Donut

"Sơ, do you really think donuts are necessary?"
Thầy John's voice rang plaintively over the phone.
"Yes... you need not worry. Oanh will pick them up and bring it to the station. You know how youth are... they're not going to think about eating a good breakfast. Getting them to wake up at 8am on a Saturday morning is a miracle. And I don't want any of them putting on a face during the rally because they're hungry."
"Okay, Sơ..." He didn't sound convinced.

Mass started at 10am.
The cathedral was filled to overflow by 8:30am.
My job was to reserve seats for our youth group and I was met with those who had the same plans. Even the adjacent multi-purpose room only had standing room left.

Bishop Kevin had called for 10,000 to come to the Prolife Rally to commemorate the Roe vs. Wade court case. Dallas-Fort Worth citizens took his word to heart. The church was packed. The march was longer than the estimated 35 minutes. The parking lot for the rally was so full a side street was closed off so that there would be room to hold us.

"iSPY!"
"Jesus!" our youth group responded enthusiastically. It was 11:45am. They were definitely awake by now as they sat on the hard floor through most of the Mass.
"Jesus!" I continued our group's chant.
"Life!" And they knew we were in downtown Dallas two weeks ago because they had life. And wanted others to have life too.

"Now, guys. Are you hungry?!?"
"Yes!" They smiled good-naturedly at me.
"Good... because we have donuts. Y'll take ten minutes to eat okay... lots of persons are going on this march and we are not going to be left behind... however, we do want to go, right?" Our iSPY youth nodded exuberantly.

"Okay, all of you... gather around."
Thầy John in his methodical and efficient fashion quickly got the youth to dig into the donuts and the other snacks.

A smile flitted across my face.
The first to wonder if we were weighing ourselves down with unnecessary baggage on an important trip, Thầy John was also the first to make himself at service.

How myriad are the personalities of our human race!
How sad to never get to see 46 million that have already been ended here in the US.
How encouraging that 18 of our youth did wake up early on a Saturday morning to say "No" to this outrage.

I'm proud of you iSPY!

ps. What has no beginning and no end and nothing in the middle? DONUT!
Seven days without a donut makes one weak.
(Jokes courtesy of http://www.sesamedonuts.com/fun_facts.html)

ps2. Photo of us some of us and our donuts...

ps3. More on the prolife rally in Dallas 2011.
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/pro-lifers-walk-and-pray-across-the-country/

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