Long weekend of R&R

I can't remember the last time I had a long weekend 

of doing nothing ...

Well, OK,

there was gardening,

daydreaming about baby things,

and wandering about an Alternative Art Fair.

There might have been a purchase 

for the 'dress up box'

and for myself.

 

There definitely were meals shared with friends, 

reminders,

 

smiles

 

 

 and more reminders.

And right in the middle of it all

was an introduction to a new (for me) writer,

Brian Doyle,

and the perfect prayer

that gave voice to where I am.

Desperate Prayer for Patience with Politicians with Excellent Suits and Shoes and Meticulous Hair and Gobs of Television Makeup Who Have Utterly Forgotten That Their Jobs Are Finally About Feeding and Clothing and Protecting and Schooling Children. 

They are driving me stark muttering bubbling insane. They are nattering and preening. They are dissembling and speechifying. They are evading the questions and mouthing empty slogans. They are attacking straw men of their own devising and calculating market share. Their words are wind and dust and meanwhile children starve and are raped and have no beds and teachers and doctors. They say they will do things and they do not do those things. They appeal to the worst in us so as to be able to make money. They send children to war though they have never been to war and do not know the savagery of what they are sending children to do. They abuse their power and sneer at the poor and condescend to the elderly and lie about their motivations and their biographies. They would happily soil every lake and river and pond and creek and rivulet with every imaginable searing death-dealing chemical there is if there was money in it for them. They would foul every square meter of air with choking smoke and ash if there was enough money in it for them. They do not care about our children and our children's children. They pose for photo opportunities on the way to church but they do not feed the hungry and clothe the naked and house the homeless and slake the thirst of those who are desperate. Dear sweet Lord, give me the patience to be reasonable and call them calmly to account. Give them the startle of guilt and the ripple of shame. Make sore their consciences and shiver their arrogance so that they may puncture it themselves and so begin to achieve humility and be of actual honest genuine service to the least among us. 

This we pray trying not to snarl overmuch.

And so, amen.

This author discovery,

and the delight of it,

led to hours of reading

and then a nap.

It was lovely.