The money I give to the church goes in people’s stomachs, and on their backs, down in
New York City. I have no delusions about the worth of what I do, but I feel it’s better to feed
somebody than not. There’s a priest in Times Square giving shelter to runaway kids, and
some Franciscans who run a bread line; actually it’s a morning line for coffee and a roll, and
Father Paul calls it the continental breakfast for winos and bag ladies. He is curious about
how much I am sending, and I know why: he guesses I send a lot, he has said probably more
than tithing, and he is right; he wants to know how much because he believes I’m generous
and good, and he is wrong about that; he has never had much money and does not know
how easy it is to write a check when you have everything you will ever need, and the figures
are mere numbers, and represent no sacrifice at all. Being a real Catholic is too hard; if I
were one, I would do with my house and barn what I want the Pope to do with his. So I do
not want to impress Father Paul, and when he asks me how much, I say I can’t let my left
hand know what my right is doing.
He came on Wednesday nights when Gloria and I were married, and the kids were
young; Gloria was a very good cook (I assume she still is, but it is difficult to think of her in
the present), and I liked sitting at the table with a friend who was also a priest. I was proud
of my handsome and healthy children. This was long ago, and they were all very young and
cheerful and often funny, and the three boys took care of their baby sister, and did not bully
or tease her. Of course they did sometimes, with that excited cruelty children are prone to,
but not enough so that it was part of her days. On Wednesday after Gloria left with the kids
and a U-Haul trailer, I was sitting on the front steps, it was summer, and I was watching
cars go by on the road, when Father Paul drove around the curve and into the driveway.
I was ashamed to see him because he is a priest and my family was gone, but I was relieved
too. I went to the car to greet him. He got out smiling, with a bottle of wine, shook my hand,
then pulled me to him, gave me a quick hug, and said: ‘It’s Wednesday, isn’t it? Let’s open
some cans.’
With arms about each other we walked to the house, and it was good to know he was
doing his work but coming as a friend too, and I thought what good work he had. I have no
calling. It is for me to keep horses.
In that other life, anyway. In my real one I go to bed early and sleep well and wake at
four forty-five, for an hour of silence. I never want to get out of bed then, and every morning
I know I can sleep for another four hours, and still not fail at any of my duties. But I get up,
so have come to believe my life can be seen in miniature in that struggle in the dark of
morning. , I talk to God: I offer Him my
day, every act of my body and spirit, my thoughts and moods, as a prayer of thanksgiving,
and for Gloria and my children and my friends and two women I made love with after
Gloria left. This morning offertory is a habit from my boyhood in a Catholic school; or then
it was a habit, but as I kept it and grew older it became a ritual. Then I say the Lord’s Prayer,
trying not to recite it, and one morning it occurred to me that a prayer, whether recited or
said with concentration, is always an act of faith.
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