Few friends would argue with the proposition that I talk a bit. Lucky, really—in my job you’re expected to talk a lot. What I like most, however, is just easy conversation—a little unhurried time for a meal, a lazy hour in a pub, stories that cause belly laughs and the odd tear.
Sadly, a lot of my talking is monologue. A pulpit homily doesn’t allow for much genuine feedback. At its best, conversation dances—opening up, exploring connections, sharing stories, earthy humour, at times a little weep. Even wracking sobs. The letters that follow were the beginning of a conversation that continues to unfold . . .
My name is Tony Doherty. Last big one, birthday that is, was 82. Should have retired years ago, of course, but much of my work is simply fun. Almost all of it carries a quiet sense of deep satisfaction, even in the damaged Church we have today.
As a Catholic priest who had been standing still in pulpits for over five decades, a few years ago I felt this baffling impulse to walk a 350-kilometre section of the famous Camino Frances, an ancient pilgrim road in northern Spain that leads from the Pyrenees mountains to Santiago de Compostela. I reached the cathedral at Santiago on the day of my 75th birthday—rather chuffed, really.
On the road, I’d listened to deeply human stories—stories that were golden. Sometimes they were in a language not my own, but still I understood their meaning. A little, at least. The irony is, however, that one of my richest Camino conversations did not take place in Spain but has been here in Australia, with a woman who, although we share the same language and are both veterans of the pilgrim track, has a vastly different background and foreground to my own.
The night before Good Friday 2012, a book by Ailsa Piper, an author quite unknown to me, arrived in the mail. I read it over the Easter weekend. It was about taking on the load of other people’s sins. Connections began to form in my mind.
On Friday the parish church is full, listening again to the story of judgement, torture and death. The mood is sober. The message is Jesus ‘carrying our sins’—now there’s a link! On Sunday, people are lifted with a story of new life and resurrection. This is the normal Easter fare.
But there is a backstory that always catches my attention.
Where were those young friends, apostles we will call them, on the Friday of the execution? They were hiding in a locked room paralysed by fear, staring into the abyss of their own cowardice. All their enthusiastic promises of support were cold ashes in their mouths. The newly risen Christ appears in their locked room. There was no recrimination. No demand for explanation. No mention of broken promises. What he offered them was shalom—the ancient blessing of love, understanding, abundance and fullness of life. What he gave them was forgiveness.
The origins of the Christian story are grounded in the experience of a group of terrified, broken, vulnerable people—not the usual foundation story told of heroes. The Easter event carries a painful reminder that new life often comes in brokenness. Sometimes in the brokenness of others.
Ailsa’s book reminded me that in the far-off Middle Ages, pilgrims attempted a highly unusual way of being connected—by carrying one another’s sins. This notion, initially seeming like rank superstition, spoke directly to the Easter story, and seemed to have a surprising foundation of good common sense. I began to ask myself fundamental questions: To what extent are those of us who come together in church a practical community? How are we really connected to one another? How do we take genuine responsibility for each other?
In this monologue world of mine, I talk a great deal about a family of believers supporting one another. We in the Catholic Church claim to be a community whose aim is to take on the task of being a healing agent in the wider world. On a bad day—and those days are becoming more frequent in the light of the stories of abuse—it’s hard to recognise such a grand vision.
We build hospitals to help people with broken bodies. We minister to the dying. We teach children. We provide shelter for the homeless and try to share their alienation. We struggle for the rights of refugees. Why, then, do we find it hard to imagine carrying the sins of others? Why do we find it so confronting to face this gospel responsibility?
That’s how my conversation with Ailsa began. It wasn’t long before the ensuing emails became a vehicle for personal sharing.
We are a generation apart in age—or is that two generations? Ailsa grew up on an immense sheep station in Western Australia. I grew up on Sydney’s Lane Cove River. Her life has been in the theatre. My life has been in the Church. She’s a walker. I’m more of a swimmer. Our conversation, between Melbourne and Sydney, was by email. Ailsa’s language is not always my language. She will use the word ‘love’ with little restraint. There is a cautious philosopher locked away somewhere in me that wants to make all sorts of distinctions. Ailsa chides me that I’m splitting hairs or just plain fearful. She likes to chide!
Our correspondence grew out of mutual curiosity, and explored many issues—for example, the nature of belief—from two quite disparate points of view. Belief has many faces, it always has had. The battle lines drawn up between believer and unbeliever often seem childish to me, like kids wrestling in a playground. Not that our letters were debates between belief and unbelief at all—but the nature of human belief is never too far away from what occupies our minds.
I like the word ‘belief ’. It has always intrigued me. The word comes from an old English word lief, which can be translated as ‘love’. Belief, at its heart, is ‘to be in love’. Faith is paying endless loving attention to the meaning of our existence; to be in love with life at its ultimate level.
Perhaps Ailsa is the true believer!
That’s not the entire story, of course. Where do we find the time and the vocabulary to tell even part of a person’s story? But that will do for a start.
Tony