Agape and Personhood. David L. Goicoechea

David,

      a novel by Eleanor Porter that revealed to her her destiny

      so concretely that it inspired her with the directing dream

      of a vision so vivid she felt it would guide her through life.

      It was about a boy named David who was raised high

      up in the mountains by his father alone in their little

      mountain home with their books and violins and mother nature.

      Daily David’s father taught him in the pleasure of a shared joy

      reading, writing, arithmetic, Latin, French and jujitsu.

      Their home reminded her of her home high up Iron Mine.

      And it connected in association with Joseph Manuel Goicoechea.

      As a youth he spent his summers up Fish Creek with Pete,

      the husband of his sister, Claudia, who was like a father to him.

      Often by the sheep corrals where the Iron Mine Stream flowed

      into Fish Creek mother’s mother, Leona, and Joe’s sister, Claudia,

      would meet in friendly, laughing conversation and one day

      young Joe with his dancing brown eyes gave Leona some trout.

      As he cleaned them for her there in the clear, icy stream

      he told her how he liked school and especially sports.

      He ran in the hills each day to get in good shape for Fall.

      Claudia named her first daughter after Leona because

      she liked her so much and because she liked the name.

      Now with her mother’s blessing Joe and Joneva were ready

      to be married, but mother knew that her father would not

      like to give her away to this man of whom he disapproved.

      So without any wedding dress or any wedding party

      they eloped to Nevada to meet one of Joe’s sisters and

      there they were married, but only by a justice of the peace.

      With the holiest of ideals she somehow felt in a deep down

      and unspoken way that she married in a less than holy way.

      They did plan to marry soon in the church to make it right.

      I.3.2 Holy Child

      On May 18,1938, at 1:30 a.m. in the same Hailey Hospital where

      she had been born mother was delivered of her first child.

      He was named David Levaur Goicoechea and his last name was

      her husband’s last name, and his middle name was her father’s

      name and David was the name she associated with the holy.

      She now had nursing at her breast her own beautiful, healthy

      well formed baby and she gave him the name for which she

      wanted a son for she named him after Just David and now

      she could teach him the holy arts as David’s father taught him.

      Her baby’s name was also associated for her with David,

      the shepherd boy who took care of lambs the way she did,

      who was the conqueror of Goliath and the friend of Jonathan.

      And she was so happy in the joy of her husband who was

      the only one left with the name Goicoechea from his family.

      For his father died when little Joe was five and his mother

      raised him and his five sisters and now he was so proud

      of this new Goicoechea that he had to quickly get out

      the good news to all of her family and to his that mother

      and baby were doing ever so excellently well and he brought

      his wife and baby congratulations from those whom he called.

      And also the baby’s name was David Levaur and her own

      dear father now had a little grandson named after him

      and she knew that with him there would be those tears of glory.

      She and her husband and her father loved her new little baby

      with such great affection that it went beyond all contention

      and in her baby all were united in the harmony of reconciliation.

      Her mother and her sister and her brothers and all her friends

      and relations were so happy and this was an image for her

      of what the holy must be like and it was not so much

      a mysterium tremendum of some mystery that makes you

      tremble in fear, but it had the peace and joy of Baby Jesus.

      I.3.3 Sacred Priest—Sacred Baptism—Sacred Matrimony

      Baby David was born on May 18, and baptized on June 30.

      Even though mother was not catholic she was eager to have

      her child baptized and did not want the least procrastination.

      She and Joe had been married in a private mass by Father

      Dougherty once they got back from their Nevada elopement.

      Mother was completely taken by the priest and right away

      there was a master-disciple relation and she even asked him

      what was so different about a Catholic priest that she had

      never sensed in a Mormon priest or an Episcopalian Bishop.

      He told her that the Latin word of priest is sacerdos and

      that the priest in his celibacy lives apart from the profane

      so that through the sacraments he can help people be holy.

      He said that the fanum is the temple so that everything profane

      is outside the temple or even against the temple and that the

      temple is the place of the sacred sacrament of the real presence

      of the Body and the Blood of Jesus in the sacred Host and that

      that is why the red light burns in the Church and everyone genuflects.

      She sensed the sacred in the celibate sacerdos and wondered

      and pondered for years what he told her about the difference

      between the holy and the sacred and yet their significant relation.

      Joe’s sister Claudia and her husband Pete were witnesses to

      the marriage and the Godparents for their nephew, David.

      There was nothing mother wanted more than the love that brings

      the reconciliation of joy and peace and she knew

      that with her baby and the priest and his sacraments there

      were intimations of a new hope that fit her Just David dream.

      And Mrs. Billingsley, one of her high school teachers, gave

      her a little pink baby book and mother wrote down

      the gifts and from whom they came and each of the gifts

      was a sign of love’s power to turn any problem into

      a gift and they became memories of everyone’s love.