Erase the Praze and Praze again!

Did you ever think about erasers? I just read in today's Writer's Almanac that Hymen Lipman of Philadelphia patented the first pencil with an eraser in 1858. To this day, the rubber tipped pencil is mostly used in America, the Almanac says. European pencils don't come with erasers. Guess they don't make as many mistakes as us. Or they don't correct them. All this reminds me of the little 4-year-old in the pew in front of me on Sunday. He discovered a pencil stuck in that little hole in the pew back. It's intended for filling out the visitor card or offering envelopes but works just as well to decorate the margins of the bulletin and entertain a young parishoner. He saw me watching him and pointed to the eraser on the end of the pencil as if he were the first to ever find it. He showed me how it would wipe away the marks he had made and he smiled at me as innocently as a young Christ taking away the sins of the world.