Rita, Warren, and Kyle
On Christmas Eve I walked over to the nearest church in Denver. I was visiting my in-laws and their house happens to be close by. Now… I’m a nominal Catholic. (Sanphillippo.) By “nominal” I mean non-practicing and seriously lapsed. I’m not a religious person at all. I just can’t bring myself to believe the things that I’d be required to believe in order to be a proper member of a parish. But I do like churches and I’m often fond of select communities of faith. It’s the collective mindset and pragmatic problem solving I’m attracted to.
I’ve attended more Passover seders than Easter dinners in my life and enjoyed a few Ramadan iftars. As an outsider I find the three Abrahamic faiths more alike than different. Kosher and Halal are pretty much the same. Lent is rather like fasting at Ramada - and these traditions tend to coincide with the lean period in spring when last year’s harvest is depleted, but summer’s bounty hasn’t arrived yet. My Sicilian grandmother wore black and kept her head covered at church and looked a lot like the muslim women I saw in Istanbul and Dubai. The holy texts are all drawn from the same landscape and historical events. So I scratch my head at why they’re always at odds with each other. And the sub categories within specific faiths like the Protestant /Catholic rift, the Sunni / Shia clash, and the tension between Haredi Jews and mainstream Judaism are even more perplexing. But I digress…
Just before leaving San Francisco for my visit to Denver I attended a funeral for my friend Rita. She was young and fell to cancer leaving behind her ten year old son. The complicating factor of this already tragic situation is that three years earlier I had been to her husband Warren’s funeral. Warren had succumb to disease early in his life leaving behind Rita and their son Kyle. Warren had no surviving family and the only blood relations on Rita’s side were all overseas trapped in multiple bureaucratic processes that kept them out of the country. Rita was dying and alone with a ten year old to look after and all the usual economic struggles.
Rita was devout and took her Catholic faith seriously. The people at her church (not necessarily the church institutions themselves) were there for her in those last months. So were a collection of secular friends and neighbors with a core group from her engineering job. People took turns bringing food, cleaning, and caring for her and Kyle in her last days. It’s these informal personal connections that served her and continue to serve her son in ways stressed official systems either can’t or won’t. “Press one for the next available representative. Your call is important to us. Please hold.”
As I stood in that church in Denver at the tail end of Christmas Mass I thought about the people in my life that I have served in the past, and the people who might be called upon to help me in the future. The church building and the surrounding ceremonies were oddly comforting. Then… I stepped outside. There was an enormous parking lot, the aggressive jostling for space, and the six lane arterial with holiday traffic. It felt like I was outside a Costco. I understand that most people like this way of life and wouldn’t want any other set of arrangements. But for me this kind of environment is soulless and depressing. I feel isolated and alone and I just want to leave as soon as possible. Someday I might find a church that fits, but it won’t be here.
