I hope the people in the Army Of Good sleep well tonight knowing you have made so many needy and vulnerable people warm as this frigid weather spreads across the Eastern United States.

A week ago, I wrote about a Bishop Maginn High School Wish List seeking blankets and socks and sleeping bags for refugee children and families who could not afford heating oil in the winter and who slept on blankets in living and dining rooms together to preserve heat and be warm.

The Wish List was sold out in hours (along with textbooks for the Spanish class), but then, something unexpected happened: books of warm winter clothes began arriving at the high school, much more than was requested.

I started getting photos every day, the one above is from yesterday.

“Blankets, sleeping bags, mittens, warm socks, and hats! Way more than we requested,” wrote Sue Silverstein, the Art and Theology teacher at the school, and a resident angel. “This generosity is amazing.”

And rare. If you are one of those unfortunate people who still believe the news tells the truth about the world being an angry and violent and divided place,  consider the boxes and boxes of clothes still pouring into the school. There is violence and division for sure, but there is also much, much more than that.

The Army of Good grounds me keeps me hopeful and steady. I guess it keeps me warm also.

Sue wanted me to let you know that many people will “sleep warn on this cold night thanks to the Army Of Good.”

I’ve met some of these refugee children and they tell me how they and their families sleep on blankets because they have to choose between food and heating oil. Almost all of the subsidies the government used to provide for new refugees and help them assimilate are gone as our government’s war on these long-suffering people deepens and rages on.

The children suffer. There are a lot of them at Bishop Maginn.

I hope this message from Sue helps all of you sleep well tonight, it sure warms my heart and lifts my soul.

I am well aware that our country is torn and wounded right now, but every day, I am reminded how good people are given the chance, and how many good people there are.

I wanted you to know what you have done. None of us will ever be on the news, but we are perhaps one of the biggest stories in the world.

(Thanks to Maria for sharing her laptop with me this past week, my new computer is now scheduled to be ready tomorrow, Thursday, we’ll see. My eyes are good, and it is January cold outside.) Not apocalyptic, but cold.

I want to get my life back together.