Christians I have known III

Ray Ventre was a professor of English Literature at Northern Michigan University. I always thought of him as Father Ventre, however, because he had at one time been student at seminary, and came very close to priesthood. What failed him, it seems, was a love a woman, and the belief that the ordinary could be made holy by our reverence of it. He claimed one could, and perhaps should, conduct communion with bananas and coconut milk if that's what one had on hand.

I think it was destined that he and the Catholic church should part ways, at least insofar as vows of obedience were concerned.

Unlike many English professors, Dr. Ventre was not a failed, promising, rising, falling, or would-be author. He was born to teach, and what he loved most in the world, second to his faith, was the written word.

He was a passionate teacher, who would read from Gerard Manley Hopkins, and crisscross the room, waving his arms, daring us to follow him into the heights of sprung rhythm poetry. He introduced us to early feminists, and the emerging American voice twentieth century with wit and joy and an infectious enthusiasm. He loved the 101 classes, precisely because it was a requirement and he had the chance to at least infatuate the most cynical student with the love of the possible.

All of our power, he contended, was contained within our capacity to communicate. And, when he was done with us, our minds awake, most of us would never view language the same way again.

I was in the honors English program, but caught every class of his that I could, even if it wasn't mandated by my curriculum. Even though he was not my adviser, I visited him often, and while I attended school, we were friends.

Until the day I came into his office to tell him I was leaving school.

I was a very good student, but I was very poor. Having no family, I supported myself. Two years after I entered University, Ronald Regan fulfilled his vendetta against higher learning and managed to cut the legs out of the grant and aid programs which supported merit scholars. So, after two hard years, working myself in and out of the hospital from sheer exhaustion, the young man I was dating offered to marry me. We'd leave Michigan, relocate, and I would finish school while he worked as a computer programmer. It was a life raft, and I grabbed it. Now, I happened to love Kevin, but I would have (and did) love anyone who was marginally kind to me.

When I told Dr. Ventre I was leaving school to marry, he thought I was pregnant.

I've known a lot of people who were anti-abortion in my live, but none who walked their talk like Ray Ventre did.

"You need to stay in school," he said. "The world will be missing something if your voice is gone."

I didn't understand. Even then I had a plain spoken, simple writing style. In part because I had been told that the average reader would read at 4th grade level by the time I was / if I was / a professional writer. So I struggled to write about complex things in simple language, the sum greater than the parts. But in the two years I sweated through my program, pushing, and pushing, spending as much as 40 hours on my hardest class - I was not "discovered" by the department. As yet, I didn't have a "voice".

Professor Ventre, who loved poetry almost as much as he loved the bible, pulled an worn, thick volume from his shelf. Without pretension, he opened the book and handed it to me.

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't and danced his did ...

It is and remains one of my favorite poems by ee cummings. I had never read anything like it before.

"He wrote important things with simple language," said Ventre.

You have a voice. Your voice is the beginnings of a new voice. It shouldn't go unheard."

"Um..."

"If you're pregnant, my wife and I would be happy to adopt any baby of yours," he said, to my complete surprise. " Don't get married for the wrong reasons."

"Oh, no" I laughed, "I'm not pregnant."

What I didn't say was "adopt me."

I didn't know how to ask for the kind of help that I needed at the time. A room to sleep in, space to work.

None-the-less, never had a met a christian so willing to live by their values.

He didn't want me to marry for the wrong reasons. And yet he would not encourage me to abort a pregnancy. So he offered his own home to bridge the gap.

I remember he also used to teach in a maximum security prison, in addition to his university duties. There was a riot in the prison that year, and the prisoners got him out, even while they held others hostage.

Sometimes the ability to walk out of a lion's den comes from simple kindness and respect.

Ray Ventre did not profess his faith.

He walked it, much as I can tell, every day of his life.

Christians I have known II

Kathy O'Brien was the resident director of my dorm in college.

I used to visit her, and we'd eat and drink and talk about religion. She was the closest thing to an older sister I've ever had. She and I would sit and tell stories until the wee hours of the morning.
Like most freshman, I was a long way away from home. Unlike most freshman, there was no going back for me - so my faith was something I relied on heavily to make it through from day to day.

In Kathy's company, I found a consistent source of renewal for that faith.

She helped me manage my scholarship and aid package - as I had no one else to advise me. She was there to tell me when it might, or might not be appropriate to ask for help. And she gave no small amount of much needed mothering. She was always there at the worst of times, when doubt set in, and reminded me to appreciate the unexpected miracles that came my way.

Times are never easy, and those years in Michigan were particularly harsh. There was double digit unemployment in the county where I went to school. I was working as a waitress, an art model, and a library clerk at the time. I was trying to be self sufficient, but spent a fair amount of time feeling sorry for myself, given the uphill battle I faced and the circumstances I had come from.

Kathy lived by the conviction that human life has meaning, value, and no matter how many false starts we may have - each of us had the opportunity to walk in the master's footsteps. Each in our own way, each of service by our own definition, each able to return to our creator and say we had not wasted the gift of our life.

Not quite so sure of myself, I clung to my optimism like a life raft. Kathy understood that, and when she could, she buoyed that faith so that it would carry me a little bit farther. But she wasn't content to leave me in a state of arrested adolescence.

She once told me a story about a priest that took her class to meet a family of immigrant workers, taking them one of the girl's cast off bicycles. The family was so thrilled with the small gift, and all the children in the family took turns riding the bike, while the girl's in Kathy's class saw the conditions of the immigrant workers, compared to their own lives. They returned week after week, and gradually each of the girls brought such gifts as they could - learning at age 9 or 10 how very fortunate they were, and the beginnings of how to care for others. On the way home from one of the outings, the priest stopped a the bus to move a turtle out of the road.

There was no hubris or pride in the story, just a lesson.

It was part of the reason she served as director for the dorm. It was the beginnings of my awakening to service as a way of life. As her priest shaped her, she now shaped me - gently, by example - not into asking for what I needed from god, but towards asking of god and myself, how I might be of use.

And walking on that path has been a source of growth, frustration and tremendous joy.

It's been said before by better writers than I, but perhaps warrants saying again. Much as this generation has been taught to focus on themselves first, it does not seem to minimize our heartache. We tend to forget our own troubles when we are attending to others. Kathy taught me how much we are for each other, god's hands of comfort, help, hope, and commitment.

When I am most lost, I try to remember that the light comes from that-a-way. If I am feeling hopeless, helpless or useless -- I try to remember to look for where I might be useful.

Being useful is infinitely better than being "happy". When chased, happiness is never "found". Sense of purpose seems to ever give unexpected rewards. Not of gratitude. I find that embarrassing. Just simply being of use, seems to inspire joy. We find community in the company of others. We find our woes in another person's face, and find ourselves wiping away our own tears. We are no longer alone. There is a miracle that takes place in that moment, where we fulfill who and what we can be.

And the shine of it carries us home.

Christians I have known ...

Last weekend was Easter, and a thoughtful one for me in many ways.

I listened to Armenian hymns.

I read about gardening.

A friend and I had dinner and spent a great deal of time talking about writing, concluding that neither of us are doing enough of it.

My writer friend is a christian, small "c". His faith is a practice, not a belief system. The metaphors of the bible deeply inform his actions, but not typically his conversations - unless he's talking to me. More than once I have been accused of holding church services in my home. (Only with those interested and willing.)

When I was a kid, there was a group of christians who eschewed buildings, ritual and dogma. We met quietly in each others' homes, and we read and discussed and looked for a way to make sense of the world, following the footsteps of "rebel jesus" as closely as we knew how.

The first pastor of this non-church was named Bentley, and we sometimes loosely called ourselves "the Bentley group". It was a radical form of christianity. Tything was done through individuals, for individuals. Bentley himself raised serveral foster children, but never once spoke as though any of us ought to have or develop similar spiritual convictions. Under his gentle influence, we drifted towards being of service.

And, in the uptight, deeply conservative community where I lived, there were 250,000 of these gentle, unorganized, non-judgemental followers.

That was the closest thing to at home I have ever felt in community worship.

None-the-less, I am a quiet follower of the man jesus. Perhaps that comes from early childhood exposure, I don't know. Of the existence of god I have no question. Why I came to think that jesus closely represents that god, I can only say that perhaps it is the story teller in me that is drawn to the parables, which make sense to me. Most other christian dogma, I have little patience for. That which excludes, which claims there is only one path to the sacred seems the least likely and least consistent with the jesus I have read, and the god who sings to my soul.

That wars were fought over whether or not jesus had a purse (and thereby condoned the ownership of vast property) seems so far away from the basic lessons christ taught.

Mostly I have learned christianity from chritians. Sort of like kung fu from a practicing master.