Good Morning Digital Neighbors! Happy Thursday ADD Irregulars, WSN Purveyors, Friends & Refugees, Phamily & Misfits, Conversants, Lurkers, Seekers, Wanderers and Lost. The week rolls on and the very slow process of unpacking is taking place, maybe by the end of September I will have it looking like a home rather than a jumbled mess of boxes and unorganized unpacking. Moving is such a strange thing, it makes you question what you really need in life, which is fairly minimal, and all the comfort things you keep as part of your pharaoh's crypt collection. Beloved junk as I often call it, not necessary or needed for daily living, but wonderful accents and mementos of life and relationships. It is an odd and eclectic collection of numerous testimonies of engagement and involvement with life

I am very fortunate that Queen of Peace also affords me a home to live in rather than just some rooms above the shop as is often the case in many parishes. I loved my little house by the side of the road in New Melle and I look forward to loving this long house on the hill. While I am no longer beside a highway (life is much more quiet in this long house) I am still fond of the sentiments of that poem by Sam Walter Foss. It was my final words to my parish family of Immaculate Heart of Mary and I will always think fondly of my time there as some of the best moments in my ministry.

I strive to be a good spiritual father to the people entrusted to my care. If we are going to be called "Father" we ought to strive to understand that most common of titles and try our best to live by it. It is not easy, many people experience less than ideal relationships with their birth or adoptive fathers and such fractured relationships can make relating to God as a Father very difficult and calling another man father even less appealing. Father carries freighted expectation with it, we all have ideas of how a father ought to be or should have been once we are out from under their care & guidance. Any whose it, shepherds of souls wear many hats and titles that try to lead to a deeper understanding of their calling and charisms.

To those outside the flock, parish or universal in Cath-O-Land, I have no pretenses about being a spiritual father even if I am always of that heart-imprint. I strive to a good neighbor and future friend. No one need ever earn my respect, you have it for being alive and it can grow deeper as I get to know you or it can fade as your inner a-hole makes itself too known. We all have that inner a-hole, learning to use it well is part of adult happiness. Mine mainly manifest in being a smart-ass, much more refined and clever than just being an unfiltered a-hole. Good smart-assery it witty, plays with words, tries to gently poke others without bruising (Fragiles are forever bruised and waiting to be perpetually offended, it is now a secondary major for 99% of college degrees), and helps us laugh at life and self. Take life serious, but yourself much less so. Anyway, being a good neighbor and future friend is my overall posture towards others. On to Sam Walter Foss and his poem once more. I have shared it often here, but it is worth repeating and tumbling over in our hearts. Have a good day my friends and neighbors!

The House By The Side Of The Road

There are hermit souls that live withdrawn
In the place of their self-content;
There are souls like stars, that dwell apart,
In a fellowless firmament;
There are pioneer souls that blaze the paths
Where highways never ran-
But let me live by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

Let me live in a house by the side of the road
Where the race of men go by-
The men who are good and the men who are bad,
As good and as bad as I.
I would not sit in the scorner's seat
Nor hurl the cynic's ban-
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

I see from my house by the side of the road
By the side of the highway of life,
The men who press with the ardor of hope,
The men who are faint with the strife,
But I turn not away from their smiles and tears,
Both parts of an infinite plan-
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead,
And mountains of wearisome height;
That the road passes on through the long afternoon
And stretches away to the night.
And still I rejoice when the travelers rejoice
And weep with the strangers that moan,
Nor live in my house by the side of the road
Like a man who dwells alone.

Let me live in my house by the side of the road,
Where the race of men go by-
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong,
Wise, foolish - so am I.
Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat,
Or hurl the cynic's ban?
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.