A Special Place in My Heart

 A Special Place in MY HEART

Episode #3

Long before I asked the question,

Who are YOU?

I had already begun looking for the answer.

I was only about three years old.

I can still see myself in my little Buster Browns and a sun suit on a hot summer Sunday.

Daddy wasn't dead yet.

He was gone.

No visit this Sunday.

I was too young to walk to St. James's by myself or understand the word “divorce.”

Mom and Unc sat in the kitchen drinking coffee and reading the Sunday paper, swapping sections back and forth.

Bobby was out with his friends.

Ma sat quietly in her rocker with her pipin' hot tea, crocheting.

Such was our family now.

I didn't know what to do with myself.

"Why don't you take your beach pail and shovel outside for a while?" Ma suggested.

It was too hot in the front yard, so I wandered over to the shady side of the house.

Calling it a yard would have been generous.

It was really more of an alley.

The old wooden fence leaned tiredly against itself, busted, bent, weathered gray, full of splinters.

There wasn't much grass.

Mostly weeds.

Beside the piazza grew Ma's roses—the one patch of beauty in an otherwise unkempt yahd.

This was Slummerville, after all, long before gentrification.

I sat down and began to dig.

City dirt doesn't give itself up easily.

It was hard-packed and dusty.

I hacked away with my shovel until I managed to fill the pail with a few respectable scoops.

Then...

Out of nowhere...

came a bumble bee.

It swooped down and began circling me.

Round and round.

I remember staring at it.

It looked so fat.

How could those tiny little wings possibly keep that enormous thing in the air?

Then another thought came.

It can sting.

I froze.

The bee kept circling.

Round and round.

I watched.

I waited.

I timed its circumferential flight, then cut a tangent to the other side.

And then I ran for my life.

As fast as my little legs could carry me.

I burst through the front door and slammed it shut, spread-eagled against it to guard against the insect’s entry.

I raced into the kitchen.

Only Ma was there.

Still rocking.

Still crocheting.

"Why, Buddy Bresnahan...what's all this commotion?"

"Ma...there's a bee."

She set the crocheting down.

The rocker stopped.

She didn't even take another sip of tea.

She simply opened her arms.

"There, there, Buddy.

It's all right."

She held me close.

And everything was all right just like she said it was.

It would be decades before I understood why that encounter stayed with me.

Not because of the bee.

Because, somehow, even then, something deep inside me stirred.

It was only the faintest inkling.

The mystery began.

Who are YOU?

Five years later, everything was different.

Daddy was dead.

For months after he died, I still ran to the window whenever I heard what sounded like his Chevy.

Maybe it was Daddy.

Maybe his white 1951 Chevrolet would magically appear.

Maybe he would come to pick me up.

He never did again.

He never, ever did again.

Eventually I turned away from the window and walked by myself to St. James's.

I loved that church.

The organ.

The choir.

The stained glass.

The old oak pews.

And the widows.

The widows always seemed glad to see me.

There was one man there I remember especially.

Mr. Fletcher, our minister

He knew my daddy had died.

One time he visited our home.

Ma made tea and cookies and cake.

He asked Mom and Ma how they were doing.

Then he looked at me and asked me how I was doing.

“I’m fine, Mr. Fletcher.”

I wanted to please him.

He called me over to him and took me onto his knee.

I can still remember how much he cared.

He simply held me.

Weeks came and weeks went.

Months came and months went.

Then after church one Sunday I started home along Massachusetts Avenue.

Cars and trucks went by.

The trolley clattered along its tracks.

Shop windows were abandoned and soaped up.

People hurried about their business.

And somewhere along the way there was an unkempt hedge.

Scrawny.

Neglected.

The sort of thing nobody would notice.

Except that day I noticed it.

Several leaves on the haphazard hedge hung out beyond a chain-link fence.

I grabbed one.

A solitary leaf.

Then I pressed my thumbnail into it.

The nail broke through the surface.

Green chlorophyll discolored my thumbnail.

Its lifeblood.

Then I stopped.

I killed the leaf.

It was in that moment that Something in my heart spoke to me.

There were no voices, just a sense.

And yet it was articulate and clear.

The Sense said,

Don't you know there is a special place in MY HEART for your dad?

I stood there.

The traffic continued.

The trolley continued.

Somerville continued.

But something had happened.

I ran home.

Ma was there.

This was urgent.

"Ma, is there a God?"

"Of course there is."

"Ma, is there a Heaven?"

"Of course there is."

"Ma, is my daddy there?”

Here is where Ma hesitated. 

Often she said that it was the Irish who had ruined Boston.

I hadn’t connected the dots then, but I wonder now what passed through her mind. The prospect of spending eternity with that Irishman after the divorce may have given her pause.

Oh the synapses that must have fired in her mind then.

But she hesitated but for only a moment.

Then she knelt down and pulled me toward her.

She placed my head into the nape of her neck.

And it is as though I can still smell her hair to this day.

And then she said,

"Of course he is."

Oh how my heart leapt for joy then.

I hugged her close and loved her and she loved me.

We had lunch and then I went out to play.

Later that night, the Silence was still there.

But now there was a Presence together with it.

I remember smiling to the Presence.

And I remember calling out to the stars above and the world below,

“Don’t you know there’s a special place in MY HEART for your dad?”

That settles it.

Ma said so.

There is a God.

There is a Heaven.

And my daddy’s there.

I know much more theology now than I did then.

Or at least I have read many more books.

But I still return to that shabby hedge beside Massachusetts Avenue.

A little boy.

A solitary leaf.

A dead father.

And Silence.

And then YOU spoke to me somewhere in my heart.

Or at least I think that was YOU.

“There’s a special place in MY HEART for your dad.”

The message was crystal clear and has stayed with me a lifetime.

For me Nothing became a Silence.

The Silence became a Presence.

The Presence became a Companion.

And the Companion I spoke to in the Night Season in wonder was YOU.

At least I thought so at the time.

My sadness turned to excitement and joy. 

Because Ma held me when I was afraid of a Bumble Bee.

And then when I asked her if my Daddy was safe with YOU,

She held me once again and spoke those words,

Words I can hear to this day,

“Of course he is.”

In the Bleak Midwinter

 

Who Are YOU?

Episode Two: In the Bleak Midwinter

It was in the bleak midwinter of my eighth year to heaven that my daddy died.

Sunday, December 27, 1953.

Two days after Christmas.

I walked into the kitchen.

Uncle Jim from Beverly was there.

That never happened before.

Mom and Ma and Uncle Al and Bobby were there.

They were my family.

Ma was my grandmother.

Uncle Al was Mom’s brother. He lived with us.

So did my brother Bobby.

Something was wrong.

Mom told me.

“Your father is dead.”

I didn’t know what that meant.

Adults said things I didn’t understand.

Someone said my Daddy couldn’t go to heaven because he didn’t go to church.

Someone else said he was with God.

Mom said he deserved what he got.

Bobby was mad at me because I didn’t cry.

I went outside to play.

I did not want to be there anymore.

Joey was my best friend.

We played catch.

I told him my dad died.

He didn’t say much about it either.

I don’t think he understood death any more than I did.

All I knew was that one day Daddy was there.

And the next he wasn’t.

---

My daddy’s name was the same as mine.

Paul Bisson Bresnahan.

But they called me Buddy.

Daddy usually came to visit me in his beautiful white 1951 Chevrolet.

Oh, how he loved that car.

And I did too.

Every Sunday morning I would listen for his car coming up Cottage Avenue.

Whenever I heard a car, I’d run to the front window.

Maybe it was Daddy.

Maybe the white Chevrolet would turn onto Cottage Avenue and stop in front of the house again.

Maybe Daddy would get out.

It never did.

It never ever did.

---

And so on Sunday I would walk to church.

Alone.

The sidewalks seemed alive beneath my feet.

Great maple roots pushed up through the concrete and buckled the old red bricks.

I knew where every hump and hollow was.

Some I’d jump over.

Others I’d balance across as though they had been put there just for me.

Perhaps children notice such things because the sidewalk, at least, is still there.

The trees were still there.

Massachusetts Avenue was still there.

The trolley still clattered along its tracks.

People were still going about their business.

How could they know that Daddy was dead?

And there, waiting for me, stood St. James’s Episcopal Church in Porter Square.

She didn’t simply stand there.

She beckoned.

I went inside.

The deep voice of the pipe organ.

The choir.

Sunlight through stained glass.

Old oak.

Candle wax.

The widows who always seemed glad to see me.

And above the altar, in great gold letters I was old enough to read:

HOLY

HOLY

HOLY

This was a holy place.

I didn’t know what holy meant.

But I knew what HOLY felt like.

Here in the HOLY place I wondered where Daddy was.

Everyone in the church knelt down together.

“Our Father, who art in heaven…”

Father.

I looked up.

High into that great vaulted ceiling.

Our Father, who art in heaven.

Where?

There was no Father.

There was no Daddy.

There was only the ceiling.

And silence.

---

Then came nighttime.

Nighttime was different now.

My mother tucked me into bed and taught me the prayer every child seemed to know.

Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

If I should die before I wake…

Wait.

What did you just say?

If I should die?

Could I die?

Tonight?

Could I go to sleep and simply—

not be here anymore?

Daddy died.

Could I die too in my sleep that night?

Where did people go when they died?

Where was heaven?

What did it mean for the Lord to keep my soul?

And if God was going to keep my soul, what was going to happen to me?

I didn’t want God to keep my soul.

I was afraid of sleep, lest I might die.

I wanted to wake up in the morning.

Some nights the dreams came.

Long, terrifying dreams.

I would awaken suddenly and sit bolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat.

Darkness everywhere.

I couldn’t see anything.

“Please, God…”

Silence.

“Please, God, take the nightmares away.”

Nothing.

I listened.

NOTHING.

---

Eventually morning came.

It seemed something of a surprise.

I was still here.

Downstairs I could hear the kettle singing.

Ma was already up.

There would be pipin’ hot water poured into a glass “soz it stayed pipin’.”

Something good might be in the oven.

Blueberry muffins if I was lucky.

The kitchen would be warm.

The windows would be steamed over.

And there was Ma.

 

Who Are YOU?

Questions of a Simple Parish Priest

An Introduction

Today I am 81 years old.

For more than fifty years I have served as an Episcopal priest in parishes and communities in Massachusetts, Ohio, South Carolina, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Along the way I have baptized babies, married lovers, buried the dead, fed hungry people, argued with bishops, annoyed politicians, gotten myself into trouble more than once, and stood at the altar Sunday after Sunday trying to say something sensible about God.

And all the while I have been asking a question.

Who are YOU?

That question began much earlier, with the little urchin in the photograph above, growing up in a working-class neighborhood of Somerville, Massachusetts called Brickbottom.

At 81, I have decided to begin telling his story—and mine.

I am writing a memoir called Who Are YOU? Questions of a Simple Parish Priest. It isn't finished. Neither, apparently, am I.

So rather than wait until every chapter is polished and every comma properly behaved, I have decided to begin sharing portions of the manuscript here as I write it.

These are working drafts. Memories may be corrected. Stories may grow. Some things may look different to me tomorrow than they do today. That seems appropriate somehow.

I expect to post another installment about once a week.

This is not intended to be only my search for an answer.

Perhaps somewhere along the way, something in these stories will remind you of a moment in your own life when the ordinary became something more—when another human being, a place, a piece of music, an unexpected kindness, a terrible loss, a silence, or perhaps even God seemed suddenly to address you.

And perhaps you have asked the question too.

Who are YOU?

Here is the Prologue.

---

PROLOGUE

The Question

Who are YOU?

This is the signature question of my life.

Beneath that question lies another.

Are YOU?

That is the more honest question.

For years I thought this book was going to be my memoir.

Then I thought perhaps it was theology.

Then perhaps the story of a parish priest.

Now I think it is something else entirely.

It is the story of a Question.

Not a question about God.

A question addressed to God.

Who are YOU?

What follows is the story of how that question has given life and companionship to a parish priest, his family, his friends, and his parishioners.

Not an answer, but life.

I continue to ask the question.

Who are YOU?

When Moses stands before the burning bush, his question is often understood to be,

“What is your Name?”

That was Moses' question.

Mine has always been different.

Mine is,

Who are YOU?

And if I may dare to press the point...

Are YOU?

That question has carried me through childhood.

Through grief.

Through ministry.

Through joy.

Through failure.

Through friendship.

Through marriage.

Through darkness.

Through forgiveness.

Through cancer.

Through hope.

Sometimes the answer came wrapped in silence.

Sometimes in laughter.

Sometimes in the embrace of another human being.

Sometimes it flashed across an old oak pew in the colored light of a stained-glass window.

There YOU were.

Then...

off YOU went again.

Leaving me smiling.

Leaving me wondering.

Leaving me just hungry enough to keep looking.

I have come to think of this book as a cathedral.

Not because it is grand.

I am, after all, only a simple parish priest.

But because cathedrals are not built all at once.

Stone by stone.

Window by window.

Prayer by prayer.

Story by story.

Walk into a great cathedral and you do not absorb it in a single glance.

You wander.

You pause.

You return.

You discover a chapel you somehow missed before.

You notice how the afternoon sun transforms a window that looked ordinary in the morning.

That is how memory works.

That is how grace works.

That is how this book is built.

Each chapter is another stained-glass window.

Each person another shaft of Light.

Each story another glimpse of YOU.

When I was a little boy, my grandmother—Ma—crocheted afghans.

The rhythm of her crochet hook fascinated me.

Up.

Down.

Up.

Down.

Like breathing.

Like praying.

Like the tide along the coast of Maine where she was born.

Sometimes she'd send me to Grant's Department Store for another skein of yarn.

Sometimes I'd bring back exactly the wrong color.

Back I'd go.

She never seemed irritated.

She simply smiled and kept crocheting.

Only years later did I realize she wasn't merely making afghans.

She was crocheting me.

Thread by thread.

Story by story.

Prayer by prayer.

The same hands that stitched blankets for cold winter nights stitched courage into one frightened little boy.

The same voice that spun yarns in her Downeast Maine accent quietly taught me how to tell stories of my own.

I can still hear that accent.

The words rose and fell like the tide.

Even the word yarn was music.

Not one syllable.

Three.

The melody lingering in the air.

Sometimes punctuated with an “Ay-uh...”

As though the story itself had just surprised the storyteller.

Perhaps that is why I tell stories the way I do.

One thread leading to another.

One memory catching another.

One “Oh...one more thing...”

Until somehow an afghan appears where once there were only scattered skeins.

What a Miracle is Life!

 What a Miracle is Life!

~N.B. below is a journal entry I made this morning and found it an encouragement to myself. I publish it here in hopes that it may be of encouragement to others. 

Wednesday evening was another hazy, hot and humid one in Quincy and David texted his mom on the way home from work. “How about we go out for dinner tonight?” We did that. And instead of the usual fare at Asian Fusion we trekked on down to Hough’s Neck to “Off the Hook” a favorite spot of Aunty Peg’s and increasingly of our own. 

Cindy had been hankering for a hamburger, David selected the blackened scallops on risotto and I had been on a quest for a decent feed of baked haddock for the longest time.

This common neighborhood restaurant of “Neckers” outdid itself. Each of our dishes came out to perfection and with quiet ease we feasted at our luxuriant leisure relishing not just the food but each other’s company, telling stories, lamenting the state of the country and That Man’s inhumanity to humankind, and remembering and celebrating the kindliness of our friends and family. 

We eagerly spoke of plans for our Christmas trip to New Orleans. Cindy and I expressed eagerness at our upcoming journey to Sacramento when Michael and I will celebrate our birthdays; his 40th and my 80th! The fact that Michael will be the same age I was when he was born tickles me to no end and I plan on telling him so when the time comes.

Then with dinner concluded David said; “Have you been down to Nut Island?” I certainly haven’t and Cindy hesitated to answer as if to say “Surely I must have, but I can’t say that I remember just now.” 

What unfolded then for us was a newness impossible to expect or prepare for. As we drove by some impressive homes we progressed further out Quincy Bay toward Boston Harbor into a land neither Cindy nor I had ever seen before. There we were greeted by a setting sun of indescribable beauty.

The clouds that formed the backdrop for the waning glimpses of daylight were breathtakingly beautiful. They were not quite stratus clouds but they layered themselves across the sky. They weren’t precisely cumulus but there were lovely and gracious puffs of themselves scattered about. They weren’t exactly cirrus but they played across the skies in swirls of frolicsome delight.

We found a place to park and walked out to the edges of the grass and found a suitable spot to snap a few photographs. No image captured even by the finest camera could do justice to what we saw that evening. David snapped a selfie of the three of us 

The evening tickled me with happiness.

On the way back to the car we passed by an immigrant family~my guess would be of Middle Eastern origin. They had spread a blanket out across the ground and had feasted on a simple family picnic and luxuriated now in the pleasantness of the cooling evening breezes of the bay. 

There was a little boy there and I looked at him and his dad and exclaimed; “I remember when my son was that age”~pointing to David. 

And then it was as if by way of Revelation the words were given to me, and I said;

“What a miracle is life!”