CATHOLIC CONNECTION
TEACHERS AID
ONCE WHEN I WAS DROWNING By Shannon Hogan
PHOTO: @Lapina / Shutterstock.com
Once when I was drowning I held on long enough To say the Act of Contrition. If today I were drowning I wonder what I would do I can’t remember the Act of Contrition And, besides, I’m not nearly the sinner I used to be…when I was eight and a half years old. AL PITTMAN
I was introduced to the poetry of Al Pittman many years ago, while spending time on Fogo Island in Newfoundland. During this Lenten and Easter season, while reflecting on the themes of sin, death, and resurrection, this poem made its way to the front and centre of my reflection. I was reminded of the days of my childhood faith, when we were always cognizant of the shortness of life and the length of eternity. The lens of our entire little lives was that of a loving Jesus, and obedience to the teachings of the Church; they applied deliberately and succinctly to everything we ate, said, thought, and did. Our very young existence was framed completely by tenets of Roman Catholic teaching and observance. One hot summer Friday, when my brother and I were at an amusement park riding the Ferris wheel and “dodgem” cars, we took a few minutes to have lunch before resuming our rides. Everybody knows that hot dogs are best when they are cooked on a grill and eaten outside. As we were adherents to that dictum, we ate accordingly. But
when we were half way through the best hot dog ever, my brother remembered that it was Friday – we were eating meat on a Friday. While for most millennials, the gravity of this situation would not connect with anything in their experience of the Church or its teachings, we were convinced that we were on the fast track to eternal damnation. Of course, it did not stop us from finishing our hot dogs. After all, we were kids, we were hungry, and the damage had already been done. But on the ride from Detroit back to Windsor, we sat side by side, each of us facing our doom, repeating the Act of Contrition, just in case God struck us down on the way home. My childhood memories are punctuated by instances like this, when in the most innocent of actions, we slid into the abyss of the possibility of eternal damnation. For those looking in from the outside, unaccustomed to growing up in a familial culture that was bound up entirely in the faith and identity of Roman Catholicism, it may seem miraculous that we grew up with a healthy sense of who we are, and where
we are grounded. However, in my humble opinion, we did! Our parents were “thinking” Catholics, who created a balance between the letter of the law and the innocence of childhood. There was never a dismissal of the law, simply a deeper understanding of how God would view our involuntary excursions into the dark side. The ethos of my childhood left one enduring thought, which I have to this day: God is indeed ever-present in the most mundane and inconsequential moments of my daily life. While I may not be the sinner I was as a child, there is a part of me that thinks God rejoices when, every once in a while, I get a hot dog, cooked on the grill, and eaten outside. And if it is Friday, I always take a moment, wink out of the corner of my eye, and say in my heart to the God of my life, “Want a bite?” Shannon Hogan is a member of the Counselling and Member Services department at the OECTA Provincial Office.
APRIL 2018 | CATHOLIC TEACHER 23