I cleaned out my fireplace today, confident that we’ve seen the last of cold weather for this year. My daughter-in-law Julie hates cold weather; I love it and grieve that winter in New Orleans lasts about a week or two. But, each year, by the last of February, Spring arrives and the weather warms. The birds woke me up outside my bedroom window this morning. The high today is about 68, a perfect temperature.

After some early morning errands, I determined that I would do the least pleasant job at my house today: clean the patio furniture. Here’s the story on that.

When we moved into this house 14 years ago, we bought metal furniture for the back patio–it’s covered but not enclosed–with cushioned seats and backs. When we lived in North Carolina and Mississippi, we loved our back porch and enjoyed late-night sessions out there. However, we discovered something about New Orleans that makes porch-sitting difficult. The air is dirty.

A week after washing the furniture, I’ll be able to run a wet cloth across the arms and backs of the furniture and remove a layer of fine dust. Go all season long without washing the patio furniture and you will not want to come anywhere near my back porch. Today, the water was filthy and the washrags were practically ruined, they’re so black.

Someone come visit us quickly, while the back porch is still clean.

In the last week, two recent visitors to New Orleans have written letters to the editor of the Times-Picayune saying how much they loved their recent excursions here and that they are trying to rearrange their lives to move here. The Chamber of Commerce loves that sort of thing.

I would assume those visitors got caught up in the parades and music, as well as the meals in the fine restaurants. What I wonder though is whether we should tell them about the dirty air, the noise, the round-the-clock congestion on the interstates, and the crime. New Orleans has incredible architecture and some unique neighborhoods, but it also has weird politics and the hottest summers on the planet. We have wonderful people and some incredible churches, but we also have potholed streets and some neighborhoods where you wouldn’t want to walk at night.

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When Mike Huckabee won the Louisiana presidential primary last Saturday, 43 percent to John McCain’s 42 percent, he rightfully expected to walk away with the lion’s share of the state’s delegates to the Republican convention. But he got none. Nada. Nothing. For reasons I can only attribute to insanity, our state Republican committee had previously decided that in order to get any of our delegates, a candidate would have to win more than 50 percent of the vote. As it turned out, no one got any.

When advised of this anomaly, Huckabee said, “Well, it’s Louisiana.”

Some columnists in the paper took exception to that–how dare he!–but everyone I’ve heard mention it agrees with Huckabee. What a ridiculous rule.

The only consolation I can think of is that we’re not the only ones making weird rules and strange exceptions in this presidential election year. When Florida Democrats decided to move up their state’s presidential primary to early in January–I forget the date–the National Democratic Committee ruled that their election would not count and forbade any Democratic candidates from campaigning there. The citizens, meanwhile, apparently oblivious to the pettiness of the DNC, voted in huge numbers. Hillary Clinton won, even though no candidate campaigned–it’s not like that was necessary; the citizens watch TV and read–and now her people are pushing for her to be granted the delegates from Florida. The DNC has no way out. Give her the delegates and Obama cries foul; give no one any of Florida’s delegates and the voters of that state have been disenfranchised.

Someone ought to work out a system for every state in the Union. But they won’t. We’re Americans; we like the disarray.

The Louisiana-ness of our state must be catching.

Dumb crooks made the local news last night. In Slidell, three young men had cased McDonald’s and decided to steal the night’s deposits when the manager went to the bank. One of the trio sat inside the fast food eatery and called the other two outside when he left with the bag of money and checks. Outside, they held him up and stole the bag. Alas, it contained chicken mcnuggets. Police caught the three culprits.

What I wonder is how you would like to be rotting away for 20 years in Angola and some con ask you, “What are you in here for?” and you have to answer, “For stealing a bag of chicken mcnuggets.”

Well, it’s Louisiana.

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Eddie Painter has been pastor of Barataria Baptist Church in the little town of Jean Lafitte, Louisiana, for one year now, and the attendance has doubled. Tonight, the church is electing a building committee to plan additional space. I think I saw today how everything is coming together.

Get your map down. Jean Lafitte is hard to find, as the U.S. government and the State of Louisiana discovered in the 1810s. The privateer–first cousin to a pirate–lived down in Barataria Bay with his gang of cutthroats and brigands and their families. I seriously doubt if anyone knows to this day exactly where they made their headquarters since so much of the land mass that made up the wetlands this far south is now underwater. Historians tell us Lafitte had a wealth of supplies which his men had taken off enemy ships, much of which was then slipped into the black market of New Orleans. Initially, Andrew Jackson rejected any thought of involving Lafitte in the defense of New Orleans until he saw the man had what he needed: experienced fighting men with lots of firepower. Jean Lafitte came out of the Battle of New Orleans a hero.

“The school down here is supposed to be one of the best anywhere,” Eddie Painter said. He and his wife Lisa have two teenage daughters, Ellie and Angel. “We love this place.”

“In the early service this morning, we had 34,” Eddie told me at church. The 11 o’clock service which I attended was filled, easily 65 to 70. The music was all hymns–“What a Friend,” “In the Garden,” and “I Am Thine, O Lord”–but the pianist and organist played them double time and the congregation sang out lustily.

When Eddie rose to welcome everyone, he said, “I have an announcement to make: I have bought a pair of white boots.” Everyone laughed. These are the rubber boots which shrimpers and other fishermen wear on the boats to guard against the slippery decks. Status symbols in this part of the world.

“And this week, I got my commercial fishing license!” That did it. Laughter and applause. “I’m on my way to becoming a permanent resident!” Cheering.

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When they ask if I attended any of the Mardi Gras parades this year, I just say ‘no.’ They never ask why not and I never tell. The simple reason is that I’d be out of place.

I don’t like feeling out of place. I’ve been there enough to know it’s no fun.

George Gobel used to say, “Have you ever felt like all the world was a tuxedo and you were a pair of brown shoes?”

The lady from the chamber of commerce called to apologize. That night they were honoring a member of my church, one of our leading deacons who was an uppity-up in the finance world, at a lavish banquet in the hotel down the street. I was supposed to have gotten an invitation, she said, but someone failed to send it, and would I please try to come. I knew what had happened, that someone had just thought at the last minute, “We ought to invite his pastor.”

I said, “Thank you. If I can, I’ll be there.” The cocktail hour was scheduled before the banquet, so I figured it would give me time to say my hello to the deacon, then slip out. I walked into the banquet area and was stunned by the scene: a crowd of the city’s elite, all decked out in tuxedos and evening dresses, was milling around, cocktails in hand. These were the beautiful people of our city, the ones who run the largest corporations and foundations and whose images adorn the society pages.

Meanwhile, I was wearing the clothes I had left home in that morning, a tan sport-coat and grey slacks, which after eight hours were beginning to look like I had slept in them.

I walked around the room, feeling like that dream we all have had where you are in a crowd with no clothes on. I kept searching for a familiar face, anyone at all whom I knew. I never did see the guest-of-honor, but after five minutes of torture from feeling so out of place, I decided to go home and enjoy a quiet evening with the family.

Home. My place.

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One of the ways I know the Father is talking to me is when the same message arrives from several different sources. Take today, for instance.

I’d been thinking a lot about grace. In teaching Romans–I’m about to do that for the sixth time since the first of January–the subject of grace figures prominently into Paul’s presentation of the gospel message. In that epistle, he keeps hammering on the fact that if salvation is by grace, then it’s not by works, not by law, not by heritage, nor birth nor merit of any kind whatsoever. If salvation is by grace, then no human can take credit for it and no one can boast about receiving it. It’s of God from first to last. All we can do is receive it or reject it.

A front-page article in the Times-Picayune for today (Thursday, February 7, 2008) was headlined “N.O. nuns play role in Giants’ miracle.” Subtitle: “Their medal provides divine intervention.”

Sister Kathleen Finnerty, Superintendent of Schools for the Archdiocese of New Orleans, used to head a school in New York City where Giants’ owner John Mara’s children attended. Since she and the nuns of the Ursuline Convent are big football fans, rooting especially for local boys Payton and Eli Manning, they were praying for the Giants to win the Super Bowl game last Sunday evening. Sister Kathleen told the newspaper, “Some of the sisters down here are 80 to 90 years old, and they are football addicts. So, when the Giants made the Super Bowl, one of them said to me, ‘We can’t let Eli down. We have to get Our Lady in on this.'”

That’s what she said: “We have to get Our Lady in on this.”

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“What is that smudge on her head?” I wondered, as I carried my cafeteria tray past a woman in a booth. “Oh yeah. Ash Wednesday.” It was the largest smudge I’d ever seen a priest leave and looked a little like she had fallen on a coal scuttle. Guess he felt she needed a little extra.

Funny how the Mardi Gras season goes full tilt right up until midnight, then shuts down abruptly at the stroke of 12, and everyone goes home. The street sweepers come out, and by Wednesday morning Canal Street looked as clean as it ever does. Lent has arrived, and with it a full slate of religious observances. Yessir, we can go from the flesh to the spirit at the stroke of the clock!

The text message I received from Greg Hand this morning at 1 am was one for the books. His Vieux Carre’ Baptist Church, one block over from Bourbon Street, was hosting friends from around the country who came to bear a witness for Christ during this weekend. The message read: “Four baptized Wednesday a.m. Five total for the holidays.”

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Tonight, watching the returns from Super Tuesday’s presidential primary elections, in which 24 of the 50 states of the Union voted, you find yourself thinking, “Wonder how a foreigner sees all this?”

He would be totally at sea. Absolutely lost.

So, let’s see if we can make a little sense of it.

One: the United States of America is a family made up of 50 states. Imagine having a family with 50 children, each different from the others, some not looking like anyone you know, and each one a strong personality and priding itself on its eccentricities.

America is not a monolithic single-entity, but is divided and subdivided into sections and regions. That is, this country is not like an apple–cut it open and it’s pretty much the same throughout–but is more like an orange, composed of sections, with each one a little different from the others.

Using the orange analogy, imagine cutting one open and pulling out the sections to find that one slice is a lemon, one a navel orange, one slice a tangerine, another grapefruit, and another a lime. They’re all members of the citrus family, but that’s where the similarities end.

That is the United States of America. Emphasis on “states.” We were states before we were united, and we have retained a lot of the characteristics of our independency.

Okay, now, second point: the political parties run their primaries however they please. The federal government has nothing to do with it. That’s completely surprising to outsiders. Here we are the last remaining superpower nation on earth and in choosing the next leader of the free world, our system is in the hands of the political parties in each state which are run by people we don’t know. And we meekly go along with it.

That’s why in this presidential primary, some states met in caucus to make their selections–remember Iowa in early January–while others asked the entire electorate to traipse to the polls and vote, as in New Hampshire in February. Today, Republicans in West Virginia met in caucus and announced this morning that Mike Huckabee received all 8 delegates for their party’s nomination.

Still on point two. States do not have to do things alike. Some states will award all the electoral votes to the person who wins their state’s primary, and the runners-up are left out in the cold. Other states will give so many votes to the winner based on the percentage he polled, so many to the runnerup, again based on his or her votes, and so on.

Confused? You’re not alone. I daresay the average citizen on the street does not have a clue how all this works. They read the paper and when it says, “Go to the polls Saturday,” they go. Well, 50 percent of us do, but that’s another story.

Third: then, this summer, after the caucuses and primaries have done their thing, delegates will gather in a large city for the Republican National Convention and in another city for the Democratic National Convention. There, delegates will either decide at that time or ratify the decision the voters have already made as to who their candidate for president will be.

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