From the Pastor&

    --  Life's persistent and most urgent question is, "What are you doing for others?"
                    -- Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

    --  The only thing you can do now, the only religious thing you can do, is act. 
        Act for God, if you want to--what could be prettier?
                     -- J.D. Salinger,Franny and Zooey

    --  You're gonna have to serve somebody.
                      -- Bob Dylan

     One of my very best friends is a nun in Ohio.  This past year she wore herself out, physically and emotionally, trying to work full time in a major job in the diocese she lives in, and trying to take care of her dying mother.  Both her parents are elderly and her father needed her help to take care of her mother.
     The hard part was driving 80 miles to her parents home, and then 80 miles back to her home.  Her job also requires a lot of driving around the diocese.  She ended up with back problems due to all the driving and needed physical therapy several times a week.
     Now her mother is in hospice care.  It's only a matter of time.  Last week I called my friend on her birthday.  During our conversation, I asked her if her only brother was helping.  She laughed.  He's so into his career and making money that he hasn't once flown home to visit their parents.  He doesn't even know what "hospice" is.
     It was then that I told her, "Your brother is a jerk.  Not a minor jerk, but a major jerk."  How can anyone stay away when a parent is dying?  Keeping vigil with a loved one who is dying is sacred time, a very sacred time in our lives.
     A few years ago, Mike Royko, a columnist out of Chicago, devoted a column to jerks.  He defined a jerk this way:  "Jerks are those who seem unaware that others exist.  Or, if they are aware, they just don't care."  He wrote that jerks think they are the center of the universe.  Royko went on to describe major and minor jerks.  Minor jerks tailgate, lane hop, and babble on their cell phones while straddling two lanes.  Major jerks speed recklessly, drive while intoxicated, and engage in acts of road rage.
     So what is the opposite of a jerk?  Isn't it a kind or polite person?  A kind person knows others exist and know they are not the center of the universe.  They don't talk during a movie; they drive with respect for other drivers; they offer their seat to an aged person; they help take care of sick parents and friends; they volunteer when needed; they do all sorts of kind acts for others.
     Every kind deed is a moral act.  When we treat others the way we would like to be treated, we are saying, "You are important.  I care about you."  Religion really is about being there for others.  Somebody once asked Aldous Huxley what he had learned from all his years of studying philosophy and religion.  He answered, "try to be a bit nicer to people."  Isn't that the command Jesus gave at the Last Supper... "Love one another."
     Our mission, should we decide to accept it, is to become kinder people.  Isn't not an easy thing to do, with those "jerks" in our lives, but maybe that's the point Jesus was trying to make.  When it's hard to love and to be kind, it's an opportunity to grow and to open up ourselves.
     Is there a connection between faith and kindness?

     
     Fr. Bill

MANY THANKS!!!
Many thanks to those parishioners who promoted our Fallfest by participating in the New Brighton Stockyard Days parade:

Larry Justin, Briana Justin, McKenzie Quade, Alison Leiser, Nikki Houck, Amy Spitzmueller, Jeanne  Breske, John Lang, Ron & Marianne Flor, Donna & Doug Shamp, Tom Houck & Juliana Chenoweth.