INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily is, “Blue Owl.”
I had trouble putting today’s three readings - for this Second Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C - into a
recognizable theme and message, so I decided to write a story about an
imaginary someone - to try to give some meaning to what today’s three readings
are about. I like to do this especially when I’m not sure on what to preach
about. [Cf. Isaiah 62: 1-5; 1 Corinthians 12: 4-11' and John 2: 1-11]
So here is an imaginary story called, “Blue Owl.” It’s
total fiction - but I know it has become reality many times over for many, many
people.
Eventually, years later, when they did the paper work
they discovered that Blue Owl was born with blood and family lines that were part of 4 different Indian Tribes in a
dry deserted part of Arizona. He was part of the Zuni, Pima, Yuma and the Apache
Native American Peoples and didn’t seem to fit into any one of them.
His parents had long ago disappeared - as well as any
connection to any siblings, or aunts of uncles.
Yet he survived -
living in three different orphanages and was making it.
At 11 years of age he was living in a Catholic group home
with about 45 other little kids. It was poor. It was lonely. But it was home -
a home run by a small group of American Catholic Nuns.
The nuns did their best. Better days were behind them.
Yet the kids had a bed, meals, schooling, and a future promise of learning some
life skills so they could get a job and a life somewhere.
Things change. The nuns had a big community meeting to go
to - and at that meeting - they had to face the reality they were aging - and
they had to give up some of their places.
Unfortunately, Blue Owl’s place was picked to close. The
45 kids would have to be relocated - somewhere, somehow.
One of the nuns had a grandnephew who was a newspaper
reporter in St. Louis and she told him in an e-mail the horrible story about what
was going to happen. He wrote the story up - giving the history of the
orphanage/ school - the work the nuns
had done down through the years - and how many of the kids got jobs ranching - forest
fire fighting - and doing this and that - advancing in life - some doing very
well by entering into the military. He
didn’t mention - he was tempted - but he didn’t mention in the article about
the alcoholic problem that afflicted many Native American People.
A dad in a family in Minnesota - Minneapolis to be exact
- just happened to read the paper while waiting for a plane in St. Louis -
after a business meeting - before heading back to Minneapolis. He got the
thought, “I wonder if we could adopt one of these kids.”
He asked his wife and family when he got home and they
thought about it - and even said a prayer about it - and they all said, “Why
not?”
“Let’s go for it.”
So they called the reporter who got them in touch with
the reporter’s aunt and they talked and talked - and asked if any of the kids
would be able to be adopted.
“Yes!” came the answer.
So mom, dad, and three boys - one 11 and
still in grade school and two in high school - flew down to Arizona on the long Martin
Luther King Jr. weekend - got a rent-a-car - and drove 156 miles to where the
orphanage school was.
The nuns provided rooms for the family there and
introduced them to the kids.
Blue Owl didn’t stand out. He was quiet - off to the side
- sort of out of it - but Henry from Minneapolis - the family’s youngest son -
went over to Blue Owl and made a dent into his brain and story.
He told his mom and dad and two other brothers, “Blue Owl’s the one!”
All hesitated - because they had other kids in mind - and
Blue Owl seemed so non-descript - but
Henry insisted that Blue Owl was his choice and invited Blue Owl to eat with
them that Saturday for lunch.
The other 4 hesitated - because Blue Owl seemed so
“Forsaken” - so “Desolate” - but Henry -
Henry had a forceful personality and won
the day. He said, “Most of the other kids will find a home, but I don’t know
about Blue Owl.”
Blue Owl arrived at their home a month later. Dad and
Henry had been in contact with him and they are the ones who flew down to
Arizona to get him and get his stuff - the little that he had - and come to
their home in Minneapolis - and experience plenty of snow and cold - but also
warmth and love, home and family.
Years and years later, looking back at that whole
experience, Doctor Blue Own Peterson - that became his Norwegian American
adopted name - told many an audience at Medical School where he taught surgery
- how lucky he was to have someone to pick up a newspaper in an airport - get
an inspiration - and then do something about it.
He would tell his students and different audiences - it
was like eating at McDonald's all your life and then you’re at a wedding banquet
and they are feeding you like a king. It was like living on the street and you
scraped up two dollars to buy a Powerball lottery ticket and you won.
He would conclude many a speech or lecture, “I won that
day when I moved from a small run down orphanage on a dirt road in nowhere
Arizona to a wonderful home on a tree lined street in Minneapolis, Minnesota -
discovering I had a mom and a dad and three wonderful brothers - especially my
twin: Henry.”
Sometimes he would add, “I don’t know how I got the name
‘Blue Owl.’ I might have been too moody - too dark blue owl night moody like -
but when I came to Minnesota I became in time Yellow Canary - a happy Yellow
Canary.”
“But no, I still like the sound and
feel of Blue Owl.”
