Lack of Understanding

Perhaps a Candidate starts off naïve and faces a long journey to understanding. The honey days come to an end and the real work begins with a series of jolts, like a car breaking down on the highway. One is left standing in the middle of the wilderness with nothing but wits and a long coat, and a rough trail leading away to who knows where. That’s something like how it feels today.


Friday, June 11: Our thirty-fourth wedding anniversary begins on our last day at work for the 2009-2010 school year. Chaotic is a good word. We only work half a day and then we leave, rather in a hurry, without really saying goodbye to people as is our tradition. This year JoAnne was notified that her duty would be cut in half for the coming school year. After fifteen years she will be forced to work part-time, and surrender her company benefits. We make the ride home in shock, but we saw it coming.
     Besides, today we have made plans. Knowing our situation, our daughter gave us a gift of money so that we could celebrate, which we do by attending a baseball game on a truly fine night. During the game while television cameras scour the stands for couples in love, JoAnne gives me a kiss that erases the years. We are, for a moment, back at the beginning starting out all over again, the two of us and God. It was some kiss…


     Saturday, June 12: After doing chores we leave to Saint Mary’s to meet our Fraternity. We want to set up the dining hall for a celebration tomorrow. Four Candidates are making their profession at the 9:00 a.m. mass, and we’ll have a nice brunch afterwards, complements of the Parish Life Committee. There are clouds in the sky and the weather is soft, on the edge of rain. It reminds me so much of San Diego that I sneak away from my chores to stand in the parking lot catching raindrops with my face. While I’m thus occupied, a homeless man wanders over to rummage through the garbage can. He finds a bag of tortilla chips somebody threw away and takes them. A minute later he has made his way around the fence that separated us.
     “Can you help me out?” he asks. “Could I get a sandwich or something…?”
     He’s looking at the entrance to the church basement where the ladies in the kitchen are preparing tomorrow’s banquet.
     “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “We don’t give food here anymore…”
    It’s a sad situation. After seven years of providing sandwiches to the homeless, Saint Mary’s cut orders to disband the ministry. It had gotten too popular. As the economy grew worse, more homeless people were coming. They were setting up camps in the parish plaza, unrolling sleeping bags on the steps and blocking the church entrance. As parishioners came and went, they would ask for money and food. Since several groups meet in the evenings, a lot of people were feeling alarmed, walking along the dimly lit sidewalks and paths. Meanwhile, the squatters were bringing beer and liquer to their night camps, organizing parties, dumping trash and using the gardens and buildings for outdoor bathrooms. One could smell the remains coming into church in the morning.
     Our Diocese has a policy that persons seeking assistance should be referred to the Saint Vincent de Paul center downtown where they can find food, shelter, counseling, clothing and hygiene supplies. It is well-organized and well run, providing trained social workers and funded by donations from all the parishes. But even among the homeless, not everyone wants to spend time in that part of town, especially after dark. Saint Mary’s decided that the food program must end. And so I stood in the parking lot, blessed by God’s gift of rain in June, watching the homeless man walk away hungry while another across the street shouted curses at the top of his lung—toward villains only he could see…
     Later that evening our daughter called asking to come over and talk. We met in the family room where she told us that her boyfriend’s mother just got thrown out of her apartment by another son. When she called the police for help gathering her belongings they told her that since the apartment lease was in the son’s name, they could do nothing to help her. Do nothing. The words stuck in my head. Then Ann asked us if we could find a spare a bed for the woman until she found a new place to live…
     We said no. We’ve been down this road several times and came to the conclusion that our small home is unsuitable for sheltering the homeless. It’s not my call alone, because I live in a community, small as we are, and not everyone sees things the way I do. I am also responsible for their health and safety, and though I fail at the job often, I haven’t got the right to increase their stress just to satisfy my ego. Over and over I thought about the woman, how she now had to go find a motel, and how my daughter, who had only a day before given me money to celebrate with, would have to spend even more money for the room. Now the log that jammed in my head was drifting down to stick in my heart. I felt helpless.
     But I am never helpless, even in the face of my own weakness or cowardice. I went into our chapel to pray. I took up my Rosary, which Mary once showed me can work like a sword, cutting through the gloom and illusions to let God’s like flow in. I took it in both hands and prayed like a warrior, surrounding myself with the strongest Saints and Angels I know. And I gave them instructions to fly to that hurting family and help them with the things they most needed: faith, peace and understanding. I prayed with conviction and faith—as best as I could muster. And when I prayed I felt power go out from me. I don’t need to know the result. I was praying as much for my confusion and inaction as for them. I was praying for God’s help.

     Sunday, June 13. A lovely day. We get up early and do our simple chores. We’ve excused ourselves from ministering at Our Lady’s in order to attend the celebration at Saint Mary’s. We got there an hour early and helped where we could with final preparations for the banquet, but they are well organized. They have the Parish Life Committee who are all devoted to having monthly events and celebrations in order for parishioners to develop relationships beyond just attending Mass. In these economic times, I’ve already seen fruit of fellowship and compassion growing. So in a good frame of mind, I lose myself in the joy of witnessing people like us making their promise “to imitate the example of Saint Francis by living the gospel…” It’s a worthy hope.
     Saint Mary’s Basillica is downtown, in the heart of Phoenix, and so it is a mixed population of cultures and economics. At Mass today one old man, not entirely “there”, prays his own prayers loudly and has to be asked not to play with a lighter in the old wood church. After Mass he takes his two bags of personal belongings and flows outside with the rest of the congregation.
     We all move down to the basement social hall, which is beautifully decorated and fragrant with the aromas of coffee and banquet food. The hall fills and all the tables are taken. I flit like a hummingbird from table to table, determined to move out of my comfort zone and introduce myself to as many strangers as I can, to grow in Franciscan hospitality. Deep in my heart, I know I don’t want to go down the path of apathy and hope that my two experiences yesterday do not extend to a third.
     Then a man stands behind me.
     “Excuse me,” he says, “Can anybody here help me with bus fare?”
     My hand flies to my pocket. There is still something left of the gift-money from Friday. We are still celebrating the wonder and joy of our sacrament. I pull out the money. I know the bus is more than a dollar, so I give him the larger bill, glad to let him have the extra. It was gift to me; I can share the gift with him.
     But suddenly there are many people on their feet.
     “You can’t be in here,” someone is saying. Two or three people surround the old man.
     “He’s been here before,” someone says. “He knows our rules.”
     “You can’t give them money,” someone else is telling me. Another face, “It isn’t permitted.”
     Then, one of the Team Members sits beside me.
     “You have to understand why we don’t allow it…” he says, trying to be kind. I stand up. I have to escape. Something is hurting. I suddenly don’t feel very good. I wander among the tables looking for friendly places, for eyes that didn’t see what I had just done, the offense I had just committed. Finally I find my Spiritual Companion and sit beside her.
     “Please tell me,” I beg. “Tell me my mistake…”
     She thinks it over for a moment.
     “Here’s how it works. It’s like, if a man asks you for money to buy food, you don’t know if he’s going to really buy food. You have to be willing to go with him to a restaurant, sit down and order him something. Then you can pay for it…”
     “Yeah,” I thought. “Like that’s going to happen…”


     I grew angry as the day wore on, and I was glad when JoAnne said it was time to go. I wasn’t in a party mood anymore, and I wasn’t sure about the Franciscans. I know that Francis gave everything, even his clothes, to possess a heart of mercy. I also know that in the rule he gave us we are to honor the clergy and the authority of our Church. So when they say “don’t feed the hungry here” they probably have good reasons. But I don’t understand the reasons. And I don’t know why, later that day when JoAnne goes to visit a friend, I hide in the bathroom and cry.
     I’m too soft for this work. If I ever earn some money, I’ll have to find someone who does it right, and give the money to them…


     Monday, June 14. Walking carefully, trying not to trample the good feelings of our anniversary. We slide slowly into the routine of our summer layoff. JoAnne is researching retirement options: how much she can get from the federal government, how much from the state; how much she can earn working part-time before they say she is earning too much to be “retired”. As promised, I am taking the first, cool our of our summer days to work on the yard, which fell way behind during the school year. I also read where a man say that the principle of compounding works just as well with chores and goals as it does with money. A little bit invested regularly adds up to big accomplishments.
     We don’t know what the next few weeks are really going to be like. We know that we want to continue with our Franciscan training and we both believe the honey days are over. I don’t know what my job will be like next year, though they told me on Friday they would like to have me come back. The details will have to follow in the mail as they figure out their budget. That’s the way public education works in Arizona. Meanwhile I am studying leadership and I intend to use the principle of compounding to make things happen for us, especially to make some money so that I have something to share with the poor. God will show me how and where even when to share it. It’s not the amount or even the money; God just wants to know that we are willing. And it isn’t just money he gives us, but love, talent, skill, knowledge, joy, hope, faith, shelter, food… We are the lamps he lights in the world so that others can find their way. At least one man writes that to succeed we must “…act before you are ready; you must give while your hands are still empty. Then you will see the real miracle called abundance…”


     I just wish God had something sticky to fill my heart. When it broke yesterday, everything fell out. I guess he wants us to carry that emptiness, a small splinter of his Cross…