Easter in Ordinary

Image courtesy of PingNews.com  (CC 2.0) Throughout the media, I have been reading retrospectives on the "Financial Crisis of 2008," occasioned by the 10-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers. It strikes me as odd that the touchstone event is so removed from those most adversely affected by the calamity. While I did not know it at the time, the seeds were sown many years prior. The first harvest of destruction was felt by America's vulnerable communities long before the earthquake on Wall Street. Beginning in 2001, I was an associate pastor at St. Stephen Parish in South Bend, IN. Fr. David Porterfield, C.S.C. and I had great hopes for how we could serve South Bend's west side. Gregorio Chavez approached me about opportunities to acquire abandoned properties adjacent to the parish through the county tax sale. Properties that had fallen behind on taxes were available through auction. Year by year, the lists became longer, growing as a many-paged su

When purchasing, I have often had my suspicions about online reviews of items. Now, I have a front-row seat for the scams associated. Opening my email this morning, Amazon sent me 20 "Thank you" emails for products that I have never purchased nor reviewed. All the reviews were written for relatively new products on the Amazon website. All the reviews were written between 2:14 a.m. and 2:46 a.m. (Central Time) when I was fast asleep. I have notified Amazon. The customer service agent said that the information was relayed "to the team trained to handle this scenario." The agent indicated that I should hear back in one to two business days. If a customer cannot trust the reviews (likely instigated by unscrupulous vendors), how can a customer trust a product? I will continue to update this post based on the actions taken by Amazon. Update #1: So far, Amazon's customer service is not living up to my previous experiences of them. A process was undertaken that