The best step forward in medicine in recent years has not been penicillin, Salk’s vaccine or heart transplants. It must be the smart “get well” card.

These come in many forms. Many of you have sent me cards, notes and letters and believe me, they touch the heart -- in my case the liver. The Emmy award goes this time to a delightful one headed “Itches In Your Stitches?” (There were too and the card cured them.)

Or the gorgeous homemade cards from school kids. Who could fail to respond to the friendly, “Hey, Paul, get well!” They have come from a number of schools including St. Paul of the Cross, the Cathedral, St. Thomas More and St. Joseph, Marietta.

It wouldn’t be right to name names, but who could fail to respond to a hearty valentine like this:

I think it would be fine,
If you would be my Valentine
Will you love me all the time?

Here’s another classic:

Now it isn’t like staying
at a swanky hotel
No champagne when you ring
your room service bell.
You don’t much approve of your
current attire
And the meals you get
aren’t all you desire
While your present surroundings
may not be first rate
But when you check out,
I hope you’ll feel great.

Felling bad? Hurt? Feel Sad?
Take Geritol--
or just prayer
So we’re all praying for you.
(a paid commercial)

Two Views Of A Lady

Recently readers may recall a raft of definitions of a lady. Some are still coming in.

The novelist Sinclair Lewis said this in a debate in 1941: “A ‘lady’ is a woman so incompetent as to take refuge in a secluded class, like kings and idiots who have to be treated with special kindness because they can’t take it.

Lewis said it, not I.

A mild, gracious type of lady emerges from this letter. It’s too long so here are excerpts:

“Dear Archbishop: Your correspondent, a male, overlooked one qualification. No matter how talented a woman may be, if she is an indifferent housekeeper, it is fatal to her influence and a blemish to her garments.”

“There is no earthly reason why girls, from 8 to 18, should not learn and practice the whole round of housekeeping -- from the first beating of eggs, to laying carpets and presiding at dinner parties.”

There is more, but first I would like to poll the gentlemen if they have found this lady yet.

A Bishop’s Trilemma

My favorite correspondent writes that bishoping involves three things today:

1. Things you’d like to say and can’t

2. Things you have to say and can

3. Things you want to say and can.

New Look At Sin

Easy explanation: According to “The Texas Presbyterian,” this happened in catechism class in a Texas church.

Pastor, “Sherlyn, did our first parents continue in the estate wherein they were created?”

Sherlyn, confidently, “Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, fell from the estate wherein they were created, by sinning against God.”

Pastor, “Would you care to explain that?”

Sherlyn, “Sure. They blew it.”

Paul J. Hallinan

Archbishop of Atlanta