Half past two Wednesdays Catholic
”a fair number”would rise up
in silence when their specialbuzzer jolted our Queens
classroom, summons a good
hour before our scheduledparole to their midweek Saint
Teresa’s spiritual sparkle, a canny
swap of Byrd’s tale of his schlepover the Antarctic or Vasco de Gama’s
spice routes for Jesus matinees.
As if aged or made wiser by this in-cantation, they moved off with short
grainy strokes, an etiquette faith
associates with a seasoned squadof pallbearers primed to meet
the threat of church front steep
slippery stairs, death’s danceswift bitsy two-step sole
shuffle spilling soft sand-
paper sounds on gathered grieversbelow, cargo remaining aloft,
upright. “Early dismissal
for religious instruction,”they call it. I envied them
their discharge before our
time and think of them nowin the wake of abrupt dismissal,
return tomorrow a fool’s
gold dream, of my daughter, 24.
You have a decision to make: double or nothing.
For this week only, a generous supporter has offered to fully match all new and increased donations to First Things up to $60,000.
In other words, your gift of $50 unlocks $100 for First Things, your gift of $100 unlocks $200, and so on, up to a total of $120,000. But if you don’t give, nothing.
So what will it be, dear reader: double, or nothing?
Make your year-end gift go twice as far for First Things by giving now.
