Had a lovely talk at St. Anastasia parish here in Troy, Michigan – many thanks to DRE Patty Chase and pastor Fr. John Riccardo – like all of the parishes I’ve been privileged to visit recently, it seems as if there are great things happening – solid things, fruit of really listening to people and trying to meet their needs from the richness of the totality of the Catholic faith. People seem to be digging deeper, seeing past "programs" and fads and really trying to just plant seeds and nourish them.

A rather lengthy trip up, thanks to the never-ending, but seemingly always fruitless attempt to find an efficient way to get from Fort Wayne to…anywhere. Ever since we’ve moved there, Michael has regularly cursed whoever represented Fort Wayne back in the 50’s and 60’s and managed to botch the possibility of any efficient, useful contact between that city and the Interstate system.

But we arrived, drove amid big office buildings, found the hotel,  ate dinner here, and then it was off to the races. Met several great blog readers – hello again!! And wondered about Joseph’s internal controls, which we really need to work on. It’s not only the "You’re my new best friend and I’m going to talk your ear off about Spiderman" instinct which kicks in whenever a poor unsuspecting adult merely says, "Hello" to the boy, but tonight he was up to more tricks (and I remember not too long ago, he was almost morbidly shy) – various hijinks as I was trying to sign books until he got distracted and went to do something else – I discovered what as I was opening a book to sign and was confronted by a big, scrawled "JOSEPH." Noting my appalled glance, the book-owner assured me that she had invited Joseph to sign her book, and he had actually been back with Michael, signing several others of his. People are very, very kind. Kinder than some moms.

Once again, the conversations with people I have after this talk assured me that this is (ready to sing the refrain with me?) not just a novel – that people are talking about this with great intensity, and the topic du jour seems to be the wistful thought that it sure would be nice if Jesus had been married.

As I said a few days ago…a Christology that would even shock Arius, I’m thinking. Roll up sleeves – it’s Come Lord Jesus 101 time…

Tomorrow: a trip Over the Border (and this time we will remember to claim the unsold  books in our trunk and not get pulled over and searched like we did last time…) to find some corner of this far southwest corner of Ontario that we’ve never seen before, and then back, with a stop to visit The Man in the Box either on the way there or back. And who’s the Man in the Box? We’ll keep you guessing…