4/9/08:

Paul Wadell

I’ve had sacramental moments in all kinds of places. One of them occurred about twelve years ago when I was vacationing with some friends in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and one of them said, “Let’s go outside and look at the stars!” Another happened the night I was flying to Green Bay for my job interview here at the College and the pilot said if we looked out the right side of the plane we would see the Northern Lights. Since then I’ve had sacramental moments in my marriage to Carmella, in friendships, and even in the check-out line at the Piggly Wiggly in De Pere. I know Piggly Wiggly is expensive, but spiritually it is worth it!   

But my most recent sacramental moment happened on the stairway in Boyle Hall. Maybe those of us who work in Boyle Hall do not ordinarily expect to encounter the sacred on the stairways there, but I did a few weeks ago.    

My journey toward the sacred began when I opened the door on the fourth floor and started my descent down. I expected the trip down from the fourth floor to the first floor to be as it always is—pretty uneventful. But when I reached the landing on the third floor, something unpleasant and even hurtful occurred. It only took a few seconds, but it was one of those unexpected encounters that can knock the wind out of you spiritually and emotionally, and leave you a little stunned.       

So I stood there for a moment, not at all expecting that I was about to be gifted with a little bit of God in my every day life. Just then coming up the stairway was a student in one of my classes. I’m always happy when a student speaks to me, but this student went out of her way to engage me. She had no idea of what had happened only seconds before, but she stopped her ascent up the steps not only to say hello, but to ask me how I was doing and to inquire about my day. And she seemed genuinely interested. She lingered long enough for me to answer, and then ended the blessed encounter by letting me know that she hoped the rest of my day went well. If one act took a little life from me, her act resurrected me. By the time I reached the bottom of that stairway, I felt restored.   

That sacramental moment on a Boyle Hall stairway reminded me of two things. It reminded me that God is adept at finding ways to reach us no matter where we might be. It reminded me that God is especially skilled, even clever, in finding ways to break into our lives to bless us, to love us, to heal us and to carry us along, and even to rescue us. In ways she did not realize, that student did all of those things for me. But it also reminded me that sacramental moments aren’t magic. God doesn’t work apart from us but through us. God enters the world through each of us, through our ordinary acts of kindness and thoughtfulness and goodness. Even if the student on the stairway that day was not aware of the difference she made, God worked through her to bless me.