The Newcomer

While on my Jubilee weekend at Fordham University, many of us stayed at a dorm on campus.  It was the first time at this new dorm for all of us.  We were what you might call "newcomers" to the dorm.  The dorm had no heat but did have a cool air blower on all the time.  It was rainy and cool outside.  This put the Jesuits on my resentment list.  But this was minor.  The big mishap came on Sunday morning when the first event did not begin until after 10:30 AM.  Where would we go for coffee.  Nothing was open!  Behold, this was not so, but most of us did not know it.  Right next to the dorm, but in a direction no one went, was a small coffee shop with free coffee and treats for us.  It had been there all weekend, but no one informed us.  This is one of those instances that remind me of how we overlook the newcomer because everything is so familiar to us who go somewhere all the time.  It could be a church, a meeting, a club, or a regular event of some kind.  We forget that there might be someone new in our midst.  The coffee shop was right there, if you will, but for us who were not looking "right there" we knew nothing.  May the Jesuits be rightly punished by God.  Oh, I forgot.  Forgiveness and tolerance are to be practiced by us.