Everything is always coated with a fine layer of dust, every day. After just 3 or 4 days, the dust is thick. As soon as mass is finished in church, the sacristan covers the altar with a plastic tablecloth that he does not remove until a few minutes before the next mass.
It was about a year and a half ago, the fall of 2007, that I saw Dr. Mortel at Panera Bread in Hershey, and we talked a little bit. (I in my very bad French, always trying to practice.) I said, "Some day I will come to your school and teach." He said, "So what are you waiting for? What's wrong with now?" I thought about it, and he was right; so here I am, a year and a half later, about to set off for St. Marc and les Bons Samaritains.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Dust, or, Why They Don't Just Slide Over in the Pew in Church
The first time I went to church I noticed that it is not the custom here to just move over when someone wants to sit in your pew. If you want to sit in a pew that is already occupied, you might have to crawl over 6 or 7 people. No one minds, but at the same time they do not move down. This morning it finally dawned on me: Everyone, man or woman, as they enter the pew, pulls out a hanky or cloth and wipes off the spot where they are about to sit. You want to wipe off the kneeler, too. And once you've gone to the trouble, you're loath to move and give up this nice clean seat.
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