Status Updates From Scorched Grace (Sister Holi...

Fire danced as it ripped through the back of the school bus, throwing the back door sideways, leaving it dangling by one blackened hinge.
A bite of sun through the smoke cast a wicked glow on the flames. If fire isn’t possession by the devil, then nothing is. Fire crawled without legs– a viper. Pure inhabitation of a demon force.

On Canal Street, I exited, alighting on the southbound corner. The rust-red sun was still powerful as I walked the few blocks to the hospital. Phlox bowed in the wind. No power lines above. Cables and wires here are buried underground due to hurricanes and tearing gales. Everything in New Orleans is overdue, overgrown, dripping. The oak trees decked with boas of Spanish moss. Frogs creaked

People view nuns as nameless clones, a collective noun rather than individuals. That was ironic, because, denuded of so-called luxuries like cell phones and social media, leading lives of service and prayer, nuns cultivated rich inner worlds. Real inner dialogue. Most female mystics were nuns. Beatrice of Nazareth. Consolata Betrone. Sister Helen Prejean is more of a badass than most self-proclaimed radicals

I had no money for cigarettes, of course, but smoking what I confiscated from my students was fair game. Students aren’t allowed to smoke at Saint Sebastian’s–it was my duty to step in. And Sister Honor says waste is a sin. So, there I was on my stoop in the alley on Sunday night, minding my own business, roasting in the delirious heat that never ceased, not even at dusk. Django Reinhardt on guitar