I was sick over it for ten years, but I had kids, and I had no money. I felt so bad …”
The lady behind me offered solace: “You were meant to have it. Gawd wanted you to have it. He knew you needed it.”
But the lady in front wasn’t buying it: “It was wrong. I felt bad for so many years. Now I try to pay it back whenever I can help somebody else out.”
Witness the way our solitary mistakes stay with us. Witness the way one or two of our regrettable choices purchase a condo in our conscience. Witness the way no one else knows except us. And witness our struggle to let ourselves off the hook.
I know this is can be a noble dynamic. I wonder when it can be a crippling one.
We passed a trailer park on Airline Highway and the woman in front of me changed the channel again. The New Orleans weather was unseasonably cold. Everyone was bundled up in layers of clothes not really made for winter. Locals on the bus didn’t have winter clothes like “people up North.”
I had on a vest with my collar zippered up and my old baseball hat pulled down near my ears.
“City’s tearing down this trailer park,” she announced as she pointed her nose to the one outside the bus stop. “I know a lot of people who won’t have any place to go.”
“People need places to go when it gets this cold,” said the lady behind me.
“For real,” said the lady in front of me. “I hear that they still got rooms down on Josephine and Magazine.”
“You got a place to stay?” she asked.
I was still looking out at the trailer park, wondering how people will move on when it gets torn down. I noticed the pause in the chatter and looked up. The woman in front of me was staring at me.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“How ’bout you? You got a place to stay tonight?” she repeated.
“I’m good,” I nodded casually. “I’m good.”
The middle-aged lady holding plastic grocery bags filled with who knows what, draped in layers of fall clothes to combat the bitter New Orleans cold had soft eyes. The tone of her voice was warm and sincere.
Without saying anything I took a mental picture of it and put it in my memory box, in case I ever needed a moment to believe.
3
Some grace lasts for life
I sit here with sixteen Catholic lay ministers. Three generations in the room, like always. Young ones in their mid twenties, others in their late forties, and some a little older than that. We are gathered in rural Louisiana around a rectangle made up of white plastic folding tables. We are here to discuss the benefits of the training they have received. Almost half of these laypeople are in the midst of getting their master’s degree in pastoral theology, and the rest are in the midst of completing the detailed certification required to serve their community. Bona fide. Serious. And lacking funds.
I’ve been invited here by the Diocese of Baton Rouge, which has good news to share: a grant from the Our Sunday Visitor Institute will provide these lay ministers with the funds they need to complete their education.
After introductions and Subway sandwiches, everyone takes a few minutes to share what this training has been like for them
Today I listen extra hard. I lean in. For over two hours.
It takes no time for me to be reminded of something we all know to be true. Education done with inspiration contributes to one’s formation. Education done with a blessed combination of intellectual quality, fierce conversation, soulful reflection, critical thinking, human touch, and a happy heart leaves its mark on you. For life.
What I hear today is nothing new. I hear this all the time from laypeople who have gone through integrated and inspired programs. When we experience this kind of education as part of the necessary preparation for our work, we remember it, describe it, testify to it.
For life.
Today, I hear one person after another use familiar phrases describing “growth” and “being challenged past their comfort zone.” One after the other describes how new knowledge about this or that “opened my eyes,” “helped me understand things,” and “gave me some clarity.” When one or two use the word “miracle,” a couple of others smile and nod strongly. One even qualifies a miracle as “a real miracle.”
We laugh.
We know.
A lot of what I hear today is vocational stuff. A couple of people mention being called to this ministry by someone who saw something in them. Some mention being called by God “inside me.” A few describe the vocational surprise a lot of us can relate to: “I never would have thought that I would be doing this”; “If someone would’ve told me that I would be doing this, I would’ve told them …” But I am struck by the quiet joy I hear in their voices every time they say things like, “Now I can serve this community,” or, “This ministry is the way I can serve my community here.”
When someone talks of the inner peace they enjoy because of the “chance to do this ministry,” heads nod again. Lots of ’em.
Then a couple of people describe the teacher who inspired them the most. It is impossible not to notice the emotion behind their words — and their pauses — as they search for the right way, the very best way, the truest way, to describe their teacher. Every program has one or two legendary faculty members.
Good legends most of the time.
In this program, one teacher seems to be the foundress. The guarantor. The hound of heaven. The relentless one. The advocate to the higher ups. The go between. The educator. Those who speak of her fight back tears. Fight hard the tears. She has retired. Moved to Florida with her husband. Cancer. But we all know inspired educators stay with us.
For life.
It is our turn now. Rhonda, the diocesan leader who doggedly pursued the grant, tells of a story in the Baton Rouge local paper. An exemplary, award-winning teen was asked to describe some of the biggest influences in his or her life. The young person pointed to the confirmation retreat led by some of the trained ministers in the room. Rhonda reminds them that the teen told this to the largest daily newspaper in the state of Louisiana, not the diocesan paper. She gives ’em props.
I say I’m taking away two things. The way they said, “Now I can serve this community” and how both the academic content and the spiritual impact of this program were evident in the way they articulated their experience. I’m thinking this must be a damn good program. I tell them that their level of articulation and integration is not normal. But it seems normal as hell to them.
They laugh.
I sit here with sixteen Catholic lay ministers. All inmates in the Louisiana State Penitentiary.
For life.
4
Grace overflows in the joy and pain of our callings
I was teaching a fall weekend course at Boston College years ago. Always stayed at a Best Western on Commonwealth Avenue in the middle of a working-class neighborhood. Saturday mornings, on my way to class, I would walk pass Orthodox Jews on their way to Temple, and we would exchange quiet “Shabbat Shalom” to each other like holy high fives. Faith-filled fist bumps. There was a donut shop on one corner, pizza by the slice on another corner, and a neighborhood restaurant called the Fireplace around the other corner.
I always took myself to dinner at the Fireplace and always sat at the bar. That’s where the TV was. There I could watch the Red Sox, Patriots, or Celtics with the locals. There’s nothing quite like watching important games with the locals at the corner establishment. I went to the Fireplace the night before my course was to start.