"East Side, West Side"

We’re moving in a couple of weeks – giving up our house and garden.  For an apartment!  No more raking, or shoveling, no more mowing the lawn!  These are the hidden costs of living in a house.

The big thing, though, is that we’re moving to the other side of town.   Currently I live on the east side.  For many years I lived on what we then called the “west” side, though now many consider it the “central” city.  The thing is that in all those years I rarely came to the east side!  It was “so far away” and the people who lived there were not as “sophisticated.”  But now I wonder why…because I absolutely love it here!

Next weekend in the Church we will observe the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. The readings of the day seem to speak to this issue!  In the first reading from Exodus we hear God saying to Moses that he is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and rich in kindness and compassion.” And the second reading, from II Corinthians, includes those familiar words “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” The Gospel of John tells us “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”   No matter which side of the “tracks” you live on, God is there!  

Have you ever felt like you lived on the “wrong” side of the tracks?

How did you come to understand that who you were mattered more than where you lived?

Ruth Poochigian, O.P.

Madison WI