Yesterday morning I finished this book. In church the story from John’s gospel was of the man born blind whom Jesus healed. I imagined that man to be like Frank McCourt. Not Irish, of course, but sensible in the face of authority figures who’ve forgotten, lost, or simply had stomped out of themselves the sweetness of believing.

Frankie’s Angel on the Seventh Step helped and comforted him amid a childhood gone wretched because his poor dad couldn’t resist the drink. The guy born blind in ancient Jerusalem received a huge, amazing gift – sight. The older generation in Limerick shushed Frankie’s revelations about his Angel. Jerusalem’s Pharisees blew their stacks over the formerly blind guy’s conviction that Jesus had to be doing the works of God.

“I don’t know about all that,” the guy said in reference to Jesus. “Whether he’s a screw-up or not. Whatever. But here’s what he did. You can’t see? You’re asking me to explain details again, so you can pick this apart, because you don’t accept it. Well, I do.”