Resurrecting Chicago

Walking by myself in the coastal town of Sitka, Alaska where my cruise ship had docked for the day, I sat down on the single bench of the town’s tiny park where a small fountain surrounded by a few red roses, sat bubbling into its pool of water.

I was marvelling at the unexpected heat.   It was 80 degrees in Alaska! Chirping sparrows were fluttering here and there finding trinkles of water to drink and bathe in. I was watching them and wondering how they survived winters where snow covered their sources of forage.

I am always hoping to meet a local  who likes to talk, so I was pleased when an old guy sauntered up and asked, “Anyone sitting here?”  “No, sit down,” I said.

He had sandy, thinning hair well on its way to being white. He coughed as he pulled out a briar pipe, tamped down the tobacco and lit and puffed until he had a good smoke going. He wore grey rimmed glasses which the bright morning light showed as smudged. His bulk was softened by his loose fitting shirt and non-descript pants.

After exchanging a few pleasantries he began talking about WWII and he told me his brother died “not too far from here, killed on American soil by German soldiers.”

He went on to tell me about the incursion of that war into the Aleutian islands, the lonely part of America that thrusts out from Alaska toward Russia. On one of those god-forsaken rockpiles, his younger brother’s life abruptly ended.

Isn’t it interesting that when we know we’ll probably never see a stranger again, we often find a way to say something important? That’s what small talk can lead to.  It’s important  always but it can also lead to”big talk,”where someone reveals their soul and somehow finds solace with a listener.

That conversation was twenty plus years ago.  When the man spoke of his brother, his voice quieted and his words slowed. I could feel the man’s sadness and his sense of loss. There was no detail to his brother’s death because no one knew the circumstances, simply that on a particular day, he was shot to death in combat.

Lifting up a soul can involve healing prayer but can also require simply a readiness to relate to people. We should notice our neighbor more often. We should also listen more carefully. Small talk is great.  It helps smooth out the rough spots of our days. But then, occasionally, there’s “big talk.”  The kind of conversation that people sometimes have with a bartender who offers a listening ear. Taxi drivers who like people (some don’t) and priests are often active listeners. They hear “big talk” more than most people.

I never thought to ask the name of my bench companion, nor did he ask mine.

I’m hopeful that fountain still flows and the single bench is still  there available for small talk, and, sometimes, for big talk. I even wonder how the sparrows are getting along.

Yesterday morning, Cindy, the lady who delivers my grocery order, saw me standing at the door of my house and greeted me eye-to-eye with a “Hi! Howya doin?”  I responded, “I’m fine and how are you getting along?”? “Livin’ the dream!” she said off-handedly as she brought my stuff to the kitchen.

Cindy is a sturdy fifty-something with tired blond hair and an easy  smile that warms me every time I see her and I smile back and thank her as she hurries away to her next delivery.

Cindy was the only person with whom I talked that day. But, I got a blessing out of the deal. I felt someone really saw me, took note of me.

Small talk is essential to getting along in life and part of the daily living to which Jesus has called us. Small talk is one of the ways we pause our purposes and notice someone else, like the simple encounter with Cindy yesterday.

Today, I took a walk and met an old gent with a cane who came shuffling along going the other direction on the sidewalk.  He was a tall man wearing a well-used cap.

“Good morning !” I said when I was a few feet away.  He lifted his head and looked at me as he passed by. His face broke into a grin.”Mornin, nice day!” He said. His voice was surprisingly hefty.

“Yes, it sure is!” I reply.

“Have a good one!” he says as he moves by me.  Four beats to the measure  — just enough to help me sail along with the rest of the day.

These brief encounters and small talk are the day’s salve to the cuts and slings of outrageous fortune. They are fresh air to life’s staleness. Life becomes personal again. It is in those small moments that I am sure that I am not far from the kingdom of God.

We were required to pronounce them in Latin — our religious vows –our promises to God to live as the Savior taught us: “Go sell what you have, give the money to the poor and then come and follow me.”

I have always found Latin a comfortable language to dwell in. Some of it sounds like English and because the Mass of my youth was conducted in Latin, I still think of it as somehow mysterious and holy.

We were eighteen years old, dressed in black cassocks and thought we knew what we were doing as we pronounced our vows according to custom in the Congregation of the Resurrection.

Did I, a young man, understand chastity? No girls, I thought. And, further, no marriage.  And, further, no children. I add now: no grandchildren. And, Poverty?  I thought it meant we shouldn’t have money or spend it. Obedience sounded heroic to me so I wanted to be obedient.

There were seven of us kneeling in front of the seminary altar with our families and friends behind us in the nave of the church. A life-sized statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus looked down at us with open arms. The gold-leaved altar sparkled and was beautifully decorated with red roses. The seminary choir was chanting solemnly in Latin. In front of me, attired in silver trimmed white-satin vestments stood the provincial, a sturdy, stout, authority with a gentle manner.

“Ego, Geraldus Watt in consepctu Dei Omnipotenti, voveo Deo ad anum: paupertatem, castitatem et obedientiam….”

I got through the Latin OK. But, the boy next to me popped  a “caritatem” instead of “castitatem,”substituting an “r” for an “s,” thereby, promising to love everyone but sneakily avoiding the promise to be chaste.

In a nutshell, that morning I thought the vows meant no bank account or pocket money to spend on my relationships and no freedom to go anywhere of my choice.

I wanted to live with the challenge that Our Lord held out to me that morning.  I wanted to follow Him and give Him my will and my life. I wanted to serve the people of God as a Catholic priest and as a Resurrectionist.

What has been my experience these many years of living the vows? My life has not been my own. I am responsible to my brothers in  religious community, a religious community which keeps me at work and solvent. The people I serve trust me to be chaste, though, at my age, they are not too worried about that vow.

My vows let me be free of other responsibilities so that I can preach the Gospel, the principle ministry of the priesthood — its essence– according to St. John Paul II.  I  love to try to live them every day.

This morning, I kept thinking of the slip of the tongue that caused my friend and brother to vow caritas.  Caritas doesn’t mean “charity.’  It means “love” with all its grace and power as Jesus taught us when he said: “Love one another as I have loved you. By this will everyone know that you are my brethren: if you love one another.” (Jn 13:34)

I’m remembering that a life lived in love is what we vowed back those many years ago.  I think my brother in Christ inadvertently got it right.

Christmas! Long anticipated. Closer. Near. Here. Gone.

We Catholics should sue. Business and profiteering have swamped Our Lord’s birthday, or, rather, absconded with it and substituted it with a season of greed.

I think, however, that the Christmas steal by business might be a good thing.  Reindeer, Santa,  pine trees, toys,  mistletoe, snowfall with its sledding, buying presents, receiving them, these things are now  simply “The Joyous Season.” Business has taken the word “Christmas,” and changed it’s meaning. That’s true, but business is  stuck with two very Christian words right in the name: “Christ” and “Mass.” So we Christians get the last laugh.

We know that Christmas is all about the birth of  Christ: Jesus who is both God and man. It’s all about His Mass, the sacrifice of His life for us and the offering of Himself as Christmas food for our lives.

Thank God that there was an innkeeper who finally gave Mary and Joseph lodging.  The couple had been knocking on doors looking for a safe place to rest, a place where the young woman could give birth.  They had been knocking at doors and kept hearing the same refrain:  ‘No room here! Try further up the road!” The first business to reject Christ was the the lodging industry.

Be sure to answer the knock when Our Lord is trying to contact you. If you hear the knock–or, even some rustling at the door of your heart, open up! Let Him in, before He’s gone.

The sea is so vast and my beach is so small.

The idea of taking a cruise never appealed to me until I reluctantly boarded one because of a friend’s insistence. This was many years ago. To my surprise, I found out that I like cruising. It is so relaxing. I had time to read and leisure to meet interesting people on my morning jogs (yes, in those days!) on deck six. The food was appealing and the evening shows were entertaining.

I’ve taken several cruises since then, some with friends and sometimes alone.

What I enjoy most are mornings at sea. I sit out on my balcony and pray, wonder, muse, even dream. Amazingly, out there on my private perch, there is a kind of epic silence, probably made more-so by the vastness and spread of the sea as the sun lifts its head above the horizon.

On my most recent cruise, I was out on my balcony praying the Morning Prayer of the Church. We were hundreds of miles out at sea and the horizon was a bold straight line far away. Above it was a faded blue sky of cirrus clouds with the morning sun reflecting off the endless tiny waves. Nothing more. No land, no birds, nothing but the gentle rippling sea as we sailed along. And then — there it was. I had to blink to make sure of what I was seeing. Floating by our ship, about forty feet away was a white globe bobbing alone on the dark sea, lit up by the morning sun.

What captured my attention as it floated past my perch was its roundness that clashed with the drifting sea. It was an intensely white sphere, about the size of a beach ball or maybe, a volleyball whitened by the action of the sun and  sea. The morning sun  made it shine out there. 

All identification –original color, brand name — gone. Whatever color the ball had been was now bleached out. 

The ball was perfectly round and white, gently bobbing and rolling by me and, then, –it was gone.

 I immediately thought of “WIlson” from Tom Hanks movie, “Cast Away.” Chuck, a UPS executive survives a company plane’s crash into the sea. He is the lone survivor on a tiny, remote island.  Some packages, also washed up on the island’s  beach. When Chuck opens one of them he finds a brand-new white Wilson volleyball.

Later, when Chuck accidentally cuts his hand and grabs the ball, a bloody impression  is left on it.  The blood stained ball resembles a face and over the years Chuck talks to it — his friend for four years.

One day Wilson floated away. Chuck’s only friend pulled away from his flailing arms.

That ball that I watched float by my ship could have  been any friend who drifts away before we realize what’s happening. Something we said (or neglected to say) drove our Wilson away or our friend drifted away because of lack of vigilance. My friend who loved cruises and insisted that I go with him on one has long ago faded away from my circle of friends and I’m not sure he is still with us. 

Wilson sitting on the beach before he drifted away.

I wonder if anyone else saw or will see that ball somewhere out there on the waters.

But I saw it and it brought back to me the memory of my friend.