Fr. Chuck's Column, Sunday, January 4

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope you are all recovering well from your holiday celebrations.

This new year will bring the usual load of excitement and surprises to St. Austin, especially as we engage in the Faithful To Our Mission capital campaign over the next several months. I can tell you that we are already off to a very good start, even though we have not yet “gone public” with the campaign, so I am very hopeful and excited about how this will all play out.

In my Christmas letter this year I mentioned that in the coming year I will be occupied in part with the effort to make our campus safe, make our public appearance on the Drag more outstanding and attractive, and that we hope to add ADA compliant bathrooms. It is the last of these that I wish to address.

A friend from White Sulfur Springs, MT, who had gotten my Christmas letter, and even more amazingly actually read the thing, wrote back and opined on the subject of added bathrooms that, “good plumbing is a thing of beauty.” Well, I must confess, that statement set me back a bit. I have never looked upon plumbing with such an aesthetic sense before, but upon reflection, I must say that my Montana correspondent is correct.

Of all the comments we received at the Holiday Fair on the proposed plans for the renovation of the exterior of our church and rectory, the greatest number by far were comments on the proposed new bathrooms, and they were overwhelmingly positive.

Good plumbing does add a great deal to quality of life. To have clean water, hot or cold, at the twist of the tap is a luxury far too much of the world is denied. To have clean drinking water is a necessity for life. To have efficient plumbing to maintain sanitation by pleasantly and effectively removing waste is as remarkable as it is healthy.

There are many more artistic and refined issues we will grapple with in the renovation of the exterior of our church; on the level of basics, though, good plumbing comes in pretty near the top. May 2015 be a year of good plumbing for us all. Happy 2015!

God bless,