My dear grandmother was just this evening telling me about how easy both my parents and I had things compared to her early life. A first generation Italian immigrant to West Virginia, she speaks often of spending Saturday preparing fish dinners for the morrow that were “this big“, and peeling and canning tomatoes all summer long in the blistering heat. But tonight she told me another story: how she used to pray on Saturday night that it would rain on Sunday. You see, she had rather large holes in her shoes, and if it rained she could wear her rubber overshoes, which would mask this marked deficiency when she knelt at the Communion rail.

I can imagine a thousand sermons that utilize this little anecdote! Frankly, though, I’d rather leave it alone - an unique taste of an age that was, and that I hope, at least in part, to inflict upon future generations.