A Positively Poetic Priest

 “We seldom admit the seductive comfort of hopelessness. It saves us from ambiguity. It has an answer for every question: "There's just no point."; Hope, on the other hand, is messy. If it might all work out, then we have things to do. We must weather the possibility of happiness.” This was written on the former Twitter, by The CryptoNaturalist last July. (July 22, 2022, Twitter) This quote spoke to me about the reason hopelessness seems so easy in the face of so much in our world that seems so hard. In order to have hope, we have to be willing to change whereas hopelessness gives us an easy out. In August of 2017, the United States experienced what some media outlets called "the Great American Eclipse." It was a total solar eclipse that spanned fourteen different states, with a partial eclipse being visible from parts of Canada to parts of South America. I was traveling that day and remember pulling off the highway into a shopping mall to catch a glimpse of the...

It was an intensely sunny, windy, and warm day on Wednesday June 28th in Monterey County, California. I was driving a Nissan Murano up Highway 101, otherwise known as El Camino Real, the royal road, what began as the path taken by the Spanish friars and military between the Missions through Alta California in the late 1700s and early 1800s. I had three sleeping teens listening to Billy Joel and I was going along well... until I realized I missed my exit. As I pulled off the next exit, I found myself stopped behind a white painted school bus towing porta-potties. I was somewhat surprised, and quickly realized I wasn't the only one since my exiting had woken up my passengers and there was quickly conversation about what the bus and porta potty combination was doing. Luckily I was only three miles past the exit I needed, so it was a quick detour through the small town we were in to make it back to the road we needed. Along the way we saw more school buses towing porta potties and comi...