Office of Communications > Weekly Reflection > Feb. 15, 2008

Raised in a church and its traditions, she started her family along a similar path.  Later, though, when her marriage went south, her practice followed.  She kept the kids in class and made the Sunday obligation, but the scarlet D took its toll.  There were whispers, exclusions, and the suggestion that she was not worthy of the table.

She stayed away in anger and found comfort in her home.  The Sunday ritual changed.  The opening hymn was when they awoke and the headlines drove the sermon.  The kids enjoyed the expanded fare.  Opting out was easier than the pain and shame of remaining in and no one came knocking to bring her back.

She tried again from time to time, but what was once certain no longer convinced.  She couldn’t buy the story, feel the faith, or find the God.  She made a clean break, a full profession of disbelief.  She shelved her bible like a yearbook and went back to work on the world.

No afterlife on her horizon, she serves the dying, promising a dignity to their dwindling days.  She believes the earth we walk and the other we hold must be cherished as all we have.  This is it, but we have the capacity to be moved by another’s suffering, to empathize with another’s needs.  Without the aid of creed or rite, she tries to make meaning in life with the tools of justice and love.

I’m not where she is.  I keep finding little clues that lead to a different conclusion.  I don’t know that I could drink the Kool-Aid, but God’s still real and I still need the discipline and challenge of a community of believers.  But I can learn from the courage she needs to go it alone; her desire to make the most of a life with no second chance; her search for immortality by improving the world and touching the hearts where she will live on in memory.

The only problem is the irony.  I believe that the God she doesn’t believe in brought us together for dinner.