August 24, 2003
Lessons from the Blackout
Going
Off to College?
Hundreds of our parishioners will be soon going off to college -- either
for the first time or as returning students. At St. Brigid’s we
like to stay in touch through
e-mail “letters from home.”
Once a person has an e-mail address at school (or if he/she uses a personal
address), please let us know what it is so we can include them when
we write.
Here's a handy college link so you
can send this info online.
God
Bless Giuseppe
Father Giuseppe finished his18th annual visit with us this past week.
It was so wonderful to have him back “home” among us. We ask
God to bless him as he returns to Rome. Fr. Giuseppe has done so much
for our whole parish, especially in his work with the Italian community.
We ask God to bless him as he begins another year of teaching.
e-mail Father Ralph:
Past Columns:
August 24: Lessons from
the Blackout
August 17: Here and
There
August 10: Surrender
August 3: Reaping Rewards
July 27: What's your
mission?
July 20: From a Deserted
Place
July 13: Nothing for the
Journey
July 6: God at Home
June 29: Going in Stages
June 22: Sommer in the Summer
June 15: Our Newest Priest
Ordained
June 8: The Feast of Pentecost
June 1: Beyond First Communion
May 24: Felicidades Manuel
May 18: Twenty Years Later
May 11: Bows for Peace
May 4: Upcoming Ordinations
April 27: One Heart One
Mind
April 20: Amazingly Graced
Days
April 13: Ashes to Palms
April 6:
God Embedded
March 30:
Pastoral Visits
March 23:
Turning Tables
March
16: Transfiguring Imagination
March
9: Beasts and Angels
March 2:
Lent and Imagination
Feb 23: Sorrow
Far and Wide
Feb 16: Saints
Feb 9: Columbia Lessons
Feb2: Giving At A Difficult
Time
Jan 26: Penny Power
& Catholic Schools
Jan19: Yet Another
Year
Jan 12: Stealing Jesus
Jan5: The Wise Still Come
From Afar
Columns from 2002
I’m really glad everyone is safe after
the “Blackout of 2003". I was on eastern Long Island at the
time and didn’t get back til the next day but everyone here did a
great job of celebrating the evening mass (in the dark with no sound system)
and running the feast at the school (thanks to generators it was pretty
much the “only game in town” that evening).
Most of us were merely inconvenienced for
a day or less and the priests at the rectory took it all in stride because
each of them comes from countries where blackouts are a common event.
Electricity isn’t guaranteed at any time. I started to tell this
to my friends and they asked, “What do people do in those countries
with all their food if the electricity goes out?” The truth of the
matters is that people in many, many other countries don’t worry
about this because they don’t have great amounts of food stored up
as we do. We have convenience foods frozen away -- millions of people
in the world are happy to have any food for themselves and their children
on a given day. Refrigeration and food spoiling in freezers is a “local
problem” during a black out.
Our children got a real sense of what living
in many third world countries is like day after day -- no TV, computers,
radios, CD’s, MP3's, DVD’s...When the sun goes down, so ends
the day. We missed our air conditioning for a bit, but soon it was back
on and we went on our way confident that this was only a momentary glitch
in our lives. Yet in other places, people have no air conditioning --
ever. This gave me a new insight into the conditions our troops are facing
in Iraq...and even more insight into the plight of the Iraqi people whose
whole infrastructure for electricity and water is still not working.
I came out of the blackout with gratitude
-- for all that we’re blessed with here. When the garage door didn’t
work with the push of a button, I became grateful that I even had a car.
When the streetlights were out I was grateful that I could see the sight
of the beautiful moon and the close appearance of the planet Mars. When
I heard on the radio that this wasn’t the work of terrorists and
that people were not rioting and were in fact helping each other, I was
grateful for the peace I felt.
I’m thinking about how I want to express
this gratitude by reaching out to those who live a ‘blacked-out life”.
You are Person
