love | Barataria - The work of Erik Hare

It’s been a terrible winter in the Saintly City. The temperature hardly cracked 20F (-6C) the entire month. Roads were so gleaming and slick it was hard to tell if the city should sand them and pray or just put up a net and a blue line. Keeping the sidewalk clear enough so that our intrepid mailman, Mark, could make it through became a constant struggle. The simple act of getting on with life wore heavily.

But through it all there were preparations. Presents had to be bought and a living had to be earned. Life had to trundle on, no matter how difficult it became. New neighbors even put giant bows up on the columns of the house they intend to treasure for many Christmases to come, drawing energy from the holidays past in the house so worn with life when they bought it.

Yet Christmas comes, even in this frozen land. It comes when we all finally stop.

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Can twitter save the world? Probably not. But when the tweets are “Urbi et Orbi” it’s pretty likely they will be retweeted.

Over the last six weeks Pope Francis (@Pontifex) has delivered 140 characters of worldly homily nearly every day, but none of them have been as noticed as his message for 2 May – “My thoughts turn to all who are unemployed, often as a result of a self-centred mindset bent on profit at any cost.” A small firestorm was created on the ‘net … well, the usual internet people behaved in an internet way about it and got their 140 getback. Whatever. But what matters is that Pope Francis is emerging as a leader for the rights of the downtrodden at a time when such leaders are needed – and is emphasizing things that reach out to embrace a slightly bigger world of the meek.

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