Agape and Personhood. David L. Goicoechea

The Holy, the Sacred, and the Profane

      Father made his living by running poker games at the pool hall.

      Deep down he was pleased that mother did not approve for he

      loved her most of all because she was a holy woman like his

      mother and he knew that she would be a very ideal wife and mother.

      Even though he was involved in the most profane life

      with his smoking, drinking and gambling she knew from

      the way he loved her that he had a great reverence for the Holy.

      She lived playfully with him in his play and he loved to

      play with their little baby and with her in her playful delight.

      In the baby book she wrote: “David looked like his daddy at birth.”

      Under Recognition of Mother she wrote: “He recognized his mother

      before he was three months old.” Under Recognition of Father she

      wrote: “David thinks his dad is a play-fellow.”

      David identified with the moods and feelings of their play and it

      was written: “When he was 11 weeks old we took him to Gooding

      to the Rodeo. He behaved perfectly and slept in the dresser drawer.”

      Even that makeshift crib had something of their play about it.

      And you can bet that many of dad’s high school football,

      basketball, boxing, and track and field friends would have

      been there in his home town to meet his wife and baby boy

      and to welcome them into the friendship of their play together.

      To end the depression President Roosevelt initiated work programs

      and mother was ever so happy that her husband Joe was hired

      to work on building a road up Warm Springs near Ketchum.

      But then with winter approaching they moved down to Ketchum

      and dad got a job dealing poker at the Alpine Club for Lew Hill.

      And so a pattern began for mother as she tried to influence

      her husband away from gambling and toward wholesome work.

      He was a strong hard worker who loved exercise and good health

      but as an excellent poker player he could make much more by

      dealing at casinos and he could get jobs there very easily.

      I.3.5 Holy War—Holy Pregnancy—Holy Daughter

      By 1942, the Second World War was already beginning to rage

      in both the European and Asian theatres and uncle Bob would

      soon be drafted into the navy and there was mounting anxiety.

      There are so many kinds of war: within a person, between

      the sexes, within different groups, between political parties.

      The opposition of differences is an obvious fact and is

      the source of the problem of evil which is the challenge for

      all peace makers and those inclined to ways of reconciliation.

      In many ways the war of the sexes is the paradigm case for

      it is the source of bellicose and rebellious trouble makers and

      if solutions could be found for it solutions could be found for all.

      The first classical model for building up reconciliation has

      always and paradoxically been the moral equivalent to war.

      During a war the people on one side ban together strongly and

      work with much more zeal than usual to survive and prevail.

      The apocalyptic religious view sees the conquering of evil

      as the way toward reconciliation and the attainment of peace.

      “Peace without justice” or “Peace at any price” are criticized.

      A second model is the moral equivalent to pregnancy and

      while mother constantly saw various kinds of war around her

      she had to keep herself in just the right attitude and to

      perform all the right exercises for the sake of a healthy baby.

      And she was highly motivated by the thought that whatever she

      preferred, desired, thought, said or did was done to her baby.

      And her new baby girl, Bette Jo, was born and again

      the child was loved by all so that all loved each other.

      And the quadratic logic of the little family had new blessings.

      David was so happy with his new little sister and mother

      loved the new happiness of father for his new daughter.

      And each was as happy as a child and the way to reconciliation

      also was seen as the moral equivalent to the joyful child.

      I.3.6 The Holy and the Sacred

      Daddy quickly made the money dealing cards at the saloon

      so that their new house could be built down under the hill.

      Then before they knew it daddy was called to do war duty

      in a ship plant at Bremerton near Seattle, Washington.

      They sold their home to Whitey Hirshman, a gambler friend

      of daddy’s and he drove their car to Port Orchard, a little town

      on the Puget Sound where he found a house that they could rent.

      Mother with myself and Bette Jo who was of course, only a baby

      took the train day and night and day to Seattle where

      daddy met us and he took us to our new home in a strange place.

      Daddy left early each morning to take the Ferry to the Port to work.

      Meanwhile Uncle Tony, Aunt Mid’s husband, and Uncle Bob

      were drafted into the army and navy respectively and Gramma

      and Grandpa Coates went to Portland, Oregon, for defense work.

      Gramma was constantly worrying about her son and son-in-law

      and all the other young men whom she knew and was

      hearing about on the radio week by week and some were killed.

      Very difficult times were going on all around mother and her

      little family, but in most ways with her work, prayers

      and spiritual reading she still lived in the enchanted world

      that she had read about in Just David and that Father Dougherty

      helped her think about with his distinction between holy and sacred.

      When he baptized Bette Jo he referred to her as Elizabeth Josephine

      and daddy said to mother: “Now see what you have done!”

      But to mother it was only funny and with her two children

      she was learning to be child-like and she read those words:

      “Unless you are like little children you cannot enter the Kingdom.”

      And she had named Bette Jo after a youth named