The Afterwards

 Living in a City as a boy, I walked to church on a Sunday morning or any morning when I was serving mass as an altar boy.  Two precious things came after mass on Sunday.  The walk home went past family run food shops.  We picked up the newspaper, breakfast rolls, other baked goods, meats and deli stuff.  All was fresh that morning.  And there was no rushing to other organized activities.  No sport activities or organized games on Sunday.  I think it helped to set me up for meditation, for the slower life that meditation requires of us.  There were no coffee and donuts after church.  You simply hung around a bit because there was no real rush to go to the next thing.  And you did not need to go to the bathroom because you had nothing to eat before mass, no coffee or sugar stuff.  In San Francisco where I help out in neighborhoods, saying masses, some of this can still be done.  In the suburbs it is a different world.