Category: Daily Life in the USA

Fratelli Tutti: Kindness

Kindness frees us from the cruelty that at times infects human relationships, from the anxiety that prevents us from thinking of others, from the frantic flurry of activity that forgets that others also have a right to be happy. Often nowadays we find neither the time nor the energy to stop and be kind to others, to say “excuse me”, “pardon me”, “thank you”. Yet every now and then, miraculously, a kind person appears and is willing to set everything else aside in order to show interest, to give the gift of a smile, to speak a word of encouragement, to listen amid general indifference. If we make a daily effort to do exactly this, we can create a healthy social atmosphere in which misunderstandings can be overcome and conflict forestalled. Kindness ought to be cultivated; it is no superficial bourgeois virtue. Precisely because it entails esteem and respect for others, once kindness becomes a culture within society it transforms lifestyles, relationships and the ways ideas are discussed and compared. Kindness facilitates the quest for consensus; it opens new paths where hostility and conflict would burn all bridges.

Pope Francis, in Fratelli Tutti, §224

Louisville Changes

Sunday I took an early morning bike ride to Louisville’s South End where I used to live. I couldn’t believe how much it has changed since I resided there! Particularly my attention was caught in what used to be a lower moderate income residential area–and now is a HUGE parking lot for the University of Louisville which has take over a couple square miles of real estate. This is a view from a brand new overpass (named for Denny Crum, famed UofL basketball coach) on a brand new major thoroughfare through the area.

The view of the other side of the overpass is of a new L&N Stadium adorned with all the advertising of the big corporations that helped build it.

Coming off the overpass, I turned north and went along the main entrance of the stadium. U of L is a basketball school but they did all right by the football team, too!

Indivisible Palooza

Fratelli Tutti’s spiritual basis for the Palooza rally (described in the post after this one).

“Social love” makes it possible to advance towards a civilization of love, to which all of us can feel called. Charity, with its impulse to universality, is capable of building a new world. No mere sentiment, it is the best means of discovering effective paths of development for everyone. Social love is a “force capable of inspiring new ways of approaching the problems of today’s world, of profoundly renewing structures, social organizations and legal systems from within”.

Pope Francis in the Fratelli Tutti encyclical

Indivisible Palooza

The event had speakers and music inside the venue we used and outside at 12 booths like this one where people could get information and discuss many issues.
The last speaker of the day was one of the most engaging. He probably should have been scheduled earlier in the afternoon because by the time he spoke it was closing time and many people had left. (This was the first Indivisible Louisville rally and the organizers learned a lot today.)

An important part of such rallies is meeting fellow activists. I met two sisters I knew from Pewee Valley and Dan, a member of St. Lawrence, my first parish assignment.
Quite a few of us rode our bicycles to the venue, a small brewery in a downtown neighborhood with adjacent abandoned buildings and factories. Quite a setting!

Indivisible Palooza

Tomorrow the democracy-supporting group Indivisible is having what they are calling a palooza, a community gathering with music and food and speeches to encourage the general public to stand up for democracy and the rights of us as citizens. Today volunteers for tomorrow gathered to hear from the organizers what their roles will be tomorrow.

One third of the volunteers coming for the training today were Dittmeier related, brothers and sisters, a niece, and a cousin.