home to Kent State. We hadn’t seen him since the end of school a year ago. He was with a slightly older woman. His face in a state of shock.

He described the morning, moment by moment. Walking past the Guardsmen on the Commons. “Hey Del,” one said and he walked over and recognized several high school classmates with their automatic weapons. That was the tragedy, said Del, we were all working class, just trying to not have to go to Vietnam. Some of lucky ones went to college, others joined the Guard to avoid the draft. He was completely shocked when the shooting started. The blood on the sidewalk unreal, like a dream. He felt like the world was ending. He went and found his lover, his professor’s wife, and took off heading for the only place he could think of to go. Our room. His voice and hands shook as he told his story. I have to write this, he said, It’s like tragedy. Shakespearean tragedy. The guys who shot us were us. That’s what they do to us, they get us shooting each other over their war. They don’t fucking go. Their kids don’t fucking go. We go. And we shoot each other…I have to write this.

They spent the night, left in the morning. I’m not sure if he ever went back to school. Or wrote his Shakespearean tragedy. I never saw him again.

The next night, we sat on our porch as a march came up our street. Join us, I heard my advisor yell as they passed us. I couldn’t. At that November moratorium, half a million filling the mall between the Washington monument and the Lincoln memorial, I felt this incredible power, that surely, with this many people, peace and love could stop the war. Change the world. Kent State took that away from me. I stayed involved in whatever current shape the  movement took, but with no romance. I kept my heart guarded. Until years later, in the Cathedral of St.John the Divine, in an  interfaith service the day before the march against nuclear proliferation, I felt something crack inside and found myself crying. The next morning, near the UN, in the bright sun, standing with my friend Donna, watching graceful Japanese dancers before the march, she said “Who would know better?” And I knew. I still believed.

(Along the way on that march, I would encounter my Wooster classmate and Yale colleague John Branson in his Anglican clerical collar...Together we marched to the Sheep Meadow in Central Park where Linda Ronstadt was singing Tumblin' Dice.....)

In the weeks following, some  of us had an idea. We went to my advisor and he turned over his office and gave us the use of his phone.  We sent a letter to the Wooster Daily Record headed “Talk with a student?” And extended an invitation to the community offering to send students to talk with whoever wanted to  talk. For the next month, to the  end of school, we sent groups of students out talking with whoever invited, which often included a home cooked meal. While we went all over the city and nearby towns, the two I remember the best were right near campus.  One with Jack Lengyel, the football coach who would later coach Marshall in 1971 following the fatal air crash that took the lives of the whole team and coach and was portrayed  by Matthew Mconaughey in the film”We are Marshall.” He later was Athletic Director at the  US Naval Academy. He was open. He listened.  And also to the home of wrestling coach Phil Shipe who painted on reclaimed barn wood and quoted Rumi. These conversations helped bring me back to competitive college sports in quixotic final year ventures into lacrosse and wrestling my senior year. Looking back, we had created  a pretty creative response  to our sense of what can we do? frustration.

My youngest son reminds me that May 4th has now been rebranded Star Wars day, you know, may the force (fourth) be with you... Even less remembered were the shootings that followed 10 days later at Jackson State. 

Years later, on a trip to visit relatives, I stopped to visit the memorial. After the protests, the University has developed the lawn where the students fell.

Fifty years later, in the midst of coronavirus and Trump, I think of  Del, shaking, remembering seeing his armed classmates, saying, “The guys who shot us were us. That’s what they do to us,….”

Sixth Sunday in Easter: waiting for the Advocate

5/5

Stephen  has the doors open and ready for services as I arrive. I check the side and see that our guest from yesterday is still there, unmoved after 24 hours. I want to remind him that he said he would be struck blind if he failed to move but choose not to. Tell him its been too long and that he has to go. All right, all right, I know...you did me a solid yesterday. Just give me ten minutes, just give me ten....

I pick up the bulletins at the Bangladeshi copy place. Pick up the grape juice and bread for communion. And when I get back, he’s gone but a terrible, rubber gloves and disinfectant mess remains. No, just no. My heart sinks.

Two visitors today. A young woman from India and  young man  from South Korea. Just in the city for the week. I always wonder what they’re looking for when they come. Worry about their anxious looks as people are slow to arrive. Know that if they’ll just stay, we have  a chance. So I start with a brief socio-architectural history of the church. Always good for our own members as well....

And then its time to begin. In our prayers, Stephen lifts up our 24 hour visitor. After reading the Gospel (John 14: 23-29), I pull out my guitar and play I’ll Fly Away...what better song for an Ascension reference? By that old singer/preacher the Rev. Gary Davis. I’ve heard it every way from Appalachian to second line. And then it’s time for the sermon.

                            I'll fly away

Feliz el cinco de mayo! Anyone know what that is? It’s an American holiday lifting up Mexican culture. (San Corona day?) Not Mexican independence but celebrating the unlikely victory of the Mexicans over the French at the battle of Puebla, May 5th, 1862.

In a crisis that feels all too contemporary, Benito Juarez had called for a  moratorium on foreign debt. In opportunistic response, France invaded.This would be the last  European  invasion of the Americas. And  France had not been defeated in 50 years. It would still take the Mexicans another five years to drive out the French.

The day has special significance in  NewYork City because  so many of our Mexican immigrants are  from the state of Puebla that there is a Casa Puebla on Broadway, a consulate for the state. The Upper West Side, for the Mexican community is la pueblacita. 

It was also 43 years ago today that we experienced the shootings at Kent State. A day that permanently changed me. The day I learned that revolution is serious business. I tried to share that message with  our OWS  friends last year. It takes discipline. You have to be prepared for the long haul.  Discipline.And determination.

                                                                    Four dead in Ohio

  

This was also the week in  which NBA player Jason Collins came out. That’s just a beginning.

So that's what I'm thinking about today.....the long haul....we've been celebrating the season of Easter....the presence of the risen Christ  with us, teaching us resurrection living. But those days are ending. He's getting ready to leave. Later this week, Thursday, is Ascension day, or like the Girl Scouts,  fly up day..One year I discovered that it is a public holiday in Germany.... Himmelfahrt....heaven journey....We know its important in NYC because alternate side parking is suspended.

Jesus is preparing disciples for life after he's gone.....getting us ready for Pentecost....

He will go but something will remain. He calls the spirit, Paracletas....the advocate...intercessor, comforter, companion.... And in my colleague Heidi's childrens’ sermon today, ...the babysitter...the one who takes care of you when your parents are out. But think about that word, advocate.....

In the Biblical tradition, Satan is the accuser, the prosecuting attorney...it's that voice you hear inside....the one who tells you the worst things you believe about yourself...that you're worthless...that it's too late...that you'll never make it....that you should just give up.Do you know that voice? That's Satan....

The advocate is the defense attorney....the one who stands up for you...defends you...makes the case for you....helps you to believe in yourself.

These are not external realities but internal...the voices that are inside you... Again...both those voices inside us....

He leaves us with Peace....Not as the world gives peace. What is peace? It is  more than Pax Romana.....the order imposed and controlled by the forces of power and domination. In Hebrew it is Shalom. Connotations of wholeness.....peace with justice.....spiritual and social..it is what we want here....no trouble, no fear....

I am going....and coming he says....a time we can reflect on partings....we live through them all the time. And ot’s always hard. But a coming back to look forward to.

We've been on this journey a long time.....and we  will be longer...it will take patience, persistence....we will not be alone...the advocate is with us, silencing those voices....

And the promise  peace, inside of us between us, peace.

And today we celebrate communion. Elders Leila and Arcadia helping to serve. 

And then we make our circle. Tell our guests once they’ve been in our circle they will always be with us. The woman from India comes up to me, smells and says, I’ve never seen a minister with a guitar and laptop before. 

It’s a challenge. But it always makes me happy when i know that we’ve overcome , changed expectations and made people feel glad they were here. That it was worth their while. But it’s also hard.

The session reviews Stpehen’s proposed brochures and printed materials. Arcadia recalls Amanda’s original and Stephen says how he’s used it. 

And we talk real estate and negotiations. What we can accept. What we cannot. Does it have toe  a comparison of apples and apples or can oranges and kumquats work just as well? And will there be enough to move beyond just keeping the walls standing and the doors open? And at what cost to our spirit? Our souls? Our church? What happens every day here is church, but what of the community? The body? As the days grow longer, our time grows shorter. How long can grace sustain? We reach no conclusions.

The conversation continues out onto the steps. And Cara and put on black rubber gloves, slip around the side and take care of the mess. Gingerly and carefully lifting up ruined clothes and blankets. The sweeping. And finally Mr. Clean. And more Mr. Clean. If only the rest of it could be that easy....

Ahead is the opening afternoon of the church league softball season. And to end the day right, a Cinco de Mayo fiesta at my favorite neighborhood's parish.