Sweetest Souls In The City

And Things That Make Me Go "Wow!"



Miss Mary. I don't know her last name-everyone just calls her Mary. Like the Madonna.

She is a gracefully aged woman, like fine cheese, with white hair tied prettily back with a pin or two. Her brother lives in Potomac and she has the gentility and grace of a woman who has seen more than her share of the high life in high style in her day. Here she sits, every other Monday morning behind a table in a basement conference room at Saint Matthews Cathedral in DC with a smile indefatigable meeting grumpiness of the morning, a table
on which her famous warm homemade caseroles are dished out to the homeless men and women who come as they are, in moldly smelling duffel coats and fleece in Washington, DC . Bright eyed volunteers ladle and spoon out the caseroles asking "risotto with brocolli or rice and chicken?"

Mary gets up every other Monday at 4:30-5:00 am or earlier to put together things like her famous pot roast "I don't use red wine marinade like usual because you never know what they are dealing with" she told me. It looked like a pot roast my grandmother would make with peas, carrots, baby potatos and roast beef all simmering in the juices. Then there is her bow-tie cheezy pasta with bacon, and don't forget her risotto with cheese and broccolli. Mary doesn't just throw down some Mac 'n Cheese- Miss Mary puts on the Ritz for these people- who get a full course meal in the morning to last them all day. Beats a baloney sandwhich by miles.


For the last ten years, every other Monday, Miss Mary has been waking up at 4:30-5:00am or earlier, and making a feast for 50-100 people-on her. For free to them. People who you wouldn't in a million years invite anywhere- people who smell a bit off, people who live in shelters or even outside, people you probably have seen outside peddling "Street Sense" the homeless rag, people whose belongings trail them in ripped tattered plastic black bags or who wheel their lives around in old dirty torn 'round the edges suitcases on wheels. Miss Mary loves them all. She knows them by name, most of them. They all greet her with a hearty "Thank you Mary!" "God Love You Mary!"



After the meal time, followed by a scripture reflection and clothing dissemination to those in need of another pair of jeans, hats, gloves and a bag of underwear and toiletries, Mary rinses off and packs up her caserole dishes and puts them in a metal cart with wheels that she wheels back to her apartment on 17th street-like she has done for a decade. It's a metal cart like you see women dragging to the grocery store- Mary has one that she stacks chock 'o block full of caseroles every other Monday.



Mary is getting a bit up there and she worries about who will take over the mantle if she can't do it. "Do you see that refrigerator!" she points to the frigidaire that looks like it was made around WWII. "Doesn't even have permafrost it's so old!" She bemoans the fact that in none of the conference rooms kitchens in the Cathedral is there a working stove. "We need a kitchen remodel" she says- and I think- OPRAH!

Yes, the downtown Washington, DC Cathedral is so old that it underwent a major renovation upstairs, where there are spectacular mosaics, sculptures, ceilings, paintings, frescos, etc. But there needs to be a remodel for a good working kitchen with a good working stove in one of the conference rooms- because this folks out on the streets problem is only getting scarier.

If a Cathedral doesn't qualify for funding for church-state reasons, or because DC is mad at the Archbishop for his stand on Gay Marriage, perhaps that EXTREME HOME MAKE-OVER guy can come build us all a good working kitchen in the Cathdral so Miss Mary can heat up dishes she makes the night before in the Cathedral and doesn't have to get up at 4:30-5:00 am. Because one day she may not be able to do that.

So here is the throw down- I challenge OPRAH and the EXTREME HOME MAKE-OVER guy to see who can come up with the better plan to remodel the basement of the Cathedral to install a new kitchen without demolishing any part of the historic property to do it!