THE TOPPLING TOWER

[Hello. Instead of a homily for today, I wrote a story last night on one image from today’s gospel: that of the tower. I like to do this once and a while – to break the monotony and to see where a story will take me – hopefully challenging me with the gospel in a new way. So here goes. The title of this story is, “The Toppling Tower.”]

Ted kept to himself. Oh, he could be sociable. He had a good smile – but he could also fake it to make it. Nobody really climbed the steps inside of him – climbing to the top of his neck, to unlock the door that led to his brain – to walk around inside his skull and find out what was really going on in there.

His wife, Julia, often wondered. His introverted personality could get her to cringe at times – but it didn’t seem to bother Ted. Their three kids knew their dad as dad – father – authority – wallet – chauffer – quiet chauffer for longer trips. He was there all through their growing up. As to knowing him – really knowing him? “No. Not yet.”

Sometimes getting to know dad – is an adult to adult thing – later on – in boats or golf or troubles – but always after grandchildren.

As to his wife Julia – yes, they would talk to each other – chat chat, and sometimes that was that. They loved each other. They met in college. They were doing the husband-wife – family-experience-thing – as a dream at first – then sleep walking as far Julia could see it – for Ted these past 7 years.

They did weekends – vacations – family gatherings – birthdays – Fourth of July – Parish picnics – Thanksgiving – Christmas together – but as Julia was slowly figuring, their marriage – now in double numbers and then some, was on automatic pilot too often.

The bills were paid – sometimes reluctantly – but the bills were paid all through the years of their marriage – as the kids were growing up. Julia slowly sensed that money was the root of something in Ted that she didn’t grasp. Money was the issue that made her nervous at times.

She went back to work as a dental hygienist after the kids were all in school. It was the perfect job because she could make her own hours and shift schedules with two other hygienists she worked with at a wonderful dental practice.

Down through the years, Ted had tried many ventures. That’s what he called them – “ventures” – never “adventures”. That hinted of too much risk – and not enough sound planning. Ventures: a dry cleaning business - a coffee shop – a sub shop – real estate. Each business failed – but silently, slowly, undramatically – just as he moved into the next venture.

Somehow there was always money – but the stress could be wicked at times – but at no time would he tell Julia or anyone about the “wicked stress” – as he called it. Yet, it was a negative energy: this walking near the edge of the cliff between failure and success as he kept searching for the perfect business venture.

This time it was a tower. Yes, a tower. Someone said, “There was money in towers.” He did a study on cell towers. “Yes,” he said to himself. “There is money here.” So he took out a loan – got the property – did the paper work – had the tower constructed, lifted and installed. It reached high, high, into the sky – with its great metal cables holding tightly – grabbing the ground. Then he went a hunting for people who wanted to hang cell phone or pager dishes on a tower.

His wife, Julia, would be saying from time to time, “Are you okay?”

"Fine!” he answered. He was a man of few words – mostly short words.

The money was coming in – but not enough.

The bills were coming in and he was getting nervous – because maybe there wouldn’t be enough money.

Jinny was at an expensive private high school. Jessica had a series of operations on her left eye. Jason, their youngest, wanted to be a hockey goalie – and that equipment cost a lot of money.

Ted never yelled. Ted never screamed. Ted never lost it out loud.

His face mask was his smile. However, underneath the smile, because of the tower, there was a sense of panic that he never felt before. He was getting older. Did he still have it? All these other ventures, when they weren’t making it, he was able to sell off the assets and buy his next asset. This one was looking like a mistake – a major mistake.

One reality was key: he always worked alone.

This was the way it always was. He had reached out to his dad when he was a kid – and his dad was always in his own private tower.

Without knowing it, son became father. The apple didn’t fall too far from the tower.

He remembered one day as a little kid at the beach building a castle alone and he didn’t notice the tide coming in behind him. He was almost finished and this big wave snook up behind him and wiped out his castle. The father of a kid about 10 yards away said, “You should have built your castle up here where my son and I are building ours.” And a tear almost came – as he looked over the man’s shoulder and there was his dad on a blanket – sleeping by himself under their big umbrella. At that moment he realized with a kid’s brain his dad was different than so many other dads – the ones who were coaches and fans at Pop Warner football games and Little League baseball games – or like this dad building a castle with his son with its great towers at the beach – 10 yards safer than where he was.

His towers had just toppled by this great wave of water.

So he stood up that day – and without knowing it – became his own father – but he also became a tower – and he had the only key.

Here it was happening again – with his cell tower. Waves of other entrepreneurs and small companies were putting up towers along the interstate where his tower was and they were underbidding him. The literature he read didn’t warn him about other venture capitalists when it comes to cell towers.

He was about to have to face his life long issue: pride – aloneness – stubbornness – not willing to reach out to others.

That Sunday he went to church – and he did what he always did when he went to church – sitting alone but with his family. He prayed. He stood. He sat. He heard the sermon. He put money in the collection – this time with a bit of hesitation. He prayed. He said the Our Father. He thought about pro football starting that afternoon - but he felt no interest.

The only show in town, the only sound in his brain, was the disaster he was facing with regards his tower. This was what he was watching that morning in church on the TV screen in his mind. That was the sound ringing on the cell phone in his head.

His tower was toppling – that was the sound paging him.

The second reading that Sunday mentioned a man named Onesimus who was a slave – and Paul was sending him to a friend named Philomen – saying that he was sending him as a great gift, a great worker, with a great resume.

Ted didn’t hear or read that.

The gospel talked about being a disciple and making Jesus number 1 – making him one’s top priority, if we want to travel with him – and not letting our family or anyone or anything getting in the way of discipleship. “Tough stuff”, the preacher said. Ted didn’t hear that.

However he did hear the word “father” and he did hear the word “tower”. He especially heard the story of a man who wanted to construct a tower – who first sat down and calculated the cost to see if he had enough money for its completion – otherwise if he built it and ran out of money, everyone would laugh at him.

Ted had an epiphany moment. The light went on in his skull. Jesus was speaking to him. Jesus wanted to free him.

“Wow” he thought, “I’m not the first person who has been where I am right now.”

He reached over his left hand and took Julia’s right hand. She was shocked. This was the first time this man did this in church since their wedding day.

Julia could hear all kinds of sounds from Ted’s brain going down his shoulder into his arm and into his hand and into her hand and up her arm into her shoulder and into her skull – but the sounds were too scrambled and too strange and had too much static for her to know what Ted was saying and thinking.

Did he have cancer? Was someone sick? Was he worried? What?

She sat there next to him during the long sermon – through the rest of Mass – and at the Our Father, Ted gave Julia a hug – a long hug.

When they came back from communion there was eye closing prayers. Julia was watching Ted from the corner of her right eye – and she saw him wipe tears. Yes, tears.

“What was going on?” she was screaming inside her thought processes.

When they got home, he said to Julia, “Let’s go for a walk.”

He cried. He stopped at times. He embraced her there on the sidewalk as they walked down their street. He held her hand all through the walking. He told her about the disaster of the toppling tower he had bought and how this time he was worried.

She calmly said, “We can work this out. We can work this out.”

But she was nervous. This was new territory. These were new sounds from Ted.

Then Ted said, “I know what I’m going to do. I know what I have to do.”

“What?” said Julia.

“I’m going to go Ocean City and see my dad and ask his advice. He was terrifically successful in all his ventures.”

His dad lived alone – near the beach. His mom had died two years ago.

And that’s what Ted did. When he got there, his dad was in the backyard of his house near the beach – laying there under a big umbrella - sleeping.

The two of them had a long, long, long talk – a life time talk.

Ted sold the tower – and with his dad’s advice – and with Julia’s wisdom and blessing, he got a county job – in the Unemployment division. Where else?

And everything became different for Ted – for Ted and Julia – for Ted and Julia and their kids. It was also very different for Ted and his dad – who moved back closer to his grandkids and to his son and daughter-in-law – buying a condo – no not in a tower – but one close to the ground.

The Toppling Tower had brought both of them together. The Tower got both of them communicating with each other. Ted laughed. Wasn’t that what cell towers were supposed to do in the first place?