CHRISTIAN/DIGNITY
Part of a places character is the characters that make up the place. Christian is one of those characters. The group finally had the chance to experience him Sunday night at mass.
He made his appearance sometime during the opening song of mass. All of a sudden there was a 16 year old standing in front of the choir.
He was waving his arms madly.
He was exhorting them to sing louder with more feeling.
He was telling them when to start and stop.
He look more like he was dancing than singing, as if the choir was taking there cue on how to sing simply from his emotional state and his dance.
After mass he is quick to ask how you liked the music. When you tell him you loved it he wells with pride.
There is just one thing. Christian is not associated with the choir in any way (other than these impromptu performances he does at mass). He just stands in front of them and does his thing.
If this were my choir it would drive me crazy! It is obvious does frustrate the actual choir director. It also gets under Fr. Jack’s skin.
But they let it happen.
The best I can tell is because they understand dignity. They meet Christian where he is. He is completely harmless (even when he is frustrating). He feels like he is part of the community. He feels like he belongs.
Which is good, because if we are doing this church/family thing right, he does belong.
We just forget sometimes.
LET’S DO COFFEE OR GO TO PERU
It made me smile every time it happened. We would be at the parish and we would meet someone new. They would ask where we are from and we would list the 8 locations we were from. They would ask how we know each other.
There would be this pause and then someone would just point at me.
The group was as random as can be. Simply people who I had colleted over the last nine months.
There were people in the group who I had know a lifetime (other who felt like a lifetime) while others I had known all of 45 minutes before asking them to join us.
One of the highlights of the whole experience was reconnecting with a college friend. The first Wednesday of December we had connected through facebook. By Thursday morning she had a plane ticket booked.
The best part about it was the 5 years we had not talked didn’t exist. It was just like we were sitting in the Spellman lounge giving each other a hard time.

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