Left CT about 8:30; took the truck so we could take a load of firewood back. Hadn’t bothered to investigate the state of the situation up there – assumed there might be washouts on Captain Copeland but that main roads (including I91 south) would be passable by now. Around Greenfield MA there were signs that said 2W was closed; entering VT there was a route 9 closed warning. Otherwise the drive was uneventful – until we were about to take a break at the VT welcome center just outside Brattleboro.

While slowing down on the long grade before the entrance the brake peddle went to the floor – and didn’t come back. Got the truck slowed down and made my way to an empty corner of the parking lot. Looked underneath and didn’t see much. Several people stopped by to see if we needed a jump start. A sweet young women mechanic stopped by to check things out. She crawled under while I pumped the brake and she found it: the flex line to the left front wheel was broken off.

That’s good fortune Item #1 for the day! When I think back over my life I can see how lucky I’ve been. From gift grades in grad school to serious falls without serious damage this was one more gift of good fortune. When you drive a ’93 pickup you’ve got to expect stuff to break and under what better circumstances could you blow a brake line? To illustrate: Last week we came home heavy with a load of firewood. We get on Dover Hill Road near the top and it’s a long, steep drop to East Dover village – with a hard 90 degree corner near the bottom. If we had lost brakes then could I have got us around that corner?

Good fortune item #2: Called AAA for a tow. Since it was late morning on Friday of Labor Day weekend we expected to leave the truck at some garage and rent a car to get home. The local AAA garage was a rather ramshackle rural operation (kind of reminded me of Gary’s in Ashford).  My kind of place.   They were very nice, the line was in stock in Brattleboro, they put it in ($81) and we were on our way!

Meanwhile we had gotten a much better picture of the local road situation. (For example, the water level in Wilmington reached 2′ above the 1938 high water mark – a mark impressively high above the stream) and a lot of the center of town was wiped out.) Our turnoff from 30 would be just before a closed bridge so we would be able to reach Williamsville and we might make it from there to South Newfane and East Dover village and Dover Hill road.

Stopped in Burglar King for a late lunch. Broke a front tooth crown on a veggieburger. Don’t consider that particularly good luck… Back on the road: The West river was HIGH – and the color of milk chocolate. From the mud lines you could see where it had been. In the delta where it joins the Connecticut – at the place where we have launched our canoes and where the fish houses go out in the winter – the level must have been very close to or over route 30….

Got to the turnoff on 30 and then to Williamsville with no problem. Coming off the old concrete bridge our planned left towards South Newfane and East Dover was blocked by “local traffic only” signs and a sheriff. It was a “you can’t get there from here” moment! He didn’t think we could get there but said the best chance was to go to Newfane (on the the other side of the closed route 30 bridge) and try Wardsboro Road. While looking for Wardsboro Road we parked to study some maps and a man stopped to see if we needed help. Told him where we wanted to go and his opinion was that we probably wouldn’t be able to get through.

Marianne really wanted to keep trying but I figured that being unfamiliar with the roads, having no detailed maps, and no knowledge of local conditions our chances of making it were were not good. I was driving (and tired of driving) so I got to make the decision…. Back to Williamsville and the detour to 30, then to Brattleboro and I91.

The trip back was uneventful till we got to X26 in Greenfield. I had assumed I91 south had been reopened. Bad assumption. Off 91, creep down the hill to good old US 5; roll a few tenths of a mile at up to 20 mph and then stop, wait, creep, stop, wait, creep…. About an hour and a half later we reached X24 and got back on 91 (the last 1-1/2 miles took 24 minutes – painful). A few minor traffic issues later we made it back to Ashford. It was about 6:30.

St. Paul’s — by a combination of necessity and good fortune – developed web skills in-house. We were able to do this only because we found the open source community and built on the powerful tools it provides. The internet is a complex structure involving many very different skill and knowledge sets. We make no claim to broad, general expertise – only to some useful knowledge in certain areas of considerable utility. The following is an analysis of where we are and where we’re heading. Comments, as always are welcome.

The web can be used in many different ways to support the parish and parish ministries. The most obvious – and certainly a very important use — is for storing and transmitting information relevant to the parish. This function can be expected to grow in importance as more people get comfortable with the web. It also will be made easier by the ongoing trend towards computing and data storage on the web (“the cloud”) rather than on your PC.

The other obvious use for a website is to show people looking for a church home what they can expect from the parish. It’s like having a giant, greatly expanded yellow page ad – but the problem is that there aren’t very many people out there looking for a church home! And it’s those not-looking people we need to reach…

Among others, this includes all of the people working to support the greater local community. Willi has lots of people in this category – and they’re doing all kinds of different things. Some are more or less tied to the religious communities (eg via WAIM, First Baptist suppers, Covenant Soup Kitchen) and some are not. So what should we do?

• The first thing is to support the people and organizations in any ways that are open to us – and without consideration of any return. Support of various WAIM programs is an obvious example.
• Develop connections with the various communities and the individuals that make them up. We need to know more about who’s doing what and they need to know what we are doing and what we can offer.

As an indirect result of this kind of activity people with assorted spiritual needs will see what we have to offer – and some likely will be attracted to our community. Some may see enough worthwhile programs to justify providing some financial or other form of support whether or not they’re attracted to the spiritual aspects of St. Paul’s. (Remember that our 2011 budget calls for us to find almost $9,000 of additional income just to continue our present level of ministry.)

By that fortunate combination of circumstances we do have rather extensive internet capability. For some time I have considered ways to offer this capability as support to the community – and in the process develop and strengthen connections to a wide variety of people. Our website provides significant opportunities for this with the forum a prime example. It’s open to everyone and discussion categories are easily added. Andrew Seeling is the forum’s general caretaker and posts very regularly. However, it’s very difficult to get discussions started without a core of regular contributers so he needs help – we really need more participation by the parish to make this an effective tool.

We always are looking for ways to make our website more effective. Our concentration generally has been on providing solid content and clear ways to find it. In our latest rebuilding effort we tried to add a little excitement in order to get people’s attention when they hit the home page. I am grateful to Jean Henderson and Andrew Seeling’s for taking on the “flash rotator” module now showing images related to Black History Month. In the near future I expect we’ll be seeing some of Jean’s gorgeous photography in this position.

Last May, after a good deal of discussion with some young community activists, we created the WilliTalks subdomain (willitalks.stpaulswillimantic.org). This was conceived as both a vehicle for communication and a source of directory information for Willimantic area nonprofits. Jason Ortiz, a UConn student leader with ties to the Willimantic support community, was going to take the lead in developing the site. However, he decided to run for the vacant Mansfield Representative seat (he lost with a respectable showing) so there was not enough time and energy left to develop WilliTalks. In retrospect, the plans for the site were vague and undefined enough to make successful development difficult at best.

For now the WilliTalks site exists but is undeveloped. As we work in the Willimantic community the kinds of services this site could provide become clearer. A simple example: we need easy ways for a church to invite the local church community to special services and events. When the appropriate opportunity arises – and we find the time – we will continue the development of this site.

A different, easy – and significant — opportunity did arise. A few months ago, Tom Ford co-founded the Connecticut Coalition of Gay Adults (CCGA), a social and support network. The LGBT community has been and still is mistreated by many churches. We have parishioners who came to St. Paul’s because they were made unwelcome in their previous church. If you look at the list of Connecticut “Believe Out Loud Episcopal Congregations” — those that officially welcome LGBT people – you’ll only find one parish – St. Paul’s Willimantic. Those issues that are tearing some congregations apart were settled at St. Paul’s years ago – well before the time I arrived. As a result, we are in a unique position to welcome this community.

LGBT people have spiritual needs just like everyone else. However, the church’s history in this area does generate suspicion. This is especially true for people with fundamentalist background as well as older people who remember that for the most of their life the church was telling them that their basic nature was sinful. They are safe to be themselves at St. Paul’s — but we need to do whatever we can to convince them that this really is true.

Supporting Tom’s new network gave us an opportunity to do just that, to reach out and demonstrate our sincerity. This is a small organization that needs some basic web presence – so we gave it to them. We created another subdomain, ccga.stpaulswillimantic.org, and put together a simple independent site with their information. (Subdomains are treated by search engines and such in much the same way as an independent domain. We can create as many as we want at no cost.) Our blogs have an LGBT category so we linked that to give them some more content and us some more exposure. St. Paul’s is part of the site URL so to make sure there is no confusion we added a site link, contact link and explanation on the CCGA page tops: “St. Paul’s Willimantic is providing web help to CCGA as part of our ministry – working with and supporting Willimantic area communities; need help? Contact us”. A bonus for us: CCGA generates its income through ads in its monthly print information guide and has decided to donate a portion of the net income to St. Paul’s. Thanks Tom…

Sharing knowledge is another form of ministry. At some point after we get settled down in our new Community Room offices we probably will get the opportunity to offer lessons in basic computer skills. It could be a program analogous to the Thread of Warmth ministry, very useful for many in the Soup Kitchen community – as well as for a number of our parishioners. Beyond that we could offer more sophisticated web related knowledge particularly targeted to the local provider community. That probably would be web based, maybe use WilliTalks, but at this point is just a collection of vague ideas.

Jean and I have been putting together “how-to” notes to support both future web knowledge sharing ministries as well as our own need to develop the long term capability required for our web efforts. Building the CCGA site provided a little bonus in this area. Usually I start on a site with stuff from a previous site and dive in without much of a plan. The CCGA site is completely new and small enough to be manageable so we could start with a clear organizational plan – an ideal way to develop a “lesson plan” for the how-to notes. They aren’t completed yet, but the notes and other web related conversations are available by joining the ww listserv.

Our office move from the old parsonage building to the newly partitioned space in the Harry Crowther Community Room will be happening before long.  We just learned the layout of our new office so space planning has begun.  Based on my experience in design/build construction I’m sure we can make the space work well for us. Moving always has its traumatic aspects and our office move is no different. It also provides all sorts of opportunities: To make more workable and efficient use of space; to get rid of stuff you don’t need and haven’t used in years; to find interesting stuff you didn’t know you had (historical stuff, blueprints that no one could find when I needed them…).

The kitchen operation is working out reasonably well and getting better. We still haven’t fully recovered from the mess created by the peak construction activities when everything in the kitchen that wasn’t in a cabinet had to be moved into the robing room for temporary storage. At least we’re back to the point where we mostly can find the stuff we use regularly!

Big move coming and at this point we have way to much stuff (in the office, in the kitchen and in the robing room)!  Getting rid of the excess is going to take some work. Some is trash, some we can give away (anybody want an electric slicer?), and some we probably can sell on craigslist.  Lots of help needed!

Gender identity is a complex subject with a wide range of issues. Just consider some of the the descriptive labels, such as Tgirl, drag queen, or shemale. Then there’s the associated alphabet soup – TG, TS, CD, TV. Issues can range from relatively mild (CD, TV) to complete identity with the opposite gender (TG). (See the following wikis for a more extensive discussion of the LGBT label, and the transgender community.)

Gender identity problems are much more common for males (M to F) than for females (F to M). In general, masculine women are more accepted by society than feminine men. Tomboy is ok but sissy is not. (You can make the argument that in a male dominated society, the less common F to M person can get away with a little bit because that’s going from a lower to a higher status. On the other hand, the more typical M to F trans-person is perceived as rejecting the position of strength and power and becoming a vulnerable “girl”.)

Gender identity issues for a person can change a great deal with time. For example, a boy doesn’t want to be tagged as a sissy – there are a lot of the problems that go with that designation! He may try hard to not act the part and to deny that part of himself. Later in life, he may accept and become comfortable with that part of himself. However, he still must deal with society and how it views and treats him. He also must deal with family issues which also change with time.

A lot of this is particularly difficult for older people; after all, not too many years ago the possibility of these issues was not even acknowledged, never mind discussed! This tended to leave a T person feeling isolated – that they were the only person in the world who felt the way they did. At least nowadays the subject is out there and can be discussed…

However, coming out completely is still very difficult and very dangerous – especially for the male to female T person. For most of them, passing as female is not possible, and they will be read as a guy in a dress. There are lots of times and places where being perceived as a guy in a dress is very dangerous.

Spiritual issues also can arise. If God made me this gender why do I want to be the other? Am I violating God’s intent for me? Specific answers depend on one’s concept of God. (In the Episcopal church there is no single answer to this question. Visions of God range from the hard line biblical literalism of those on the far right to the non-deist view of Bishop Spong.) My short answer is that we are what we are. Then, if we believe in a loving God, we accept who we are and trust that our mission and ministry will be found in living a useful and honest life.

However, what really matters to us as individuals is the parish itself. In most ways a parish is quite independent and sets its own agenda – including its view of the LGBT community. Here at St. Paul’s our basic view was settled a long time ago when an openly gay priest was installed. Those offended by the LGBT community left – and controversy left with them.

We have gay, lesbian and transgender parishioners and our previous priest was a lesbian. However, we are not a “gay church” we are a diverse church. You will find poor and rich (actually more like middle class comfortable), different occupations, different backgrounds (including different religious backgrounds), some racial diversity, and the full range of sexuality and gender identity. All this in a small, friendly church where everyone is a full member of the family (of course this includes a few slightly strange relatives)!

Large organizations, such as the Episcopal church, like to be safe and not make the membership too uncomfortable (remember the civil right era when the mainstream churches mostly had to be dragged into the struggle?). As we can see, the right wing does not compromise. It also does not allow for the possibility of any scriptural interpretation besides their own. As a result, those of us on the opposite side are expected to make all the compromises in order to keep the organization together. Under many circumstances compromise can be a very reasonable thing. However, no compromise can be justified when issues of justice are at stake. Although our main concern is what happens here in Willimantic and its surroundings, we do add our voice to this ongoing battle when possible. To illustrate, the following is a resolution passed by the vestry (Episcopal-speak for the council or board) in October 2006:

I. Resolved: that the Vestry of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Willimantic, CT, urges the Rt. Rev. Andrew Smith, Bishop of Connecticut, to lift immediately his inhibition regarding the blessing by clergy of same-sex unions and their officiating at civil unions.

II. Resolved: that the Vestry of St. Episcopal Church, Willimantic, CT, affirms our shared mission of Christian inclusiveness by endorsing the following paragraphs from a resolution recently adopted by the parishes of St. Francis Church, Stamford, and St. Paul’s on the Green, Norwalk:

We are committed to full inclusion of everyone, no matter who they are or where they may be on their faith journey, and we oppose any attempt to discriminate against any person based upon race, gender, age, sexual orientation, physical ability, or socio-economic status.

We will continue to invite those who are not yet here to experience God’s radical welcome as an Episcopal church doing church differently and functioning as the kind of Episcopal church we believe God expects us to be. We are firm in our understanding that in God’s economy there are no outcasts. And we welcome dialog with those who disagree with our perspective.”

If you have questions of any sort please contact us at questions@stpaulswillimantic.org.

The first thing we have to realize is that being gay, lesbian or transsexual is not a lifestyle choice. The Lake Wobegon motto fits: “Sumus Quid Sumus” – we are what we are. Does anyone really think that someone would choose to be gay with all its disadvantages and risks just because it would be fun? How about those gay people in places where it was or is extremely dangerous? In some parts of the world it’s the death penalty if you’re found out! Furthermore, there is evidence of physical differences in the brain associated with homosexuality. Animals have been known to display homosexual behavior (New Scientist, Biological Exuberance). The claims that gay men can be made straight by proper training are nonsense – they merely show that there are circumstances under which we can suppress our true nature – at least for a while – and usually at considerable cost to ourselves!

If we accept God as a loving God then would this God create a whole class of people who are doomed to spend their life suppressing their own God given nature? This hardly is a vision of a loving God!

If we look to Jesus, we see someone who often hung out with assorted marginalized people to the scandal of the proper and respectable citizens. He suggested that one had better be careful before judging someone else. Who did he condemn? It’s summarized in the judgment section of Matthew 25: It’s not gays and lesbians – no, the fire and brimstone are reserved for people who ignored those on the bottom. “I was hungry and you didn’t give me food, thirsty and you didn’t give me drink, a stranger and you didn’t welcome me, sick and in prison …..” Not a word about “you were gay…”

The sanctity of marriage issue also is subject to all sorts of distortions. The view that the “one man one women” marriage is a sort of universal concept is nonsense. Marriage is a social construct that varies with time and place and can have many forms. Marriage evolves – look at the changes in our own society in just the last hundred years. How many people want to go back to the form of marriage in Jesus’ time? One man and possibly many women; the women basically property; different definitions of, and punishments for, adultery applying to husband and wife….

The bit that gay marriage is a threat to traditional marriage also is pure nonsense. Yes, the institution of marriage in our country has major problems – but these problems have nothing to do with civil unions or gay marriage. For children one can see some advantage to having parents of different genders – but the advantage of having two parents instead of one is of much greater importance. Research in this area has been distorted by some on the right. In any case, the difference between individuals far outweighs everything else.

The argument that the purpose of marriage is to have children – be fruitful and multiply – may have had some substance a few thousand years ago. However, we are supporting our present population levels through the unsustainable consumption of resources such as oil, gas and water – all combined with enormous environmental damage. Therefore it is in the best interest of God’s creation that we stop multiplying! (See our blog, The world in transformation, on this subject.)

It should be noted that the problem is not confined to the Episcopal church – or to mainstream churches in general. Other organizations or movements – such as the traditional civil right movement – have similar issues though the causes might be quite different.

The question that needs looking at then is what drives the young. This post is not about providing a how-to-do-it list for motivating generation Y – much less about building new structures to involve them. Rather, it is an attempt to provide some basic understanding of generation Y, and the situation they’re in, so that we can think reasonably clearly about possible approaches.

Just as the world is at a unique point in history so is our social environment – and especially that of young people. Situations vary across the globe but a lot of the fundamental drivers stay the same. Let’s look at three areas for some insight: violence in the Muslim world, the retreat to fantasy worlds, and our society’s disconnect from the world of nature.

First Scott Atran, an anthropologist, just gave a statement to the Senate titled “Pathways to and From Violent Extremism.” Some important points, mostly as summarized by John Robb (blog: Global Guerrillas):

• The threat today is from a Qaeda –inspired viral social and political movement, which is particularly contagious among Muslim youth who are increasingly marginalized — economically, socially, politically — and are in transition stages in their lives, such as immigrants, students, and those in search of friends, mates and jobs.
• Economic globalization, which has led to greater access by humankind to material opportunity, has also led to a crisis, even collapse, of cultures, as people unmoored from millennial traditions flail about in search of a social identity. Today’s most virulent terrorism is rooted in rootlessness and restlessness.
• Individuals now mostly radicalize horizontally with their peers, rather than vertically through institutional leaders or organizational hierarchies. They do so mostly in small groups of friends — from the same neighborhood or social network — or even as loners who find common cause with a virtual internet community.
• Entry into the jihadi brotherhood is from the bottom up: from alienated and marginalized youth seeking out companionship, esteem, and meaning, but also the thrill of action, sense of empowerment, and glory in fighting the world’s most powerful nation and army.
• The boundaries of the newer terrorist networks are very loose and fluid, and the internet now allows anyone who wishes to become a terrorist to become one, anywhere, anytime.
• More and more, terror networks are intertwined with petty criminal networks: drug trafficking, stolen cars, credit card fraud, and the like.
• Although lack of economic opportunity often leads to criminality, it turns out that some criminal youth really don’t want to be criminals after all. Given half a chance to take up a moral cause, they can be even more altruistically prone than others to give up their lives for their comrades and cause.
• This is one indication — and our research reveals others — that economic opportunities alone may not turn people away from the path to political violence. (Indeed, material incentives, whether “carrots” or “sticks,” can even backfire when they threaten core values, as our recent research has shown for Israel, Palestine, Indonesia, and Iran). Rather, youth must be given hopes and dreams of achievement, and plausible means to realize such hopes and dreams.

As our economy stumbles along things may get a little better for a while. Not too many years ago there were good jobs – or perhaps more accurately jobs for people with limited skills – that payed decent wages. Mostly they were the union jobs, the factory jobs. Globalization will make sure that they’re not coming back! As we move further and further into economic disintegration, young people will be faced with an increasingly bleak future, a future that – especially in the US – they have not been prepared for. For them expect tomorrow’s conditions will be more like those in today’s Muslim world.

One response that can be expected is an increase in violence. We already saw flash mobs in Philadelphia, booby traps for the police in Hemet, CA, and then Hutaree came along (“Christian” Warriors building IEDs to kill cops at funeral processions for cops they’ve already killed). Read comments in the Reminder or listen to the tea partyers talk and you’ll find lots of anger. A lot – but not all of the anger and violence — is by an older generation. Given a suitable trigger, that anger can fuel the spread of a great deal more violence.

However, at this time a retreat from reality is the major escape route for many of the world’s young people. Thanks again to Global Guerrillas for some statistics and insightful observations:

“We’re witnessing what amounts to no less than a mass exodus to virtual worlds and online game environments.” Edward Castronova (an economist who studies online games)

• Active online gamers spend 10,000 hours of play by the time they are 21 (almost as much as the time spent in school).
• There are 500 million active online gamers worldwide (that will grow to 1.5 billion in the next 10 years).
• 3 billion hours a week are spent playing online games.

Here’s the big idea. For active online gamers real life is broken. It doesn’t make any sense. Effort isn’t connected to reward. The path forward is confused, convoluted, and contradictory. Worse, there’s a growing sense that the entire game is being corrupted to ensure failure. So, why play it?

They don’t. They retreat to online games. Why? Online games provide an environment that connects what you do (work, problem solving, effort, motivation level, merit) in the game to rewards (status, capabilities, etc.). These games also make it simple to get better (learn, skill up, etc.) through an intuitive just-in-time training system. The problem is that this is virtual fantasy.

John Robb has some ideas:

So the really big idea isn’t figuring out how to USE online gamers for real world purposes (as in the dirty word: crowdsourcing — the act of other people to do work for you for FREE — blech!). Instead, it’s about finding a way to use online games to make real life better for the gamers. In short, turn games into economic darknets that work in parallel and better than the broken status quo systems. As in: economic games that connect effort with reward. n Economic games with transparent rules that tangibly improve the lives of all of the players in the REAL WORLD.

This isn’t tech utopian. It’s reality. The global electronic marketplace and the political system that currently dominates our lives is at root a game but with hidden rule sets. As a result, it’s a game that being run for the benefit of the game designers to the detriment of the players. The reason we keep playing is that we don’t have any choice. Let’s invent something better and compete with it. Let’s provide people with a choice.

A NY Times piece on web use in China reached rather similar conclusions. For China’s young, the web is their escape and their primary form of entertainment – though games are just a part of the mix.

Another factor to consider is our disconnect from nature and the resulting search for authenticity. The theory here is that our society’s disconnect from nature has left a void that people are trying to bridge via a search for the authentic. [There's a book on the subject (Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want). Lots of 5 star reviews. It seems to mostly be about marketing techniques that convey a sense of authenticity and therefore have lots of customers. The conclusion seems to be that the best way to appear authentic is to be authentic – which actually is not possible for a corporation within a corporate capitalist framework.]

I have no idea on whether this is a stronger or weaker effect among young people but definitely would expect it to be significant. Certainly, by the directions our society has taken, young people today are more disconnected from nature than previous generations were. Rebuilding the connection is critical to any movement towards a just and sustainable future.

Some thoughts on connecting with generation Y:

• Try to catch them at transition stages in their lives, before their troubles get too big, and before they take a plunge into violent or other destructive paths.
• Offer a believable better future – especially to the marginalized or about to be marginalized.
• An approach has to become a viral movement to become widespread (but how do you predict whether an approach has that potential?)
• It has to be bottom up, not top down, and if it works, spread will be in a horizontal not vertical path, with essentially peer to peer connections.
• A strong web component will be necessary and it must be consistent with the way gen Y uses the web (which changes regularly).
• Somehow, somewhere it must include at least the possibility of reconnection to the natural world.
• It should provide:

worthwhile non-material rewards,

some form of community that allows the development of roots,

opportunity for learning/growth/advancement.

• It must be:

transparent

honest

just

non-hierarchal

have a fluid, nonrigid structure

One possible model to look at for inspiration is the open source community: Large, much more powerful than generally acknowledged, growing rapidly. There are lots of different kinds of open source communities ranging from web based to warfare. Obviously, not all of them are good neighbors!

I’m thinking now of the web based open source movement that gives us creativity – eg the Wiki and Wikipedia – as well as powerful alternatives to Microsoft and Apple. This community represent a relatively young demographic. Creativity and hard work are valued as is sharing, openness, support for others. These virtues are rewarded with respect and a chance of making a living doing what you enjoy (but hardly a path to riches).

Our “landlord” has been busy with property improvements both inside and out. Painting has improved the look of the staircase and other spaces in the church building, and the second floor of the office building is undergoing a much needed face lift. On the outside, the grass gets mowed and we have new plantings along Walnut Street.

Of course, the roof is on everybody’s mind and here is the latest news: The State money is coming but getting it turns out to be much more complicated than anyone expected. There have been a series of paperwork delays but actual construction is getting closer.

The latest issue is that the Soup Kitchen had gotten bids from a number of local contractors – but then found out that contractors had to be on a State approved list. The bidders weren’t, and so the process is being redone. Unless something else comes up we should see construction before too long. In the meantime they did readjust the tarps that are up there – and recent heavy rains didn’t seem to pour in too badly.

When the office moves we’ll have limited space to store our collection of ancient and modern documents. Lisa Ferriere, Office Administrator, has begun sorting through this material to determine what should saved. Diocesan House is the keeper of such files, and equipped to care for them. After Rev. Jackie views the material we will begin transporting it to Diocesan House for storage in their archives.