2020-11-21 Notes on a conversation with a wise old man

I met at the church with the priest who is in his last year or so of life. He showed me around the building and taught me names of some of the things there and their symbolic meaning. The sacristy is where the bread and wine are prepared for use in the service. The sacristy has two sinks, one sacred, one profane. The profane drains to a septic tank. The sacred drains out onto the ground and is used for bread and wine that has been blessed or used in service. Materially it isn't a sin to use the wrong sink, but it is important to try to keep them straight, to be reverent in one's mind to the memory of Jesus' self sacrifice.

Before becoming a priest he worked as an independent painting contractor. He once painted an industrial sized vessel used to contain sulfuric acid loaded from railway cars. He mistakenly painted it with a paint not designed for that application and the acid stripped it right off and he had to redo the whole job. He had to be careful who he hired. He often found white workers to be irresponsible and vain and addicted to drugs and had better luck with black workers. One of his black workers once teased another black worker in black English about how much he was worth ($300) as if slavery was still in force. In the 60's when blacks were rioting in many of the major cities, the blacks in Charlotte didn't riot. Many of the blacks and whites there had a mutual respect that ran deep.