BLESSED ARE THE POOR IN SPIRIT

It’s been an especially rich Lent for me. Possibly because of that, I haven’t felt moved much to talk or “share.”

Somehow this week’s arts and culture column has everything to do with the Easter Vigil.

Here’s how it begins:

Last week an old friend called, a woman I’ll call “Sylvie” who I met decades ago in recovery.

We’d see each other in meetings at 3rd and Oxford in Koreatown, or at 6th and Bronson on the edge of Hancock Park.

Sylvie has a deep spirituality and a grounded belief in God. She’s also not able to work much and every so often will have a mental break and have to be treated at a hospital or psych ward.

As of a year or so ago, she’s been in a nursing home out of state. The first time she called me from there, I asked, “Do you have a roommate?” — a roommate in my mind being synonymous with extreme torture.

“I have three,” she chuckled.

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.