FRIDAY, November 20 (Edmund of East Anglia)

Hmmm. Interesting along with the scripture.

I love the parishioner's willingness to be part of the solution instead of simply complaining about the problem. As Christ demonostrated with the commissioning of his followers, pastoral care is teamwork.

I know first hand that here on the West Coast, pastoral care, both from clergy and lay folk is sadly missing.

Our parish is fortunate to have a priest who places a high priority on pastoral care. If there is a problem, and he knows about it, he is simply there. If the surgery starts at 7a.m. in a hosptial 50 miles away, he's there. HIs presence is always comforting and always welcome.

I'm a little concerned about that priest on the West Coast who always knows when anyone is ill and shows up at 6:00 am without even being told to. No doubt his parishioners are grateful for his attentiveness---but doesn't he runthe risk of burnout? Or maybe it's a very small parish. I almost drove myself into the grave a few years back trying to do that.

I am Jewish. I was born Jewish and will be Jewish until the day when I die. However, I attended National Cathedral School for Girls, and in 8th grade I studied a course called Religion. We all were so required. The class sould have more truthfully been called Cathedral Architecture. Anyway, I was assigned to a section of the class taught by Rev. Elizabeth Orens, the school chaplain.

Rev. Orens has told me that she saw something of herself in me when I studied that religion class, but what it is I cannot imagine. That is neither here nor there. Two years following the religion class, I was involved in a car accident that nearly took my life. The woman who was driving me to school at Phillips Exeter Academy (Exeter) fell asleep behind the wheel on the Cross Bronx Expressway at about 10 in the morning on September 10, 1992.

As soon as I was living at home on the nonexistent street in Washington, DC, Rev. Orens came regularly to visit me and my parents every Friday after school.

Oh yes, in the US court system, the woman who nearly took my life, swore (under oath) that nothing ever really happened, and I am consequently inventing this entire story. I have scars, 5 of them, and binders of medical documentation to prove her words not true.