During my first year of priesthood, I would keep the livestream of St. Francis' tomb pulled-up on my desktop. (you can find it on the webpage of the Basilica in Assisi). The live video of his real grave all the way in Assisi would be full screen whenever I left the office: pixelated vigil candles flickering in the dark. Waiting...
The jag in the road once had a name: Claremont. A few houses, a gas station, a wood-frame church. Thirty miles west, a once-upon-time Northfield boasted a high school, storefronts and a cotton gin. Today, straight-line winds yell cheers across the rotted floor of the Northfield gym. At Claremont, bull snakes coil like rubber hoses in the service bay of the old Texaco...
I enter the elevator, push a button, a bell dings and the doors split open. I step out into the smell of hand sanitizer and plastic. The nurse sitting at the desk looks at me. I walk over. "I am the priest here to visit the patient in Room 488"...