Quote of the Day (Anne Lamott, on Hope)

“Hope is not about proving anything. It's about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us.” —Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith (2006)

Quote of the Day (Comic Caroline Rhea, on What Should Occur Constantly This Holiday)

“I constantly walk into a room and I don't remember why. But for some reason, I think there's going to be a clue in the fridge.” – Canadian comic Caroline Rhea, quoted in “50 Surprising Reasons We Love America,” Reader’s Digest, July 2013

(Photo of Caroline Rhea taken at San Diego Comic-Con, July 2010, by The Consortium.)

Quote of the Day (Elinor Lipman, On the Dating Game for Middle-Aged Women)

“Another woman might have hinted that penthouse B was awash with chemistry and queen-size beds. But I didn’t. I was flummoxed by his ambitious smile and felt nothing except his clammy hand on my thigh.

“I looked down. I said, ‘I just met you.’

“ 'I know! And I like what I see.’

“ 'I meant take your hand off my leg.’”—Elinor Lipman, The View From Penthouse B (2013)

Photo of the Day: Passaic River Boat Parade

You can tell that this wasn’t a recent photo because of the short-sleeved shirts. It’s hard to believe that two months have passed since I attended a boat parade on the Passaic River organized by Saddle Brook, NJ resident Rick Rodriguez. So much seemed to be going on in my life that I wondered if I would ever have the time to write about this event.

But better late than never, and the work that this recreational activity springs from—the clean-up of this river—is both ongoing and urgently needed for anyone who cares about the quality of life in Northern New Jersey.

Mr. Rodriguez—or, as he is nicknamed, “River Man”—has striven over time to remove trash and debris from the waterway. The event he organized on a Saturday afternoon early this fall aimed at changing how people see the Passaic River—an unfortunate industrial dump to some, but to him a “splendiferous lady,” to quote a phrase of his in an article on his quest in The Bergen Record back then.

Too bad that industry isn’t stopping up, imaginatively and aggressively, to purify the river the way Mr. Rodriguez has. Instead, as Scott Fallon points out in an article from The Record this past weekend, a group of 70 companies are seeking to extricate themselves from footing the bill for the most expensive toxic cleanup in New Jersey history by trading contaminated fish pulled from the river for cleaned ones.

Their “plan” is to clean up “hot spots” in the river rather than the wider expanse that the Environmental Protection Agency is advocating. Go on and believe this, if you wish. But, with a number of these companies among the firms originally responsible for polluting the river in the first place, it all sounds like a fishy tale to me.

Quote of the Day (St. Basil, on Christian Hospitality)

“Christians should offer their brethren simple and unpretentious hospitality.” —Attributed to St. Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea (ca. 330-ca.379)

(The image accompanying this post comes from an icon of St. Basil the Great from the St. Sophia Cathedral of Kiev, Russia.)

Photo of the Day: DC’s Oldest Catholic Parish

In Washington, DC, you can’t help but see the most interesting sites when you’re on the way to something else. And so it was several days ago, when, on my way to Ford’s Theatre, I stumbled across St. Patrick’s. The parish is the oldest Roman Catholic one in the “Federal City” (the term used the district before it was renamed for the First President), established in 1794.

The first pastor of the church then—a simple frame chapel-residence—was Fr. Anthony Caffry, an Irish Dominican appointed by the first Catholic Bishop in America, John Carroll. The Carroll connection proved crucial when Fr. Caffry talked to the three commissioners of the planned Federal City about acquiring land in the new area where he could build a house of worship for the new capital's then-small Roman Catholic population, many of whom would be engaged  in construction of these new buildings. Caffry's plea found a receptive ear in one of the commissioners, Daniel Carroll--the bishop's brother--and two lots not far from what was then called "the President's House" were offered for sale.

Caffry was reportedly recruited to come to the U.S. by James Hoban, the architect of the White House. Hoban is also reputed to be the force behind the second St. Patrick’s Church, a brick structure dedicated in 1809 that, five years later, was filled with a hated sight: British soldiers attending Sunday mass while tending to their mission of burning invading the capital and burning its public buildings.

What I’ve photographed here is the present Gothic structure, begun in 1872 and dedicated 12 years later. It was designed by New York architect Laurence O'Connor.