This evening, I attended a function at our parish. Among the conversations in which I took part: a single mom (divorced) mentioned that it took something like 15 years for her to be convinced that she is welcome to be a parishioner. To describe what it felt like up until that time, she used the metaphor of our crying room: she said it was as though there was a thick pane of glass separating her from the parish community.
She mentioned that what brought about her breakthrough was a kind priest. He told her that, inasmuch as God had given her the gift of her children, it was pretty clear that he loves her and forgives anything she might have done at one time in her life; and he urged her to go ahead and forgive herself as well.
Someone asked her why previously she had felt less than a full member of the community. It seems other people - in her case, her own parents, and perhaps another priest - had somehow given her to understand that she had screwed up by getting divorced and being a single parent, and this somehow impaired her communion with the church.
I'm one of those oblivious idiots who just skates along through life, assuming that everything is fine with everyone unless/until someone points out to me that it isn't. It never would have occurred to me that this woman, who is a really good person and someone whom I admire - she has raised great kids, pretty much all by herself - had been made to feel this way. Lesson learned for me.
Her metaphor of being separated by the glass window reminded me of this song from the Broadway show "Dear Evan Hansen" (which I highly recommend): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfnMvo87fQU. Evan Hansen is a high school outcast, a kid at the bottom of the social ladder.
... and then I also thought of this other song from the same show: sung by a couple of moms, one a single mom, one a married mom with a not-especially-supportive husband, both trying to figure out how to raise troubled teens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f1-QF9jvBM
Hadn't heard of "Evan Hansen", will have to check it out.
ReplyDeleteWe have quite a few single parents in our parish. I hope they don't feel unwelcome. I think it is a lot different than it used to be. Just about everyone has someone in their family who is a single parent; men as well as women. Since it is usually the mom who has custody of young children, they are more visible. Back in the day it was always okay to be a widow, people felt sorry for you. Different story if you were divorced, or Lord forbid, were an unwed mother.
I admire people like your friend, who do a good job raising kids on their own. I don't know how they do it; it was hard enough with two of us.
My assumption was, "Sure, being divorced may have been the equivalent of being made to wear a scarlet letter - in the 1930s. Things are different now. I'm sure nobody would be judgmental about this woman in this day and age." Seems I was wrong about that.
DeleteJim, do you think sometimes people are harder on themselves than other people are? My worst fault at times is not thinking badly of people; it's not thinking of them at all.
DeleteKatherine - it's certainly true of me, that I'm hard on myself. And I definitely am thoughtless and/or insufficiently sensitive toward others.
DeleteEvan "couldn't stand being down at heel,
ReplyDeleteLooking out of the window, staying out of the sun."
Eva chose freedom, and much more lyrically. Sad if American teen-angers can't work up the gumption of one of Magaldi's one-night stands.
I am as insensitive as either of you, as I have just shown. But I have a gregarious wife, and we say hello to everybody, going and coming, at church, except those who, by conspicuously and ostentatiously averting their eyes show they want no part of what they think we must be selling. Welcome has to go two ways.
We landed a terrific tenor for the choir because Milt and I greeted him and his wife at the door so vigorously when they tried out our parish. After he told everyone in sight, Milt and I compared notes, and neither of us remembered his first visit. His wife was sorry she left Michigan though, so we lost them again.
I was at a class on the O.T. recently (remembering why Sirach is the only book there that I ever reread, except, perforce, psalms)m and the presenter kept talking about parents and children. As I surveyed the room, it looked like more than half of the people there either had never married, never had children or had buried a couple of their kids already. I am not sure what that might have sounded like to your single Mom, Jim, but it probably would not have been good.
Tom - yes, and the woman in question is one who is not shy about speaking up about that kind of bias. That's the sort of feedback I'm always grateful for because it makes me a better preacher and better minister.
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