"The call is to community,
the impoverished power to set the soul free.
In humility to take the vow,
In humility to take the vow,
that day after day
we must take up the basin and towel."
"Wholy Holy" (Marvin Gaye): A Meditation
Columbia Memorial Hospital faced the Catskills in the distance and stood just a half mile from the first living room I remember. The apartment possessed only two bedrooms, already too small for my father, mother, two older sisters, and newborn me. In a couple years, when my dad got a better job, we’d move. If child-bearing wasn’t what it was (and remains), I imagine my mom might have walked me home that week. But childbirth, rightly called labor, exhausts thoroughly. And with three kids all under five years of age and with a husband often working, parenthood never stopped exhausting my mother. April 10 th of 1971 brought unseasonably wintry weather, a pointed, probing wind across the river and our city of the same name. And the alley off of Worth Avenue in downtown Hudson, New York included a steep hill up. My mom didn’t walk me home. 1971, historically speaking, isn’t notorious or notable for things like military or terrorist attacks, political assassinations, or the e...
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