Leaving the Family

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“You know, you don’t have to do this. You could just walk away, disappear.”

Tom, surprised that he was being offered an “out,” hesitated for only for a second.

“No, I’ll go. If I don’t, the rest of the family will wonder why I didn’t show up and that could lead to complications.”

“Fine. It’s your funeral if things go wrong.”

“I know.”

The meeting with the family was a regularly scheduled event. Not only was it scheduled; attendance was required. He straightened his tie and jacket, exchanged one last glance with his concerned companion, and left the building by a back door.

A half an hour later, Tom pulled up in front of a wrought iron gate supported by a ten-foot high stone wall. The video camera hanging from the gatepost swung in his direction as he reached out and pushed the button on the intercom that connected to the house. The gate slowly opened. Whoever was on duty on the other end of the camera had confirmed Tom’s identity and his right to admission.

Moments later he entered the house. There was no need to be told where to go—he was, after all, related. He greeted the others as he always did when these meetings were called. The words sounded normal, the gestures from cousins, uncles and from those who had “married” into the family, concealed no malice that he could identify. Nevertheless, Tom could feel the electric tension in the air, like the oppressive stillness before a storm.

Do they know? Does someone suspect that I betrayed the code, that I broke ranks?

He thought the word betrayal because the world would judge his actions as such, but he knew in his heart that a much greater betrayal had marked the life that had been, until recently, his only world.

His uncle sat enthroned at the head of an enormous teak conference table. The light coming in from the French doors behind him created an aura that wrapped itself around the old man. The position was deliberate, planned and posed. His face was like granite, his thoughts unknowable and inviolate. As was his privilege, Tom took his place to the right of the current family patriarch.

At precisely the hour assigned for it, the meeting began. As expected, the head of the family took the lead.

“Report.”

Everyone present knew to what the old man was referring.

“Two houses were raided this week…”

“…As was the warehouse…”

“Someone’s been nosing around the offshore accounts.”

The news was grim from every point of the table’s compass. Over the past several weeks, the noose around the family’s neck had inexplicably and inexorably been tightening.

They don’t know, or they wouldn’t be talking so freely…

The muffled beeping of a cell phone interrupted Tom’s thoughts and brought a startled silence to the table. For anyone to dare to call when the inner circle of the family was meeting could only mean more bad news. Without a word, the old man pulled the phone from his pocket, listened, then broke the connection. Slowly he turned toward Tom. If there were feelings behind that stony, expressionless face, the business at hand took precedence over them. All eyes followed those of their don. Something tangible, but as yet unidentifiable, had taken possession of the room. Instinctively, the others waited for the capo, the head of the family, to personally deal with the specter that had suddenly raised its ugly head at his table.

No one saw the gun. From that close, the bullet couldn’t miss even though the silencer slowed its progress. It missed the wire of the tiny microphone taped to Tom’s chest, and plowed through several vital body parts.

Jesus, I tried to put it all right. I wish I had known you sooner …

As the life drained from his body, Tom’s second-to-last thoughts focused on the conversation with the FBI agent who had offered him an escape from this very possibility.

…It’s your funeral if things go wrong.

Was this right or wrong? The recording of the discussion around the table would help to convict those present. There would be no time for the gun, or his uncle’s fingerprints, to disappear before federal agents came charging through those French doors. Humanly speaking, things had gone wrong for Tom, but whatever happened from this moment on would help to make things right.

Tom’s last thoughts were of his new family, now gathered and waiting to meet him.

He smiled.

A Drawer Full of Crosses

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“I’ll be finished in an hour.”

That was my cousin, Susan. I’d spent every morning all during that week doing my devotions in her little cubbyhole of a home office. This particular morning she invited me to do my “meditating” at Galilee while she completed a couple of small jobs.

Outside of divine intervention, there should be no conceivable reason for Susan to end up at a spiritual retreat centre. She hates being dependent on anyone, even God. Nevertheless, even though she hasn’t admitted to needing to search for Him, God has sent out His posse after her.

Through the local, small town grapevine, Susan discovered that Galilee was looking for a painter. At the time, my cousin needed a job. She paints pastoral scenes, still life and portraits, so was more than qualified to paint walls, doors and woodwork.

The painting job turned into an administrative position. Personally, I think she runs the place: she lives and breathes Galilee.

She delights in telling me about the adventures involved in taking minutes when Galilee’s Board of Directors meets.

“I don’t speak Catholic,” she quips, explaining her difficulty in understanding the discussions buzzing around her.

She doesn’t “speak Catholic.” I am not sure she has ever gone to any church except to the chapel at Galilee when giving the required tour to guests — and to me, her “meditating” cousin. Considering the rather irreverent language in Susan’s vocabulary, I’ve often wondered how she’s managed to keep her job at the retreat centre. I suppose if God can shut the lions’ mouths, He is perfectly capable of shutting the ears of those who do “speak Catholic” so they don’t get offended by her speech patterns.

Before Susan sent me off to “meditate” — Susan doesn’t speak “Baptist” either, preferring a more generic “cover-all-the-possible-expressions-of-spirituality” kind of language — she showed me around the grounds and through the buildings.

Surrounded by stately trees, lush gardens and carefully tended grass, Galilee sits on a hill overlooking the Ottawa River. Since its conversion from a training facility for priests to a retreat centre, the doors have been opened to anyone looking for breathing space in their lives: Baptists, Buddhists, people wanting to get lost and others trying to find themselves. Galilee even welcomes neighbourhood dogs as long as “poop-and-scoop” is observed.

Susan carefully explained to me the effort that went in to painting the spiral staircase in the main hallway and the trouble the leather paneling snaking along the wall, caused her. Yes, you read correctly — leather paneling.

Everywhere there are reminders of religion. I wouldn’t have expected anything else in a place run by the Oblates. However, Susan thinks that non-Catholic people might be uncomfortable surrounded by religious objects. After all, some people try to find peace without connecting intimately with God.

So, she has a little campaign going. Susan’s trying to get rid of the crosses. She doesn’t want to burn them or bury them: nothing so crass. She respects everyone’s right to do religion his own way with his own “stuff.” Every one of the simple bedrooms, each one looking out through huge windows over the grounds toward the river, boasts a crucifix as its single ornament. My cousin believes that statues and crosses in the hallways and public rooms are fine. This is, after all, a Catholic Retreat Centre. However, she also believes that making guests comfortable at Galilee; providing non-Catholics and lapsed Catholics without distractions while they are “retreating,” should include giving everyone a generic bedroom, sans crucifix. She’s trying to convince the people in charge to put all the crosses in the dresser drawers: a sort of “out-of-sight-out-of-mind” theory.

I thought about how I would feel at Galilee if I were to seek to retreat there. Would I, a very serious, life-long Baptist, be offended or distracted by a crucifix in my room? It’s unlikely, though I was certainly impressed by the number of them around. However, the presence of the crosses has more significance for Susan than it does for me.

I wonder how many times in the course of a week she walks through those rooms. Susan holds Christ at arm’s length. She doesn’t know Him personally. Ten, fifteen, twenty times a day she sees a representation of Him, hanging on a cross to provide her with an eternal retreat. Perhaps one day, if she sees those crosses often enough, Susan will actually see beyond the object to the objective.

Lord, don’t let her put those crosses in a drawer.