A NEW DOOR

 

To write, or not to write, that is the question. Somewhere deep inside, ever since I learned the alphabet in First Grade, I have experienced a calling to write. In First Grade the alphabet was a scary thing, and I started off in the bottom remedial reading group.

Everyone started there too; I just didn't realize it then. It seemed to me that my fellow classmates sprung from the sea, like Venus, fully grown, and already reading. In First Grade, I had graduated from "Now I know my A', B', C's,” during the last week of school, and had finally moved along into the bottom remedial reading group, where I had begun reading, Fun with Dick and Jane. In Second Grade, I swiftly got over my anxiety about those mysterious letters, thus improving rapidly. I quickly reached the top reading group. By the time I reached high school, I was reading at grade levels well above my peers. As a sophomore in high school, I was now tracked as reading at a junior level in college.

When it came time to choose a major in college, I chose Business. Business was now my calling. Business majors always worked, and although I was still attracted to writing, I knew that writers starved. Besides I wanted to live my life, not observe it. Money transported people and things, and accomplished goals. An author never motivated me to do anything that I hadn't already wanted, and planned to do anyway. Great literature, and out and out trash, had no effect on me. The fruits of journalism majors seemed only to line the bottom of bird cages.

After graduating, I started working in business where I saw the immediate results of my business enterprises. This gratified me. As a Reservation Sales Agent, I booked cars for Alamo Rent-A- Car. I soon discovered that four-door cars brought a larger bonus than two-door cars, although they were harder to book. A businessman traveling alone would only rent a two-door car, claiming that he only needed to open one door at a time. Four-door cars were only booked by families. I kept my sales records religiously. I quietly celebrated every sale I made.

But that voice that said, "Write, write, write, and ... publish!" wouldn't go away. Oh, my gosh! It even became louder!

I eventually joined several writers' groups in order to learn more about writing. This would abate my conscience which was telling me to write, and would enable me to return to making money in business! I learned that I wasn’t too old to begin writing at age 30, and I didn’t have the wrong major. It seems that most of the writers in these groups started writing as a second career after they began collecting Social Security. I also learned selling was an important skill in the business of writing. I thought I was washed up, and they actually thought I had some talent! Imagine that! Writing might be my calling after all! I could marry business with writing.

Not knowing how to proceed, I wrote some amusing informative articles for our Alamo Rent-A-Car’s employee newsletter. Reviews were mixed. My parents asked me, “Could I please just stick with business?” Employees were entertained, and informed. I was not happy; however, my writing had to persuade and motivate, not entertain, and inform. It must make a mark on "real life." I didn’t want to merely observe.

I prayed to God, "If this writing thing is my true calling, I need a sign. You better show me hard physical proof of a change in a person, place, or thing."

One of my many jobs after graduating from college was working as a receptionist for H&R Block. At this time in my life, despite my Business degree from Arizona State University which was supposed to help me make tons of money, I seemed stuck in a series of low-level positions. Anyway, one day a handicapped customer exacted a promise from me that I would do something to motivate organizations to provide electric entry doors for their customers. She badgered me into this promise, after I had rushed over to open the door for her.

Expecting a thank you, I got a lecture on how people wanted to move doors on their own.

Deciding to make good on my promise, I wrote a letter to the editor of the local Diocesan Roman Catholic newspaper calling upon Catholic parishes to install electric entrance doors. It was 1990. The Americans with Disability Act had recently been passed through Congress, and was subsequently signed by President George H.W. Bush. Even though local parishes were exempt from the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which requires businesses and nonprofits to remodel their premises by removing architectural barriers, I wanted to persuade the Catholic Church in my area to start the process of remodeling. In my letter, I wrote that parishes that took advantage of this exemption essentially shut the door on their physically challenged parishioners. I sent the letter off with a short one-minute prayer certain that the letter would be published. I asked God to please consider my act of trying, as a promise kept, even if the letter failed to motivate anyone toward any action. Lo, and behold it worked; the editor published my letter! After reading my long-winded judiciously edited letter in the editorial section, I rejoiced and forgot about it. Months rolled by.

Then the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time rolled around. Father gave a fine homily on that day about the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. He included visual aids with real bread loaves, and dead fishes. He said in his sermon, that God can work through all of us to do some imagination. I tried to listen carefully; however, I had trouble believing him, as I had just before Mass, balanced my checkbook. I noticed that nothing in my checkbook had multiplied. I was still in the black, but just barely.

However, God, wasn't finished with this multiplication lesson. After the final blessing, announcements were read, "We have a new door. We have just installed a new electric door, above the wheelchair ramp. Teens, please don't play with it."

As with all newly published authors, I was euphoric! Walking on air, I went up the stairs after Mass, to actually look at this new door. As I walked, I thanked God for fulfilling my prayers for the handicapped; however, I still couldn't quite believe it. Did I really have some influence, after all? Was this my sign? A change in a thing.

When I reached the new door, I wanted to touch it, but I knew that adults playing with the new door wasn't allowed either. Sadly, I didn't change a thing after all. The door couldn’t stay. The door just wouldn't last long at the rate that the teens were coming in and out of it, like a revolving door. Could I really count the installation of the door as a change in behavior as long as the teens were misbehaving?

But then I reconsidered. Evangelism isn't accomplished overnight. The teens now know that handicapped people are important to the Church. The physically challenged would feel validated, now with solid proof that people do care. The teens, they would eventually come around, and stop treating the new door like a carnival game merry-go-round.

Little did I know back then in 1990, that in 2008 Congress would amend the Americans with Disability Act to include even more people under an even broader definition of disabled. Although Congress would continue the exemption for historical buildings, and older churches, those teens who played merry-go-round with the door in the years to come, would grow up to become Church architects, construction engineers, and other people who make changes.

Today, you will find even old historical churches with giant ancient steps that contain elevators making the church ever more accessible to wheelchairs. In 2019, I went back to visit my old alma mater. I found that Arizona State University’s St. Mary’s which was designated a national historical landmark in 1978, and first remodeled in 1903, and is now shared jointly by the Catholic Newman Center, and the University of Mary, now has an elevator for wheelchair access.

Its designation, and its age had garnished it exemptions, but now it has an elevator anyway.

In addition, my young professional Church architect friend received a lecture from me on accessibility back in 1990 after he had begun writing his book on Church architecture and construction. I told him that the modern new churches should have wider aisles, and electric operated handicapped entrance doors in order to make our churches even more accessible. And this better be in his new book! Did I help start this transformation with my letter to the editor back in 1990? Only God really knows.

Thanks to me, and my old high school Church architect friend, Steven J. Schloeder, who wrote a book on Church construction entitled Architecture in Communion, "Implementing the Second Vatican Council through Liturgy and Architecture, our newly constructed local parish church building, All Saints in Mesa, AZ, dedicated in 2011 even has in its front first pew a bench that folds down for wheelchairs enabling our wheelchair bound parishioners to slide right next to able boded members of the congregation. You see, Steve in the book emphasized enabling the handicap in his book which was written for Church architects, the clergy, and anyone interested in Catholic Church architecture. These improvements should help these parishioners feel validated and included.

And me? How did this information affect my writing career? Did Jesus like the loaves and the fishes multiply the alphabet that I learned in grade school into a full-fledged writing calling? Do I now write what I feel compelled to say? Do you really have to ask?

"For it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks."1 Luke 6:45.

I'm praising God. He has silently, and effortlessly, opened a new door in my life, my writing career, and my Church. One door at a time.

FOOTNOTES

1 New Revised Standard Version Bible, © 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ, U.S.A. Used by permission.