BREAKING AWAY FOR LUNCH WITH THE PENNINGTON FAMILY............

My Our Lady of Lourdes parishioners the Pennington/Shepherd Family is doing what they have done regularly for the past two years, and invited me to join them for lunch again today.  Over the past seven and half months they have visited me regularly and extended invitations to lunch on several occasions.  I look forward to their company and the generosity of their hospitality in inviting me out and away for an hour or two from the predictable everyday subsistence of life within these walls.  The conversations with them I welcome and delight in, and the food both that they serve in their home, or at the restaurant we go out to, is always plenteous, as well as delicious.  Genuine bonds of human affection and interaction do not unravel or cease because circumstances are changed or altered.  Patty, Jack, Mary Lou, Ruby, Bill, and Mrs. Pennington, are among a very kind and considerate group of my friends and former parishioners, who authentically care about my well being and dignity as a person and a priest, and whose continuing outreach and presence to me are making the most frustrating time I have ever endured, better than it would be without them............tdp