WE SHALL BE RELEASED

I have barely had time to come up for air in what seems like over a year.

First, I had a job writing a book for someone else. Then I wrote my own book (on prayer, out from Loyala Press if all goes well next year).

Meanwhile I had two or three other books come out, a weekly column and a monthly column to write, several speaking gigs, a trip back East, and a few large editing jobs.

But the real excitement has been what is now the eighth consecutive month of five-day-a-week, 8 am to 4 pm construction on the house in which I live.

I’m no contractor but should it take six to eight guys half a year to rehab a small kitchen and bathroom?

The upside: I’ve discovered 8:15 am Mass at St. Andrew, and the Pasadena Public Library.

Last Friday, I hosted the welcome home dinner for my friend Dennis Apel, who that morning had been released from MDC, the downtown LA federal prison, after serving 120 days for a non-violent vigil against nuclear weapons and our profoundly anti-human war economy/mentality.

We gathered around the groaning dining room table. We prayed, laughed, wept, ate, told stories.

We pondered all these things in our hearts, like Mary.