Easter Thursday

This was a planned "play day" in our gathering of Class of 2011 bishops and spouses in Albuquerque (I'm so tired of spelling that!). We took a day trip to Santa Fe via the (newish) Rail Runner train service. Slightly reduced in number, we were a gang of thirteen, which can become a little unwieldy even among mature adults. We ate well, drank a bit, shopped a bit, toured a bit (churches and museums), and made it, safely and together, onto the 6:46pm departure, with a train car pretty much to ourselves, which was a good thing because we were ever so slightly raucous.

Yet, even in the midst of life, we are in death, and the progress in communication technology over recent decades makes it more and more difficult to escape that reality. While on the train this morning, I learned via cell phone of the sudden death of Fr Alan Herbst, recently retired rector of Emmanuel, Champaign. This spawned a handful of texts and emails and phone calls to which I devoted my attention through the course of the day. On the whole, I'm grateful that technology enabled me to do so.

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