Marc Rougeau and I spent a good deal of the day getting things ready for the meals. Mike Connolly, new director at Archbishop Shaw (New Orleans) also helped put a lot of things together, as did the two young men Sean Ryan and Duoc Van Le. As this is the holiday, we had no cook. This was an oversight by the planning committee really. In the past, we used to let everyone go to tour San Francisco on this day, and so avoid the problem of providing the meals. But somehow our little planning group forgot that holidays really do exist in the USA, especially Independence Day. And the planning crowd was not here for some reason, So the barbecue went forward, with a delegation of people also from Richmond and the provincial house.Dave Purdy came to this affair. He was looking better than in past weeks, but the strain shows on his face. All this is the results of the burden of Los Angeles. The evening prayer for the directors went a bit long and so Marc and I had an opportunity to speak a bit with David while the meat was cooking on the grill. The weariness and sadness are evident, but also his renewed sense of hope as the Salesians poured into the the backyard. One of the things dear to David's heart has been collaboration: collaboration among provinces; collaboration with the local churches; collaboration with other members of the Salesian Family. There has been a lot of disillusion for him lately, but the crowd of Salesian directors from three North American provinces offered a couple of hours of joy and hope.
And the tri-tip was not bad either, btw. Thanks, Marc: great job preparing all this!
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