Galveston Hearts & Hands -- Jesus of the Trash Icon by Fr. Pat Genereux

Monday, February 16 ~ ...cooler, though sunny this morning... our first job is to clear out a 'garden shed.' For we midwesterners, a garden shed is a 3x6 building (plastic or wood) from Lowe's. This was more the size of a small house and filled mostly with ceramic pieces & molds. Someone had done a lot of work making plywood Christmas decorations for the lawn, all of which had to go to the dump... along with 'Spiderman' and other superhero comics from Marvel Comics, a collection of 78 LPs (from the 40s and 50s) and original children's Golden Books (invaluable in many ways... memories as well as cash) and a ton (figuratively speaking) of Milton Bradley games from the 50s and 60s... so many things, all in the dump...


And at the very top, this picture... an icon of hope and renewal... 'Jesus of the Trash' is iconic in the sense of the hope that is seen in the recovery work being done in the area. Bishop Alan reverently placed this portrait on the pile after the homeowner said she didn't want it...


Apart from trashing all these memories, the crew had to deal with a nest of cockroaches the size of mice... or so it seemed, and at least one poor rat that was more confused and frightened of us than we of it...


After lunch, we headed for a new job, doing some of the finishing work on a house that the Mennonites had started. This task has a different feel. No more throwing out or taking apart of people's lives, but now we were helping in the final stages of putting life back together. For some of the crew, it was a new experience. Wielding a drill and sheet rock screws, laying the underlayment in the kitchen... a sight to behold with many new skills learned!