Agape and Personhood. David L. Goicoechea

David and his sister Bette for they were friends of David.

      Her children’s very names reminded her of the realm of the Holy

      and she kept pondering the sacred priest and his sacred sacraments.

      I.3.7 Paul and John Becoming Mark

      Mother and all around her were going through much upheaval

      by living through the war years and those trials were bringing

      her to a new religious outlook and fundamental attitude as

      she began to raise her family with her husband and in his world.

      His mother and five sisters and especially Father Dougherty

      all helped her to understand him as a new profile of Jesus.

      She had learned the missionary way of St. Paul from her mother

      and of a universal love for the goodness of all who are redeemed

      by Christ who suffered and died to pay the penalty for sin.

      She had learned the way of John’s beloved community from

      the Mormon community of Carey in which she grew up.

      The cross of suffering which builds up the Beloved Kingdom

      here on earth as in Carey had to do with prophetic suffering

      which would come to those who live contrary to the world.

      But as mother and everyone coped with the anxieties and

      inconveniences of war and as she lived in a child-like

      attitude for, with and from her children the speech that Peter

      gave at Pentecost and that became the skeleton of Mark’s

      Gospel and of the Synoptic Tradition began to form her heart.

      Jesus (1) whom the prophets foretold (2) went about doing good

      (3) but he was made to suffer and put to death. (4) However, he

      arose from the dead and ascended into heaven. (5) Now his

      Holy Spirit has descended upon us to protect us and guide us.

      Mother began to imitate Jesus in caring for others as did

      the Good Samaritan and in offering up her own and all

      suffering with the Suffering Servant who bore the Cross to teach

      us all how to suffer and she saw that reacting negatively

      creates more poison within us than do bad eating habits.

      She welcomed her husband, children and neighbors with joy and

      she prayed especially for any who annoyed or persecuted her.

      She pondered how the sacred sacraments might cultivate the Holy.

      I.3.8 Communicating in Sacred Silence

      Those years of ‘45, ‘46 and ‘47 were a turmoil of activity and

      yet for mother, Bette Jo, and myself they were a time of harmony.

      Mother loved a life centered on home and family and of good, clean

      productive farm work that made each person happy, healthy, and holy.

      Daddy was driving a milk truck for the dairy and mother was

      pleased with his honest work for she always felt that gambling

      was a wrongful taking of someone else’s money and not honest.

      We all lived at Gramma and Grandpa’s farmhouse and everything

      seemed to go along in an exciting and smooth way without friction.

      Mother would wash the dishes and I got to help Aunt Mid dry them.

      And I marveled at how much silverware she could hold in

      her left hand and I would try to imitate her as we laughed together.

      Uncle El taught me how to play monopoly and told me stories

      at night before we went to sleep in our bedroom upstairs.

      Gramma listened often to the radio and talked a lot about

      the war but still had lots of fun in the extended family.

      Mother had many voices within her and she lived partly

      in her mother’s world, partly in her father’s world, partly

      in her husband’s world, and, of course, always in her own world.

      And she knew that the writing was on the wall and that her

      husband would never be content being a farmer in Carey

      even though that idea seemed so ideal for her and the children.

      And she was an acting person who made constant

      decisions that built up the loving attitude within herself

      and within others and she performed good actions knowing

      that they contributed to good habits of heart, mind and soul.

      But, she was also an acting person in another sense of the word

      for from her mother who was quite dramatic she had a sense

      of the drama of life and she had to get each voice just right.

      She had to keep still voices that would lead to strife and friction

      and to strengthen the sweet tone of her voice of reconciliation.

      I.3.9 Third Holy Child and Sacred Community

      And big changes took place a mile a minute as we moved

      to a farm we rented and my dad milked eighteen Holsteins

      and grew hay and hunted and fished and visited Ketchum.

      Uncle El lived with us and we took the school bus together

      as I was in the first grade and he was a sophomore in high school.

      And our new little baby brother, Bobby Brian, was born

      and named after uncle Bob and my dad’s friend Brian

      who was a gambler up in Ketchum and found us a house

      right across the street from his. And the war ended and

      I washed baby diapers in the irrigation ditch with mother

      just as she had with her mother up Iron Mine. And we

      did move to Ketchum and Whitey Hirshman and my dad

      bought a little nightclub together called The Rumba Club

      and their gambling was very successful and we paid $3,500

      for our little old house and I started second grade in Ketchum.

      We had Catechism school once a week and mother and I learned

      the answers together as we had the book propped up on

      the window-sill over the kitchen sink as we did dishes together.

      She had watched as my dad taught me the Angel of God and

      Hail Mary in Carey and now she learned them too and she

      decided to become a Catholic when I received first communion.

      What William James said about getting down on your knees

      and praying if you want to receive faith describes good acting.

      We can cultivate the whole network of right attitude, right

      mood, right sensing, right feeling, right thoughts, words

      and