Thursday - October 18, 2007

Quote for the Day: Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much. St. Luke, 7. 47

Today is the Feast of Saint Luke.. but the card site is working so poorly can't send a card.



Not much progress on the card site....guess God had other plans for my day. This morning I worked on it for about 30 minutes.. and then I went to pick up my mom to bring her over for dinner. That was nice. Then it was dishes and then it was bake chocolate chip cookies. I mean I had to bake cookies because we were having about 25 junior high and high school kids over for one of their youth trips. And they have to have chocolate chip cookies don't you know? I mean what other kind of cookie is there?



So then we had prayer, ate supper and then all the kids came and we had a fun time and now here I am... end of the day and looking forward to my sweet little bed.





Not a very good picture... but we had a lot of people packed into our community guest room! I was amazed we could get that many. They were a really neat group..very open, friendly and just fun.



Blessings of Peace and All Good,
Sister Patricia and all the Sisters



Here is an excerpt from my friend Helmut's newsletter.I thought it was really neat so wanted to share it with you.

October 15, 2007 - Providence, Rhode Island - Providence Journal

Neither motorists nor pedestrians could ignore the man in the pale blue shirt and bright white sneakers yesterday morning standing between the Providence Biltmore and The Westin Providence hotels.

He was offering something.

“Good morning!” exclaimed Thad Davis to everyone around him.

He twisted to the left, to the right, and checked behind him, leading always with a waving hand. “Good morning! ... How are you? ... Have a good day!”

Davis, 41, a freight train conductor on the Norfolk Southern out of Bellevue, Ohio, arrived on his first visit to New England on Wednesday with his wife, Kathleen.

She’s an assistant director of a residential-care facility back in Van Wert, Ohio, where the Davises and their four children live. She’s attending a mental-health conference in Providence.

On Thursday, while his wife was at her conference, Davis, a curious guy, took his first stroll through a New England city, testing some of his preconceived notions of New Englanders.

Davis had heard little about those from the littlest state, but during his walk Thursday through downtown and Providence Place mall he came away thinking Rhode Islanders were, well, kind of glum.

Back in the hills of Polk County, N.C., where Davis grew up, offering greetings to people you meet on the street is as natural as chompin’ on pulled pork during a NASCAR race.

He got an idea. While his wife took in her morning conference sessions yesterday, he would take to the street and try to brighten people’s spirits.

By 8 a.m., he had found a nice spot at the tip of a traffic island across from Burnside Park.

People stared. Drivers shot double-takes as they passed by his sign. Others offered obligatory waves, as reactive as swatting at a passing fly.

But there also came cracks in all those glum expressions.

One lady in a maroon sedan couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She rolled down her window and gawked.

“Good morning! How are you?” said Davis.

“Good morning,” the young lady said, then beamed back a wide smile before driving away.

One police officer in a cruiser swung by and stopped, too.

“That’s it?” he asked.

“Yes sir, that’s all it is.”

The officer drove away, grinning.

“Some people sometimes looked at me like I’m silly,” he said. “Others just thought I’m panhandling until they read the sign again.”

What did he learn from his three hours in a Providence intersection?

“Well, the people seemed to appreciate it.…

Said Davis: “I don’t think I changed anybody’s life, but I hope I made their day a little better. Maybe it will become a movement.”