kids

Gabe’s Twisted Sense of Humor

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

We’re at Bren’s baseball game, with our backs to the high-school girls’ softball team. Behind us: PING!, then “Heads up!” A fluorescent yellow softball rockets over the backstop behind us, over our heads, and slams into the fence around the ball field in front of us.

“Wow!” I say.

“They shouldn’t say, ‘Heads up,'” says Gabe, “because if you stick your head up …” — and he extends his neck as high as it will go — “… you have a better chance of getting hit by the ball.”

I smile and nod. “Maybe they should say, ‘Duck and cover!'” I suggest.

“Yeah,” says Gabe, “and then it’s like you grab a little kid to duck under!” … and he laughs and laughs.

Wish Flowers

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We were walking the sidewalk along Selby Avenue toward Dark Raven Studios, where the older kids practice tai chi. Here and there, a tree grew along the walk, skirted in weeds and dust. In the center of the street a crow pecked crumbs from discarded cellophane, hopping first to one side, then to the other, as the occasional car passed.

I snuffed a breath through my stuffy nose and grumbled inarticulately. Only the crow seemed to hear, and flapped to a nearby lamppost.

Then Trevor said, “I know why there are so many wish flowers today.”

Wish flowers? I thought. I looked at our youngest. He was gazing at a clump of ragged dandelions, which had shed their jaunty yellow caps to bare their graying heads to the breeze

“There are lots of wish flower because last week there were lots of dandelions!” he said, pointing to the balding stems.

Today a weed; tomorrow a wish. So much I’ve forgotten about wonder. So much to learn.

Trevor’s Ambitions

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We spoke to Trevor last night about his ambitions — we had friends over, and they were asking the kids what they aspire to be when they grow up. Trevor said he wants to be an “army man, a police officer, a cowboy,” or (and here he smiled a little, shy smile, like he was showing us a glimpse of his soul) a “hobo swordsman.”

We questioned him further. Most questions were met with a small, inscrutable smile. He was infinitely patient with us. Apparently, if you grasp “hobo” and grasp “swordsman,” you’ve pretty much grokked his life plan. He likes trains, likes blades, and true to the hobo spirit, appears little concerned with a roof, or food, or money.

The world doesn’t have enough — or perhaps any! — hobo swordsmen, don’t you think? A story is emerging: Zatoichi-meets-Kwai Chang Caine-meets-The Twilight Samurai: a vagabond dressed in threadbare clothes, with only a sword to his name, riding the rails, righting the wrongs …

I already have the cover of the graphic novel sketched in my mind. I can write; who can draw?

If you haven’t seen The Twilight Samurai, check it out. One of my favorites. More heart and fewer arteries than typical samurai movies.

Trevvy Figures It Out

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Our youngest, Trevor, spent most of his Friday at the home of a friend who is pregnant. Exactly how he knew she was pregnant, I’m not sure, but apparently partway through the day he approached her, sized up her belly, and said, “You got a baby in there.”

“Yes, I do,” she said.

He looked at her belly again. “Sometimes if people eat a lot they look like that, too,” he said.

She laughed. “Yes, I guess they do.”

He hesitated a moment, then said, “Maybe that’s how you get a baby in there!”

Callings, Revisited

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Blogger’s Note: That last post garnered some interesting comments, both on- and off-line. Hope this one does, too.

It occurred to me on my commute this morning that there is one aspect of the priestly vocation versus the married vocation that I failed to explore: The possibility of answering one calling, only to hear another years or even decades later.

I know of at least two former Catholic priests who have chosen to leave the priesthood and get married. To the best of my knowledge, one left the Catholic Church and may now be a Protestant minister; the other is the head of one of the most Catholic families I know back home in Michigan.

I know of precisely zero married men who have chosen to leave their marriage to become priests. In neither case do I know what the “rules” are — how one “undoes” one sacramental vow and undertakes a new one, or even if it’s possible, within the Catholic Church. I suppose one might do it regardless and seek forgiveness in some way, perhaps.

What is of more interest to me is that it is easier for people to imagine a celibate priest discerning a call to marriage later in life than to imagine a married man discerning a call to the celibate life of a priest. The romantic-triangle buddy comedy Keeping the Faith includes a great scene between a young priest, played by Edward Norton, who is contemplating turning his back on his vows over a girl, and an old priest who declares that falling in love every so often is part of the gig — and just like in marriage, you make a choice to stay faithful to your vows. The scene seems funny, wise, and true.

But why not the other way? I can imagine the possibility of years or even decades of celibacy were I to outlive my wife. (Perhaps even celibacy by my own choice …) But another calling now? While I’m here, with this other half of me? It’s unfathomable.

The question becomes, why is it unfathomable for me to imagine falling so in love with the Church that I would want to leave my married vocation, but it’s not unfathomable for me to imagine a priest falling so in love with a woman that he would want to leave the Church? If you knew a man in former situation, would you not think it strange, or even outrageous? But in the latter situation? I suspect most people might be sympathetic.

I wonder if it’s not the case that have we been so immersed in popular understandings of sexuality — especially male sexuality — that continence seems unnatural and celibacy, next to impossible. In such a world, it’s difficult to imagine anyone who had experienced marital intimacy ever choosing celibacy.

But the discussion returns to a question posed in the last post: Would you leave your spouse if a tragic accident made it necessary for you to spend the rest of your days celibate? Would you stay married and cheat?

If you can imagine one, you can imagine the other. And if you can’t imagine a love for God deep enough to forsake all others, perhaps you simply aren’t called.