More media for The Lord's Rain

It puts me to shame.

Here I am, a guy who rarely uses a few words when a thousand will do, and the most effective media articles about The Lord's Rain have been ones with "enforced" space restrictions. Leah Bolton's piece on JoyTV10 about the logo contest is one example; another is Kate Webb's front-page story on the recent funding crisis, which quickly brought in donations to keep us open for a year or more.

Now comes Kent Spencer's piece in Sunday's Province ---- from his weekly department, "The Moral Question". Definitely worth reading, because Kent deftly captures the vibe of the place. One correction: in the third- and second-last paragraphs, the quote is incorrectly attributed to me; in fact, it was Danilo who said it. (I've asked The Province to run a "for the record" correction.)

The article also refers to The Lord's Rain as being my "brain-child". As I put together the presentation I gave at Westpointe two weeks ago, it became more and more apparent that God has been lining this thing up since long before I showed up, unannounced, at the Bowery Mission in September 2007. I nearly drove myself nuts, in a minor sort of way, thinking about the connections that had been formed decades before and how they all led to the creation -- and continuation -- of The Lord's Rain. When the time was right, h

He brought it all together. Indeed, it was Barry who had a strong leading that The Lord's Rain had to open before the end of April, and so it did -- on April 30th. That was not a day too soon: if we had waited much longer, we would have been caught by the worldwide economic crisis, and one wonders how readily people would have contributed then.

But then, because of that financial collapse, the W. Garfield Weston Foundation set up a special fund to help charitable organizations get through that period, 

"Brain-father"? No - more like "brain-midwife".

=== 

Bravo for Life's Little Ironies Dep't.

"I got up this morning, flung open my window,
took a deep breath and chipped a tooth."
-- Johnny Carson on the LA smog

"Howdja like to be living in those apartments?" Ralph asked.

Ralph is a relative newcomer, certainly a what-the-heck-are-you-doing-here? fellow who seems to be compos mentis so one wonders how he wound up on the Downtown East Side.

We were outside on the sidewalk, and Ralph's attention was drawn to a large truck, idling in the alley across from us. The first of the attached photos shows the great billows of dark blue-gray smoke were wafting towards the windows above. Vancouver has a by-law limiting engine idling to 3 minutes, and this truck would have barely met the AirCare standard (40% opacity for trucks newer than 2001).

"And - coff-coff - make sure you recycle!"

OK ... stuff happens. Then the truck started moving and turned into Carrall Street, at which point, we saw the side of the vehicle.

The second of the attached photos shows the side-view: yes, it was collecting recyclables as part of Vancouver's "greenest city" initiative.

A little unclear on the concept?