After a defeat, virtual or military, there is a regrouping, a new purview, a recharging of power source, and a new direction.  The Democrats did it, and now it’s the Republicans’ turn.  They missed one big source of new votes — the Latinos.  They deserved much more attention.

Not only could they be won on the basis of their religion, though the Republicans got the Christian vote in both elections but they missed the Spanish working class.  Why did Trump allow the media to picture that he alienated them?  He wasn’t listening to his advisers again.

We have to remember, if we want to unite America, there is a Spanish America now.  You may want to make America great again, but you’re working with a new America.  Get with it, you Republicans.

If a writer wants to sell big, he has to go through a literary agent.  Of course, many of them are fully taken, that is they don’t want new writers.  But some advertise for new clients, and let you know if they feel inspired by your work.  (Usually not.)

I recently found one in Canada, and she required a big application.  I had all my material ready.  She even had a photo of herself, and she looked knowledgeable and sympathetic.

Of course, I had the worst title for the book, and my wife Loretta pointed that out for me.  So I changed it, and sent it again.  This  time I hope Loretta’s instinct outdid mine, which had been suggestive of a superiority in the writer.  Don’t want that.

I’ve been looking for a website that features a Catholic Mass with a native English speaking celebrant, and found what I was looking for on youtube’s Heart of America.  It’s not that I can’t decipher the foreign priests who do their best, but having a foreign language background myself, I am surprised at my inability to understand a priest whose native language is not the one I was familiar with.

The word of God is precious, no matter what, and when I have no choice, I understand the procedure of the Mass regardless of the nationality of the celebrant.  I can supply my own prayers.  But it is refreshing to understand the man who is celebrating something dear to me.

Catholics used to hear the Mass in Latin, so what am I complaining about?  I don’t have a missal anymore, but I do borrow my wife’s prayer book that has it all after Mass.

The wooden step to the front door was caved in, and she took me to a rigid sofa next to a window.  She was a young high-schooler that the tutoring service had assigned to me, in the heart of Amityville.  It was our first session, but I knew the window light was not enough.  I stood up to turn on the lamp on the end table, and saw the bulb was missing.  When I asked her what novels she had read lately, I got blank silence.

For our next session I brought a 150watt bulb, and two paperback novels of the popular kind (I didn’t want to start with Wuthering Heights).  One was called The Lonely Heart.

As we ended our last session, I wondered if she read in any of the novels.  As I stood up to go, I noticed behind the base of the lamp, the bulb was shining on The Lonely Heart, with a bookmark in the middle. 

You don’t have to be a baseball player to know what a sacrifice is.  If you’re a parent or an offspring of somebody aged, you know it’s giving something up so the other may have a fuller life.  Our Lady of Fatima asked those three children to offer small sacrifices (candy, first in line, etc.) with their saying of the rosary to pave the way to heaven for many.  (It sure struck me.)

As a teacher I know I made some impression by giving up time, though I only had each student forty-five minutes a weekday for ten months, but that’s enough to plant a seed.  I tried to pave the way to a fuller life.  I admit I didn’t always succeed; one is now in Sing-Sing (maybe two), though that’s not the end.  Then there’s the night hours spent correcting an almost weekly composition.  What did that note in the margin say?

Sacrifice is even the secular life, not just the Christian.  You give up dessert to lose a few pounds, a party to study, sleep to be early, so we learn the trade-off soon in life.  But do it cheerfully.  The world (and the Lord) loves a cheerful giver!