Can Someone Really Be Indispensible?

I've had many different jobs in my life in several different places. My typical mantra when it came time for me to move on was, "No one can ever be indispensible." That was my automatic reply to those who asked how the place would ever get along without me. (I appreciated the compliment, but really. . .)

Yet sometimes you come across truly heartwarming stories that move you emotionally. I happened upon the following story in a book titled, Life Doesn't Get Any Better Than This, by Robert A. Alper (Liguori Publicatioons).

The story takes place at the small private college the author's daughter attended. It was parents' weekend and the college president was addressing the parents. He began by asking for forgiveness.

"The dormitories are really not in the shape we would prefer," he said. "A lot of minor repairs have been neglected. We're not pleased with the way some residences are looking, and we apologize."

But there was a reason. The president explained that a few months back a maintenance supervisor who is in charge of overseeing the residence halls was diagnosed with cancer. During the summer he underwent surgery twice. The prognosis was hopeful, and the man was now recuperating, hoping to resume work in December.

The college needed to address the man's illness and his absence. He was in a critical position with important responsibilities.

What they decided to do was . . . nothing. No temporary replacement. No permanent replacement. No major restructuring of the staff. They would just shuffle along without him for a while, and if some things didn't get done, well, they just wouldn't get done.

The administration decided that more important than spackle and paint and squeaky doors was the message they wanted to send to this man during his battle against cancer. The message was clear and direct: "We need you here. We will not replace you. We eagerly, even impatiently, await your return. And we have every confidence that you will come back to us, in good health."

Wow! So many decisions in our world today are based on finances with little consideration for human beings. How uplifting to hear of a large organization that has more concern for a member of its community than for the looks of its property. I think the author's daughter must have gotten an excellent education at that college.

Special People

All of us meet special people throughout life who leave a unique impression on our lives. Just over forty years ago, a wonderful, wonderful substitute teacher, named Mildred Duda, had such an impact on me. She was a regular substitute at our school, St. Alphonsus in Davenport, Iowa. She filled in for my 4th grade teacher who was out after surgery for a couple of weeks. The next year she happened to be subbing for my class on the day President Kennedy was killed (one of those moments frozen in time that we all remember).

Later that year our teacher (who had been sickly all year) had to leave school for good, and we were fortunate enough to have Mrs. Duda fill in for the last couple months of the school year. She was a wonderful teacher who affirmed everyone no matter what they were doing or what they were interested in. She made classes interesting and exciting. I remember for one geography project she had each of us select a state and build a small float to represent the people and resources of that state. Then we had a "parade" in the gym for the rest of the school with our miniature floats. Since there were less than 50 kids in the class, I got two states: Wisconsin and North Carolina.

While I was home in Davenport visiting my family this past weekend, I happened to come across the obituary for Mrs. Duda, and it brought back so many wonderful memories from a long time ago. For several years I taught school, and I only hope that I had a small fraction of the positive impact on some of my students' lives that Mrs. Duda has had on mine.

Some of these special people, like Mrs. Duda, never become famous even though their spirit and values spread quietly into the lives of hundreds of young kids. Other people, who spread their message humbly and quietly do eventually become well-known because their lives are so counter-cultural. Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement is such a person. Dorothy deeply loved the poor and did whatever she could to welcome them and to feed them. She began a group of houses of hospitality for the poor that now have locations throughout the country.

Here is a quote from one of her writings. "To serve others, to give what we have is not enough unless we always show the utmost respect for each other and all we meet." (Dorothy Day: In My Own Words, compiled by Phyllis Zagano, Ligouri Publications.)

Mrs. Duda worked tirelessly for her students because she saw the potential for bright futures in each of them; Dorothy Day worked for the poor because she saw the beauty and dignity of Christ in each one, and thus she had the "utmost respect" for them.

When we come to know someone in person, like Mildred Duda, it is a great blessing. But we can also come to know someone we've never met through books. And even they can still have a significant impact on our ways of thinking and acting. That is how I have gotten to know Dorothy Day. She mystifies me; she humbles me; she challenges me; and I need that.

Who - either famous or not - has made a difference in your life? Tell us about it.

Things to Learn from Others

I belong to a so-called "blended family." It's an interesting story. My mother died of a heart attack in December 1986. Her next youngest brother and his wife invited my dad over for dinner a lot and to family parties they were having just to keep him socially occupied, and help prevent loneliness from setting in so badly. He told me they had done the most of anyone for him after Mom's death.

Only ten months later Mom's brother, my uncle, died of lung cancer. So Dad started to take my aunt out to dinner and ask if she would like to go to family events together. He told me he merely wanted to reciprocate for her in her loss.

Well one thing led to another and several months later Dad told me he was going to give her a ring - on Valentine's Day, no less! They got married in June 1989. People ask me how long I've known my step-mother and I answer, "All my life."

Although I was already an adult and living away from home when my mother died and my dad remarried 2-1/2 years later, I still have a lot to do with my step-family because I visit as often as I can. I was checking out a little book called, Nurturing Your Blended Family, by Ralph Ranieri (Liguori Publications) and I came across a paragraph that I found applicable to anyone, whether in a blended family or not.

"I know a woman who never misses an opportunity to point out things for her kids to learn, even from negative experiences. If the children complain about a teacher, the mother says that maybe the teacher's baby was sick and she was worried. If a child is upset about his poor performance in a soccer game, she reminds him of what the great quarterback Charlie Ward said after a close loss to Notre Dame: "Nobody died." If a receptionist or store clerk is impatient with them, she says maybe the clerk's boss is giving her a hard time. She wants her children to know that people do not act in an impatient manner just because they are mean, and that disappointments have to be put into perspective. Understanding other people's emotions helps children understand their own. ...moving into a blended family, gives children ample opportunity to understand people's emotions - and consequently their own."

I think that final sentence has an incredible amount of wisdom in it. We can learn so much about our own emotions by pausing for a moment to consider what is really going on in another person's life with whom we are interacting.

So often I think we like to believe that we are king or queen, and that every waiter, clerk, other driver, etc. should bow to our commands. But we have to recall that all of us have bad days. Something didn't go right at work; we had a fight with a family member; we're feeling sick; we're running late - lots of things that affect our abilities to act our best. And so do other people.

What Ranieri is trying to remind us is that if we feel we are not being treated as we should be by someone else, chances are they having a bad day just like we do occasionally. We need to pause before we snap back at them. Maybe we even need to ask if something is wrong. Showing a little compassion or empathy for the person we are dealing with can have an incredibly positive impact on his or her life because you have shown that you care (at least a little) about them, and that you understand, or at least that you are trying to.

Such understanding can make all the difference in the world in someone else's life - and your own.

I Need You; You Need Me

"Why do we let other people's judgments play such a large part in our understanding of ourselves and our feelings about ourselves? The answer lies at the heart of human nature: we are a profoundly social species. We must live with others, interact with them, give and receive support and love, . . . All human existence is coexistence." (True Self-Esteem; Jim McManus, Liguori Publications.)

Most of us probably revel in our personal independence. As teenagers we struggle constantly for independence from parents and authority figures, yet peer pressure is one of the most powerful forces in our lives at that time in life.
In order to feel good about ourselves we need reassurance from others that we are good. It's the old "I'm okay; you're okay" syndrome. It's not a bad thing at all. It's very natural. It's the way we're made.

I became very aware of this need in myself when I studied the enneagram. I am most naturally a "9" on the enneagram. But when I am in a sticky situation or feel trapped in a corner I fall toward the "6" who needs approval for just about everything he does. Thus, I like to take my work to others and receive their compliments and commendations. I find myself at my worst if someone in a supervisory position challenges my work, telling me it could be better. For me, part of it is that I grew up pretty much as a "straight-A" student in school and never got in trouble. (Perhaps I missed out on some of the best times of life!)

At the same time, I am strongly an introvert. I get re-energized when I'm alone. I can lead a large group of people through a lesson, but that is a role I fill only when necessary, and I will need quiet and solitude to find balance once again.

Yet McManus says in his book, True Self-Esteem,

"Each of us has a profound need to matter to other people. That is to say, we need to believe that we are relevant to someone, that others care about what we do and whether we live or die. We need someone who values us and respects us. We need to be needed. The feeling of mattering to other people is an extremely powerful thing. People will go to extraordinary lengths and suffer extraordinary pains and privations for those to whom they matter, and who matter to them."

I guess the biblical lesson from the book of Genesis is true. We are our brother's (sic neighbor's) keeper! (cf. Gen 4:9)

Will we make this year better?

Well it's 2006. I spent New Year's Eve at the new house of my friend Philip Del Ricci. We broke in the new year and the new house at the same time. I often like to recall what I did each previous year on New Year's Eve. For 2005 I was at the home of a fellow chorus member.

In 2004 the city of St. Louis was commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 1904 World's Fair (you know, "Meet me in St. Louis, Louie; meet me at the fair...") So five other friends and I had a late dinner at the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park (site of the 1904 Fair) where we could watch the fireworks at midnight and could see the giant ferris wheel built to imitate the original one at the World's Fair so many years earlier.

I'm drawing a blank about 2003, but I spent 2002 at the home of a couple who are dear friends of mine. In 2001 I was stranded in Chicago by a 2-foot snow storm. I remember looking out the window of the place I was staying and telling myself that I was paying $40 a day for that rental car to just sit there under all that snow!

Getting ready for the big event of 2000 - not only the turn of a century but this time the turn of the millennium - I mentioned to a friend that I had to decide where I wanted to be as the clock struck midnight that year. He suggested that instead I should think about who I wanted to be with. I knew he was correct. I was living in Seattle at the time, but I decided to return to St. Louis and spend the evening with a small group of friends at one of their homes. It was delightful. And I remember turning on the television just after midnight and hearing Karen Foss proclaim, "It is 12:05 am, and it is now January 1st of the year 2000." It was hard to believe we were no longer in the 1900s - after all, it had been 19-something for all of my life.

There was so much to-do about the new millennium. I told the people I worked with in Seattle that if the world did end with the beginning of the new millennium, as some naysayers predicted, that because of the time difference between St. Louis and Seattle, they would have 2 more hours to live than I would!

I did not really expect the world to come to an end, but I think many of us were disappointed that none of the computers around the world got screwed up like predicted. People tend to go crazy at turning points like that. Some people actually seem to look for doom and gloom. That trait is called "apocalypticism." It is addressed in a book about the millennium by Christopher M. Bellitto (Liguori Publications).

"Many of the important aspects of apocalypticism, especially the negative, come together in the recent history of religion and politics in the United States. We Christians have to be honest enough to look at ourselves in the mirror and admit this potent mix. We must emphasize personal renewal while others in our country simply continue those distracting "Woe is us!" and "The End is near!" prophecies as we enter the Church's third millennium."

I think what Bellito is saying is that if there is anything we need to get ready for, then we should do it not by trying to put guilt trips on people or pointing to tragedies throughout the world, but by constantly striving to become better people (i.e. personal renewal). That in turn will make the world a better place and perhaps some of the calamaties we have been experiencing will not be so devastating.