Summer in Selma: This weeks job: tour guide.

Be prepared for pictures.

We have been blessed with visitors this past week! I had a wonderful time with my friend from Boston College. It is always such a blessing to share some of the work the Edmundites have done and are currently doing here with others. After traversing about downtown Selma to see the historic churches, court houses, and other things, we crossed the Edmund Pettus bridge and were invited to check out the National Voter Rights Museum & Institute (it's located right where the Bloody Sunday attacks occurred). I sometimes forget how much violence and injustice the Civil Rights pioneers faced. It still baffles me that not even 50 years ago people were being shot and lynched, churches were being bombed, and hundreds arrested simply for seeking to vote. And right here in our own country.

We also have a special visitor from England. St. Edmund, an Archbishop of Canterbury and also our 12th century patron, was pastor of a parish in Calne for about ten years. The current vicar, Robert Kenway, is on sabbatical and taking a grand tour of Edmundite locations and works in the United States to do research for a radio play based on St. Edmund's life. He spent a few days in New Orleans with Fr. Mike Jacques and has been with us since Monday. Alston Fitts, a local historian who worked for the Edmundite Southern Missions for many years, and I brought him to some of the Civil Rights Interpretation Centers and gave him some background information on the area and culture, the Society's work here, and much of the Civil Rights struggles. Tomorrow Rev. Kenway will head up to Vermont where he will get to meet many more of our brothers and spend some time digging around our archives at St. Michael's College.

On a more "work-ish" note, coordinating mass went just fine on Saturday and Sunday. There were a few bumps and ruts that quite understandably came about due to my rather unacquainted nature with such ministerial duties, but nothing that won't be sorted out with time and practice. This weekend we have our Widest Yard Sale fundraiser. Apparently this is something that spans the entire state of Alabama via Route 80. So if any of y'all are looking for some good deals, just go anywhere on our East to West highway and you'll be sure to find something.

Now for some pictures!

Basilica of the Immaculate Conception
(Cathedral for the Archdiocese of Mobile)

Cathedral stained glass window

Some of the post-daily mass coffee crew. Lovely people!

The historic St. James Hotel, which is now all but bankrupt.

The Edmund Pettus bridge going into Selma.

Alston Fitts (left) & Rev. Bob Kenway (right)

Tiffany stained glass window in St. Paul's
Episcopal Church of Selma.

30 foot tall Confederate Civil War memorial.
It gets new flags and flowers each year.

Five foot tall WWI memorial right next to the
Confederate memorial. No one places flowers
or flags around this on Memorial Day.
The black veterans' names were left off.
Pretty clear message.