Amanda Kitchens and the Church of Perpetual Unscheduled Redemption

More about Amanda Kitchens and the Church of Perpetual Unscheduled Redemption

Amanda Kitchens fled Austin in the dead heat of August, when the asphalt was soft and the billboards were whispering about salvation at half price. She arrived on a far-off Mediterranean cliff where houses stacked like badly shuffled cards and ghost-lavender drifted through alleys. She carried no suitcase, only an accordion and a conviction louder than God’s lawnmower: she would save the gypsy children from a life of crime, chaos, and cigarette hustle. She would bring order. She would bring cookies. She would bring something dangerously close to hope.

The locals said she was touched by some holy static, that strange Austin electricity that makes barbecue priests speak in tongues about brisket futures. Amanda didn’t argue. She rolled her sleeves, wound her hair into a battle halo, and set up a Mission. Not the usual mission with hymnals and pamphlets. No. This was the Church of Perpetual Unscheduled Redemption. Sunday happened whenever it needed to. The choir was whoever could clap in time. The sermon was: “You don’t have to steal wallets to feel real.”

Kids gathered like feral kittens—skeptical, hungry-eyed, thin as rumors. They stared at her accordion like it might explode into police sirens. Instead, it howled joy. It coughed confession. It sang in nineteen accents—Texan twang through Neapolitan dream fog. Somewhere in its bellows was a promise that didn’t taste like propaganda.

Amanda taught them honest mischief: pranks that hurt no one, scams that ended with apologies and ice cream. She built gardens where there had been cigarettes, laughter where there’d been alarms. She told them capitalism wasn’t the only pickpocket in town; despair was worse.

Of course the old crime bosses hated her. They hissed from balconies, flicked ash like curses, dreamed of quieting her with “accidental” gravity. But Amanda had a force field powered by ridiculous faith and accordion wheeze. And every time the bosses plotted, their coffee tasted like regret.

They called her La Santa Stramba, the Weird Saint. Statues began to resemble her. The wind learned her name. The children, previously trained by the universe to expect betrayal on Tuesdays, discovered—uncomfortably at first—that nothing terrible happened. Bread stayed on the table. Police didn’t arrive. The accordion just kept breathing songs.

Amanda believed something outrageous: that crime was simply hope with a limp. That if you fed it, talked to it, let it wear ridiculous hats, it might straighten up.

And whether it was miracle, madness, or Austin stubbornness, a strange new law took hold in the winding stone streets: It became easier to be kind than clever, and significantly more fun.

Amanda Kitchens did not save the world. She did something stranger.
She made a corner of it decide to save itself.