We won't leave a light on for you: some closing thoughts on how churches create community.THE FIRST TIME I WALKED INTO A CATHOLIC CHURCH was not for a Mass--I wasn't Catholic. I was there because in June 1985 the small Catholic church in my town opened its doors and its heart to a community that had no other place to come together in its shock and desire to escape from the glare of the national press. Bob was on the hijacked plane. The world news event was also a small town's story. On the last day of school, after getting her report card, a girl in my stepdaughter's class returned home and found out her father was on TWA TWA Time-weighted average, see there flight 847 from Athens to Rome. Our quiet New England town The New England town is the basic unit of local government in each of the six New England states. An institution that does not have a direct counterpart in most other U.S. states, New England towns are conceptually similar to civil townships in that they were originally set up so , with its sheep farm and computer company executives, had one of its own oil the plane. The news reports included interviews with the tight-faced wife, who looked like all the other neighbors I saw each week at the supermarket. The hijackers took the people with "Jewish sounding names" from the plane. Her husband disappeared with the separated ones into the streets of Beirut. Ironically enough, the problem in a small town is communications. How do you gather people together? Something this big is too much for the soccer mom soccer mom n. An American mother living in the suburbs whose time is often spent transporting her children from one athletic activity or event to another. telephone tree. The local newspaper is a biweekly, and this was the off-week. As my husband, Felix, drove me to the commuter train station the next day, we discovered the answer--a sign announcing, "Ecumenical prayer service for the release of the hostages, Friday 8 p.m., St. Isidore's Church." That's how this town called its folks together--a hand-painted sign leaning on a historical marker In the United States, a historical marker is a plaque erected at historically significant locations, facilities, or buildings. These markers are usually near roads driven by vehicles, and their presence is often indicated by traffic signs. at the town's only intersection. The sight of yellow ribbons tied around every tree lining Route 117 made me blink back tears as I drove to the service: frail bands of hope and love. The national media kept their cameras at the back of the church in the choir loft. The family entered together, as if in a funeral, sitting in the front pew after we had all taken our seats. The service was brief, There were a few hymns, a few readings, and a few prayers for the hostages--for their release, for a peaceful resolution without retaliation RETALIATION. The act by which a nation or individual treats another in the same manner that the latter has treated them. For example, if a nation should lay a very heavy tariff on American goods, the United States would be justified in return in laying heavy duties on the manufactures and , prayers "for our leaders who are confused and lost." Bob's wife spoke at the end. "Bob would be amazed a·maze v. a·mazed, a·maz·ing, a·maz·es v.tr. 1. To affect with great wonder; astonish. See Synonyms at surprise. 2. Obsolete To bewilder; perplex. v.intr. to see so many people here praying for him. Please keep praying for him. Me, too. I need your prayers, too." We sang "Let There Be Peace on Earth," and the family filed out with the glazed, heavy masks of shock you see on families at unexpected funerals. Most of us were crying. Although it didn't seem appropriate for me, not being family or friend, I cried throughout the service. For that hour, in that place, it was "us," not "them," not "me." I slipped out past the cameras filming us for the evening news as if we were strangers instead of neighbors locked around a single heart. I didn't know a Catholic church could be a place of community. I was a free soul. Nobody told me where to go or what to do, or where the sacrament-dispensing machine was. "Did they convert you?" my husband asked when I returned home. No. Were they supposed to? Was I not worth the trouble? Did I have the wrong attitude? I didn't go looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. conversion. I went looking for a community. Were they the same thing? IT IS NEARLY 20 YEARS LATER, AND NOTHING IS THE SAME, not for the church I converted to, nor for the small Catholic church that lifted our spirits and opened its doors to a sharing community, if only for one lonely, awful night. Earlier this year, when the Archdiocese of Boston made its announcements of church closings, I had to dig deep into the Internet to find the hit list. I had to know. Although we were now separated by time and space, that church continued to link me to a grieving community. There it was, little St. Isidore's Church, the victim of a numbers game that subjected the heart of the church to a kind of TV show ratings system. St. Isidore's: 258th out of 357 parishes in parishioner attendance, 328th in sacraments administered. They never had a chance. The ratings were logical. But the damage to the big heart of a little community in Stow, Massachusetts Stow is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 5,902 at the 2000 census. History Stow was first settled in 1663, a disputed date, by Matthew Boon and John Kettell. can never be measured. By CAROL BONOMO, a lobbyist, speechwriter speech·writ·er n. One who writes speeches for others, especially as a profession. speech  writ , and Benedictine oblate ob·late 1 adj. 1. Having the shape of a spheroid generated by rotating an ellipse about its shorter axis. 2. in California. She is the author of Humble Pie humble pie n. A pie formerly made from the edible organs of a deer or hog. Idiom: eat humble pie To be forced to apologize abjectly or admit one's faults in humiliating circumstances. (Morehouse, 2004). |
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