Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

Last week I experienced two events:  the birth of Taylor and the death of Richard – God was busy that day because BOTH happened on the same day !  Taylor is the first grandchild of my friends Gail and Bill.   Richard was a prisoner in our Restorative Justice circle.  To begin a life, any life, is a miracle.  Both of these lives are extraordinary!  Taylor was born in the morning and Gail is my driver to the prisons I go to.  She is also a prison ministry volunteer, an artist and a teacher.  We were scheduled to go to prison that night but Taylor’s birth took precedence.   Gail always made a point of greeting every man in our circle by name !  When she greeted Richard he would say, “I don’t know if I’ll come back next week.”  She responded, “Then I won’t either!”  At the end of the 12 weeks Richard was both stunned and honored to be chosen by the other men to be their graduation speaker. Ruth Poochigian, O.P. Madison, WI

I find appalling the verbal raw sewage I hear thrown about in the public sector, but that’s another topic.  When I was in grad school at Iowa, I was fascinated by what others called me.  I told everyone to call me Win.  I try to avoid Winnie because, though I can claim other positive attributes, neither “little” or “cute” have been apropos since I was six.  Some fellow grads and my students did call me Win.  A few always called me “Sister.”   A few others called me “Winifred.”   I figured their choices reflected the degree of formality they felt toward me.  You can hear their ingrained Southern training in the voices of people whose grandmothers never let them address ANY adult by anything other than “mam” or “sir.”  Mom, Dad, Momma or Daddy, are usually terms of endearment carrying lifetimes of love.  I’m a bit embarrassed when my ESL student addresses me almost reverentially as “Teacher.” I know at least a couple Sisters who consistently address other Sisters as “dear” or “darling.”