My father was a thief. Not big-time. Not enough to put him in prison. He stole the little stuff. He hid a pad of butter under a Parker House roll in a cafeteria, and then he didn’t pay for it at the check-out line. He called it a cloverleaf roll—as if it were a lucky omen. A pack of gum at the checkout line of a grocery store disappeared into his pocket. He said it was therapy for waiting in the line. A tool at a hardware store slid up his left sleeve. He said it made up for the high prices.
He knew that I knew. I found myself habitually copying his movements because, after all, I’d seen it. He was never caught. And I was never caught. My sister reminded me one time that he’d never killed anyone. That was true. My brother reminded me another time that he was smart. Also true. This value system changed my personality into a sort of passive-aggressiveness. I would pretend to do what I was supposed to do, sometimes to the extreme, and I appeared to obey all the rules. At work, I got the paperwork done, but didn’t deliver the services. At home, I got the meal on the table, but without love. At my clubs, I led the groups, but found objectionable any agenda that disagreed with mine.
And then, one day, my husband and I were on a summer vacation, under sunny skies and alongside smiling faces, waiting in a line that took several hours to finish, before entering the Sagrada Familia Basilica in Barcelona, Spain. The church is not technically a cathedral, because it is not the seat of a Bishop. Outside, I was amazed by the Disney-like sculptures on and against the exterior walls of the building. Like Disney’s work, it was unique. The artwork was something beyond what anyone had done before–and what anyone has done since. No cell phones rang.
Only long periods of silence, and a few whispers, were heard. I followed my husband in, and tired of hours of standing in line, I sat on the floor as did many of the other tourists. My husband, because he is (strangely for a man? or not? sincere in his emotions!) always wanting to share his thoughts, urged me to look up. The inside had a vaulted ceiling way too high for my limited mathematical talents to evaluate in terms of inches, feet, yards, meters, or whatever. I felt something inside of me, and I don’t mean it was an audible voice…rather it was a wordless thought…that told me that my husband was correct–that I must surrender, and experience what was there.
And I did. At that moment I felt an unusual presence enter inside of me. My previous transgressions were trivial. I would start over from that moment on. I told my husband to try to capture with his camera the heart of the inside of the highest point of the ceiling. To my knowledge, I am the only Bishop that has ever sat in the Basilica. I carry my husband’s photograph in my mind with me to restaurants, grocery stores, retail stores, and worksites. The colors blur as I drift off at the end of my yoga sessions. The Sagrada Familia forgave me, and allowed me to begin a new way of living—not easy after many years of accepting what was acceptable in my childhood family.
I still am challenged to live the right way—do you understand? Do you know? But yes! I am moving on. I am a better person. Every day I suffer, and sigh. A photograph of the ceiling of Sagrada Familia is in my home office. I look at it every day. I have become a participating member of a congregation in my home town. The parishioners know who I am. It’s a small town. I have given in to all of this…because of the Sagrada Familia. Thank you, Gaudi. Yours, like Disney’s–your art is timeless.
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Captivating story, read it in two breaths