179/365 In this house of God

Any table of virgin fir, any maple chair, any oak floor is a bundle of stories. At a lull in the conversation, move your napkin aside. There are centuries under one hand's span, and the timbre of a long, spirited life for the rap of a knuckle. --Kim R. Stafford

Living in one house for a long time brings this passage to life for me as I read it this morning. And then upon further reflection, I thought about our parish church, which, as a building, is nearing a century. And I thought about the feet that have walked on the floor of our church. How many babies' steps are being retraced by Leo's fast little feet as I try to keep him tamed down in the back during mass? How many brides, how many people looking for something--physical or spiritual--that they hoped to find inside our doors? How many whispered conversations in the vestibules about unimportant and serious topics?

I think about one I had in the front vestibule back when I was teaching at the school. Music practice for mass the next day. Something about music practice is so punishing. Making kids sing twice what they don't want to sing once. It just isn't the way to instill a love of Catholicism, in my mind. Especially when half the school isn't Catholic. I never understood why school masses had to be Cecil B. DeMille productions anyway. Why couldn't they be like my high school daily chapel mass? Short, painless, a small thoughtful homily tailored to the audience, and back to school. If I ran the zoo, right?

JD was over the chicken pox, I remember, it was March and Lent and minor chords and all that. And he was sitting there in the 6th grade section, under my annoyed but watchful eye, and pretending he wasn't crying. Sixth grade boys crying is different from first grade boys crying--part of the reason why I liked middle school was I wasn't going to hurt anyone's feelings anymore. Will scooted over to me and pointed this out--his family had kind of taken JD under their wing--and I escorted JD out to that vestibule.

He tells me that he's scared to go home because, now that the chicken pox is over, mom's taking them back home to her husband. He tells me that he's scared, that he doesn't want to go. We've heard this before about his home life; we've started a file. The bureaucracy of child abuse intervention is literally adding insult to injury.

"Do you want to talk with Vera on Monday?" I ask him, thinking of the much better equipped school counselor. But it's Friday, she's left for the day, and he's going home for a long weekend. He tells me that last summer, Barry decided he'd had enough back-talk from him and he took him out to a construction site and beat him until he couldn't get up. "And he had this pipe," he starts, but stops. It takes me a moment to realize he isn't talking about some sort of professorial accessory, but about cold copper plumbing.

"And when I told mom," he says through angry tears, "she told me we were lucky Barry stuck around, that we needed a man."

I stand there, the two of us backed up against the Sacred Heart statue, and I recklessly make promises to him--I often speak before I make my plan, and this was one of the most potentially tragic promises I have ever made--"Nobody needs a man like that," I say, the frustration and anger just about to spill over into my own words. "We'll take care of it, me and Vera."

We did--that's another story for another day. But sometimes when I stand in the Utah Vestibule, where the Sacred Heart statue used to be stored before it was returned to a place where folks, well, could see it, I think about JD. I wonder where he is now. I wonder, self-centeredly, if he ever thinks about me. I wonder what I'd say to him if I ran into him now. It's a nice thought that stability means I'm right here, hidden in plain sight. If he wants to find me, he will.

For now I pace the floor in the back of church and look up at the angel faces looking down upon us. And think of what they've seen.