Things I Failed to Do (11/08/2024)

When I was a junior in high school, my family moved from Waycross, Georgia to Sioux City, Iowa. I recall well a conversation with my father the middle of my junior year. It was the middle of the civil rights movement which I wholly supported. But I was perplexed by the blindness of the people of western Iowa to the treatment of the Native Americans in our midst. To me, civil rights was about honoring the integrity of all peoples, yet I saw the struggles of the peoples of so many tribes or nations and no one seemed to be including their struggles in needs of our nation. And my father told me simply, “If you see something wrong that needs to be corrected, do something about it yourself.”

And so that summer I began a lifelong effort to address the needs of Native Americans. I volunteered that summer through our parish with a local priest to help with outreach to the Native Americans in the Sioux City area. I learned so much about the people, their trials but also their gifts to us. And I took that forward.

Over the course of my life, that advice from my father spurred me on to do other things. Twice, after moves to new cities (Beloit, Wisconsin and Tipton, Iowa), when no one welcomed me, I took on the role of the Welcome Wagon Lady. With the help of local businesses, I welcomed individuals and families with a visit, gifts from local merchants, and answers to questions about the area. And I kept in touch with them for a year, making sure their relocation was going well. And I must admit, it helped me more than them.

This last Sunday, as I stood in church with all my brothers and sisters and prayed the Confiteor, “I confess to Almighty God and to all my brothers and sisters that I have sinned in what I have done and what I have failed to do…” and it hit me like a ton of bricks, literally. Suddenly, I found myself realizing and recognizing the things I had failed to do, the prayers promised that weren’t said, the cards I could have sent and didn’t to another whom I knew needed reminders of being loved, the kindnesses I could have extended but failed to. And I lost track of the prayer being prayed around me. It was my wake-up call.

Most of us don’t act badly or maliciously. Most of us aren’t on crime sprees in our spare time. But we are called to consider in our lives not just what we’ve done, but also what we’ve failed to do, the good we left undone that we could have and should have done.

Today’s gospel reading is Jesus’ parable about the dishonest steward whom the master commends for his prudence. Jesus uses the parable to thump us into reality and to call us be prudent, to think before acting or not acting, to avoid those things that might be regretted later, to consider the long-term consequences of one’s actions or inactions, to exercise good judgment in the use of resources. In the end, we will be judged for what we do but also for what we failed to do.

This week I am trying to get myself back on track, back to recognizing the LORD’s call to me to address what I see, to love even when I’m in a hurry, to keep promises made, to be His disciple who walks in His footsteps.

As we journey, let us remember to live fully the call we have received, to love well all the time and not just when it serves us, to cooperate with the Spirit who nudges us into action for the love and glory of our LORD and love of and service to one another.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.