Stand Up

It was the beginning of true adulthood and I was trying to make friends. Therefore, I got in a reply-all email argument with an acquaintance and got kicked off the team.

When I was just starting work life after college life, I joined a kickball team to try to meet new people. It was so far out of my comfort zone that everyone might as well have been speaking a different language, playing a game I'd never encountered, on Mars, all while in their birthday suits. But I joined and went and played anyway.

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I was surviving, barely. This introvert went to every game, even when the nausea began hours in anticipation of the weekly meetups. Halloween rolled around and the team was emailing back and forth on a thread about what costumes they would don at our next match. One particularly good-looking and friendly acquaintance on my team shared his idea:

"I'm going to wear all black, tape a little white rectangle to the top of my collar, and borrow my nephew's Toy Story Woody doll to hang out of my pants. I'll be a priest with a woody!"

Hilarity ensued. And I couldn't decide if that was rage or more nausea boiling up inside of me.

I'm not big on controversy. I'd much rather everyone just make the right choices, keep everyone happy, follow the rules, and everyone just do what they should, thankyouverymuch. I do my best to fit into that mold and people please as needed along the way. In a perfect world, I never have to face controversy. I was at an impasse:

If I want people to follow the rules and do what they should, what should I be doing in this moment?

I fired back about how I am Catholic and that he can't be serious with that costume. He and others laughed it off and responded with gentile manner about how it was just to be funny and that the costume was harmless. Again, impasse: laugh along with them and decide I was taking it too seriously, or continue my protest. You read the first paragraph, so what do you think I did?

Here's the problem with that costume (as if it weren't obvious). It makes a mockery of a really challenging vocation AND simultaneously makes allusions to these horrific acts in which so many priests have engaged.

The hilarious costume wearer told me in a private email that he didn't think it should be considered offensive because "[he] grew up Catholic," (always a point of credibility ex-Catholics think they should share). He said it wasn't offensive because he was just saying that a priest (who, in case you didn't know, takes vows of celibacy in the effort to devote his life to the Church and her sheep) probably had a ... you know ... from time to time. And that makes him laugh.

I told this comedian that not only does that make light of an honorable sacrifice that he obviously couldn't hack, but the fact that he was using a small, male children's toy to HANG OUT OF HIS PANTS conjured images of pedophilia. You better believe this guy is upset at this moment over this grand jury report about which we all learned. But when it's a Halloween costume, it's funny and in no way links him to the evil in our world that leads men to make these horrifying mistakes.

Two comments before my revertigo anger bubbles. This guy (and all y'all) needs to think about how his actions are building morale up rather than going for the laugh at the expense of tearing down the good in our world.

And secondly, good friends are not a dime a dozen. As Mr. Feeny said in the graduation episode of Boy Meets World, "Do good," not just "well," do good. Surround yourself with people who raise your standards for yourself.

Within a day, the coach of the kickball team told me there was another team that was operating with too few players and wanted to know if I'd like to switch. I switched. And within a few weeks I became much more involved in my parish's young adult group. The same group where I met the man who is going to get me to Heaven (God-willing) and who gave me my daughter.