Paradise Lost

A brief conversation with my oldest daughter (a high school senior) this afternoon has left me with so much churning in my mind that the only way for me to try to make sense of it is to write through it.

She told me about a classmate, a boy she knows not closely, but well enough. He did something stupid last weekend and the consequences are heartbreaking.

I know everyone one has stories from their own high school experience -- or their childrens' experience -- that run parallel to this one: drugs, alcohol, a car accident, a daredevil act, and that child's entire future is dashed in an instant. Gone. Everything worked toward, hoped for, sacrificed for, guided toward...just vanished.

This young man was a class leader -- ranked in the top 10 of a class of about 450 in a high school known for its academic rigor. He was not stupid. He was not unaware. He gambled -- and lost.

He came out of a 3- or 4-day coma yesterday; brain damage is substantial -- his mental skills are at about a six-year-old's level. What a harsh reality to have to adjust to when, less than 10 days ago, this young man had a bright college career just a few months away. My heart breaks for him, for his parents and siblings, his grandparents, aunts, uncles, his teachers...everyone who saw his potential and helped nurture it.

What strikes me after several hours isn't the "he should have known better what risk he was taking" diatribe (although he SHOULD have known better). What I'm wrestling with is the thin line we all walk every day. The moment-by-moment decisions we all make that could be life-altering: Will that car really stop for the red light? Is my child safe at that friend's house? Should I allow her to go on that ski club trip or that tour with the choir?

It's that fine line we all walk between living fearfully and living faithfully. Hearing news of this young man brought that line into focus for me for today. I know risk is an everyday part of life and I've struggled with letting my children pursue opportunities versus "sheltering" them from the unknown...and I have come down solidly on the side of opportunity.

But I'm older and have more life experience to help guide my judgments. Our adolescents face these same moment-by-moment, life-and-death decisions, and too often they aren't adequately prepared to handle them. How could he have taken that drug? How could he NOT have understood the enormous risk? I know, the adolescent mind thinks it's invincible; the frontal lobe isn't fully developed, yadda, yadda. How did we survive as a species for so long?

It also occurred to me that maybe this is the origin of organized religion: parents needing to exchange prayers of hope and consolation for the risks their children faced eons ago. Maybe early religion was a support group for parents dealing with their fears and hopes, risks and opportunities.

Funny how something like this throws my emotional state back to such a primal level. But maybe that's the point: At the root of everything, as parents all we want is for our children to survive and be healthy and fulfill something close to their potential. Make the Varsity team? It really doesn't matter: you're healthy and whole and still able to strive. Lots of scholarship offers from colleges? It's OK...you're smart and have all the essential tools you need to find the path to your vocation.

Let's stop worrying about adding one more point to those ACT scores or getting you behind the wheel of an SUV before you're 18 or buying that Coach purse for your next birthday. Let's start focusing more on the fundamentals: I love you, I believe in you, I trust that you are learning to make solid decisions -- and in the meantime, I'm here anytime you need support or advice... or a good butt-kicking. Because I understand the peril you're in better than you do, and it's my job to protect you -- from yourself.

Time travel

I've been on something of a cleaning binge since the new year began, and I like it -- not necessarily the process of cleaning, but having a clean house, relatively de-cluttered, dusted and not too much dog hair.

Today, in the process of cleaning and minor furniture moving, I opened my cedar chest for the first time in at least a year. It's a nice cedar chest; I 've owned it for probably 20 years and use it to keep some precious baby clothes, a quilt that will be handed down to my daughter, a Christmas quilt my sister made and a few other odds and ends. I had forgotten that somewhere along the way, I'd tossed an old briefcase in there. I had to open it to remember what I'd stashed inside.

Sure enough, there were several of my old journals. Now, I've been journaling since junior high so I've had time to amass a pretty impressive collection. I looked through a few pages of the journal I was required to keep for 9th grade English, and found a note from my teacher that was quite touching: "I want to hear from you in the future...it matters to me what happens to you. Is is silly for a teacher to feel that way?" Mrs. Corn was her name, and all afternoon I've been wondering if she's still alive. But even if she isn't, her words touched me, and made me wonder: how many of my daughters' teachers would be brave enough to write something so emotional and honest to either of them in this day and age? The power of the pen to reach across years, maybe even through death, and spark an emotion -- gratitude, amazement, admiration -- still stuns me.

Then I opened another journal, and had to shut my bedroom door for a few minutes to be alone. Reading several passages from 11 years ago brought memories flooding back. Not that they've ever faded entirely -- I doubt that will ever happen. But the detail is what struck me today: How my ex's outbursts affected me every day, practially every waking hour. How his moods affected my mood and my ability to be a good mom. How I braced for the really bad ones days in advance, how I developed a shorthand for the things going on: "a big outburst about the usual," or "he drove it off."

I was struck by the tightness of my handwriting, how it looked small and closed and cautious, as if it was trying to be secretive on the page. A few pages later, there was an entry from a time when he was traveling for work, gone for four days -- and my handwriting loosened, became freer. I was surprised at the anger I expressed at the joy and energy he drained from me -- but then remembered that setting aside that anger was a conscious decision I had to make after it was all over to keep from becoming the same as he was (maybe still is).

I didn't have the time or the privacy to go through those notebooks for as long as I'd have liked, so maybe some evening or some cold, cloudy Sunday when the girls are occupied or out of the house I'll pull them out and do a little time travel to see what I can glean from the pain I poured onto those pages during that horrific time. And maybe I'll pull out the journals from happier, less complicated times as well. But for now, they'll stay in the cedar chest, under lock and key. And I'm not telling where the key is.

Lost

I was raised Catholic. In fact, during junior and senior high school, I was heavily involved in many church activities, including a youth group that did community service and planned a mass each week as well as two music groups. There was one neighbor who, I think, was truly surprised when I married after college instead of going into a convent.

Over the past 8 or 9 years, I've struggled with the role of organized religion in my life. I've felt abandoned by the institution of The Church, and yet retained my belief in the need for a relationship with a higher power (0r God, or The Divine, or whatever -- the name seems irrelvant at this point). I've shaken my head in sorrow as I've read articles about edicts from the Pope: that pedophile priests are "better" than homosexuals or divorcees because, at least, they're repentant. About the fact that gays and lesbians are "unfit" to minister to the needs of a parish. About how birth control is a threat to the family.

If my local parish had merely been an echo of the Vatican, stopping attendance would have been easy. But one reason I struggled with leaving the church was the pastor of the parish I attended: Father Mike Tegeder. More than once, his sermons and his clear disagreement with "official" church doctrine amazed me.

I remember two instances in particular. First was an incredibly emotional sermon he delivered after the murder of Matthew Shepard, the young gay man in Wyoming. He spoke about fear and hate and tolerance and what Christ would have done. He cried shamelessly in front of the entire congregation as he tried to express his sorrow, frustration and anger, his hope for change, and called for compassion for ALL people.

Another sermon I recall was during the annual appeal for parishoners' time and talent (and of course, money). The local bishop had issued a statement trying to justify the church's rationale for limiting the role of women in the liturgy (ie, trying to explain why women can't be deaconesses). Fr. Mike opposed that statement -- politely and respectfully, of course -- but clearly, saying that the church really couldn't afford to refuse anyone's gifts regardless of gender, income, age, orientation or any other label. During the years I attended his church, Fr. Mike embodied the dictionary definition of the word "catholic," in my opinion, as well as other words like "courageous," "moral" and "strong." In fact, I've wondered more than once if his outspokeness might not cost him his post at the parish.

So I was heartened this morning to read an op-ed piece with his name and title, showing that he is still the pastor at St. Ed's. He hasn't lost his job, and he's still speaking out very publicly when he feels his church has gone astray. And clearly, right now, he feels it has.

Apparently here in Minnesota, the bishops have deemed it necessary to join forces with other "religious" organizations (I use quotes because I don't believe these groups have the slightest grounding in moral or religious teachings) to organize a postcard campaign to state legislators to force a constitutional amendment onto the November ballot to "protect" marriage by defining it as only a bond between a man and a woman. Fr. Mike did a masterful job of pointing out the hypocrisy of the bishops' viewpoint: if same-sex marriage is such a threat to the institution, then are they also going to push for amendments to restrict artificial birth control and divorce? As Fr. Mike pointed out, these two issues are far more threatening, by virtue of their pervasiveness and general societal acceptance, than the same-sex marriage issue. So to be consistent, it really should be all or nothing, right?

Right. They know full well that there's too much money to be lost if the bishops take a stand like that. After all, if families have 5 or 9 or 12 children and only one income, where do you suppose the money will go ? Groceries and shoes and saving for college tuition, or to the church? The truth hurts. (Or it will set you free, depending on your perspective, I suppose.)

Once again, Fr. Mike speaks out as someone who "gets" Christianity more completely than the so-called religious leaders; as someone who listens to the teachings of Jesus and actually tries to live them. Don't get me wrong: the man doesn't walk on water, I'm sure. He'd probably be the last one to claim such a thing. But I admire the fact that he has the courage of his convictions and speaks to the powers that be for a host of us who no longer care enough to get involved. God bless him for that.

I can't help but think that if there were a lot more Fr. Mikes in the world, I might still be able to be a Catholic.