My blog post for July 4 is here.

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Today ends 4th of July weekend.  We’ll soon begin to see what it means to be in the trump era.

This is Sunday, and I like to go to Church and I did, this morning.  Today’s readings from scripture seemed to focus on evangelizing, and Fr. Tasto emphasized a single phrase in the Gospel, from Luke 10:1-9: “…The Lord appointed seventy-two others whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit….”   At the time Christianity was in its infancy, and Fr. Tasto pointed out the importance of pairs – relationships – of work groups of two, for reasons we all understand.

The way I interpreted the reading and message was that regardless of the circumstance or gender, two together provides another set of perspectives and support in whatever we happen to be working on.  Going it al0ne may seem to be convenient – you don’t have t0 deal with things like different points of view – but the outcome tends to be weaker than one resulting from working together to resolve differences.

(The other readings were IS66:10-14C and 2GAL6:14-18)

Two weeks ago in the same church a few feet away from where I was sitting today were two coffins, with Melissa and Mark Hortman, next to them their next of kin, and President Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris and a church packed with mourners.  I wasn’t there.  It was invitation only – but nobody was wearing partisan id’s.  I watched it on TV, like most, and it was very sad but impressive.

O course, their death at the hands of a political assassin on June 14 was only an instant in time, as was the two hour funeral on June 28.   Life goes that way.  Appreciate the moment the you have.

Friday night, July 5, large numbers of lives were washed away in a tragic flood of the Guadalupe River in Texas.  As of Sunday afternoon July 6, the Texas death toll is 70, including 59, 21 of them children, in Kerr Country.  These  deaths were recognized by the Congregation, as were immigrants from all times and all places….  Basilica is a place that takes social justice seriously.

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July 3 came what I think will ultimately be a Pyrrhic victory – the gigantic Federal Budget passed by a whisker and signed on July 4, then the President’s victory lap in Iowa where he emphatically said he “hated Democrats”.  And the day before inaugurated what is flippantly called the “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida, itself subject to allowing, to be filled with suspected illegals chased down by a massively bulked up ICE enforcement apparatus.

Etc.  Etc.  Etc.

Looking at the present and future for our country, those church pews would look very different, divided in so many ways with hardly a common vision, lurching from one crisis to the next.  There are four rows of pews – imagine two on the left and two on the right in mortal combat and you have an image of what we seem to be becoming.

I really have no precise idea of what’s really ahead. except I fear it’s going to be downhill from here.

The advice in the gospel, to pair up, is appropriate and necessary.  And if you haven’t gotten to work, now is the time, and to carry on. day by day.