There was a long prayer, led by a cantor, praying for the Church, our Bishops, for all who believe in God, for the peace of the world — it covered a lot of territory, some of it tricky — how do you pray for “those in positions of public trust” when many of them you wish would disappear? We prayed for the poor and all who suffer, for refugees and prisoners, and I thought of the migrants deported in chains to El Salvador despite a federal court order. Lord, have mercy, the congregation intoned. We prayed for our enemies and I thought of mine — I have four, and I prayed that they not know how much harm they caused — and we prayed for a blessing on all human labor, and I remembered the doormen in our building and Lulu our cleaning lady, and we prayed for those who have died, and I immediately thought of Alan K. Simpson, the Republican senator from Cody, Wyoming, who died last week.
Senator Simpson listened to a radio show I used to do and he wrote me a fan letter on official stationery and once, when I was in Washington, I had coffee with him and he told me a story about a contest that cowboys used to conduct when he was a boy. They’d take turns dropping their trousers and competing to see who could pick up a silver dollar using only his bare buttocks, and if necessary, have a playoff for a half-dollar or a quarter. There was a genuineness about the man that was pure gold. I knew he was a conservative and it didn’t matter; what was important was the integrity.
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