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PAGE 4 — The Southern Cross, December 7,1972
The Southern Cross
Business Office 225 Abercorn St. Savannah, Ga. 31401
Most Rev. Gerard L. Frey, D.D. President
Rev. Francis J. Donohue, Editor John E. Markwalter, Managing Editor
Second Class Postage Paid at Waynesboro, Ga. 30830
Send Change of Address to P.O. Box 10027, Savannah, Ga. 31402
Published weekly except the second and last weeks
in June, July and August and the last week in December.
At 202 E. Sixth St., Waynesboro, Ga. 30830
Subscription Price $2.76 per year by Assement Parishes Diocese of Savannah Others $5 Per Year
A Helping Hand
“Stay in school!” urges the television
public service announcement. “Get a
good education!” parents all over the
nation advise their children. Yet many
young people do drop out of high school
every year, for one reason or another,
later to join the ranks of the unskilled in
the search for jobs. For the child from a
middle-income American home, the
problem is great enough. For those from
below the poverty line it may turn into a
permanent handicap, keeping them at
the bottom of the ladder for a lifetime
and allowing for no escape in the way of
satisfying job opportunities, new
challenges, changes for the better.
Take, for instance, the girl who grows
up in a large, lower-income family in a
small town in Georgia. There are few
jobs open to her in her town when she
drops out of high school. At best she
may earn a minimum wage as an
unskilled factory worker.
What such a girl needs is more than a
year or so longer in the classroom. At
the critical moment in her life she needs
someone to advise her, someone to help
her develop those talents she does
possess, and to assist her in setting some
goals which will give shape and direction
to her life. One agency which does much
to provide this kind of assistance is
WOMEN IN COMMUNITY SERVICE
(WICS) - a nation-wide organization of
volunteers from many different
backgrounds who work together to help
girls break out of the cycle of poverty.
WICS volunteers work within each
community to reach out to those young
girls (between the ages of 16 and 21)
who most need help, and mobilize
support for programs that will benefit
them and their families.
make information available to them
about Job Corps and other programs
available to them, and encourage them in
their decision to enroll. Volunteers then
take a personal interest in each
individual girl as she follows through
with the course she has begun. They may
help to make the travel arrangements,
keep in touch with the family left at
home, write letters to a homesick girl
and persuade her to keep on with her
course is spite of her homesickness.
Once the course (usually lasting two
years) is over, WICS volunteers are at
hand to help the “graduate” make her
transition to the world of work. They
may help to find a home for her, advise
her about job opportunities, help her
with budget planning, and in general give
her the helping hand and friendly
support that she needs while finding her
way as an independent wage-earner.
WICS was incorporated in 1964 by
members of the Church Women United,
the National Council of Catholic
Women, National Council of Jewish
Women and National Council of Negro
Women. Since that time,the women
members of the GI Forum Auxiliary and
League of Latin American Citizens have
joined the coalition.
The original group was formed in
Atlanta, in response to the mistreatment
of women and girls arrested and jailed
for participation in civil rights
demonstrations. It is now a growing
force of volunteers in communities all
over the nation, working together to help
deal with the country’s newly recognized
problem of poverty in the midst of
plenty.
Specifically, WICS has a contract with
the Federal Government to recruit and
screen girls eligible for the Jobs Corps
program. Those accepted as eligible are
sent to residential Job Corps Centers
across the country, where they receive
occupational training, basic remedial
education and training in family
responsibilities and citizenship.
WICS volunteers seek out those girls
most in need of Job Corps training,
Those interested in learning more
about Women in Community Service
might write to the WICS Regional
Coordinator, 1371 Peachtree St., N.E.,
Atlanta, Ga., 30309. In Savannah, where
a new unit may soon be formed, the
address to write to is c/o Sr. M.
Catherine Moore, Social Apostolate, 501
E. McDonough St., (P.O. Box 8703),
Savannah, Ga. 31402.
-- Gillian Brown
.V.VAVAW.V.V.V.V.V?
Christmas Shopping
Philosophy
Mary Carson
For years I hated Christmas shopping.
Instead of doing it early, I kept putting it off. I
felt if I ignored it long enough, it would just go
away.
Now it has occurred to me that possibly all
the fault didn’t lie in the shopping. I was
responsible for a good bit of my own grief.
While quietly sitting in my kitchen, I started
thinking about other aspects of my life. There
are jobs I dislike; but griping about them
doesn’t make them any easier.
There are people I like, who have faults; but
I ignore their faults, and enjoy their good
points. My children have shortcomings; but I
love them anyway, and concentrate on their
strengths and virtues.
While I was able to think positively about
some things, I never had done it regarding
Christmas shopping. I had developed the habit
of dwelling on the things I disliked about
shopping
Therefore . . .to cure the problem . . .all I
had to do was concentrate on the good things
about Christmas shopping.
I set off for the department store, full of
good will.
As I drove into the parking lot, the air was
filled with the fragrance of fresh-cut pine trees.
I wondered why I never noticed that in other
years.
How lovely the store windows looked; the
Christmas decorations were mangificent. A
voice boomed in back of me, “Lady, will you
keep moving? You’re holding up the line!”
I thought my plan had been shot full of
holes. As I looked around, a tired father was
trying to hold the hand of an over-eager
toddler.
I smiled at him, “Sorry, I just stopped to
admire the decorations.”
“Humph!”
But as I walked on, I saw him point out to
his son the little carved figures of skaters,
gliding under a decorated tree. And they both
were smilling.
I accumulated an armful of assorted pajamas
and shirts, and decided to have them checked
out before I started losing the packages.
The long line at the cash register wasn’t
moving. Up ahead there was a problem over a
charge card. The customer became surly. His
rude remarks to the sales girl could be heard by
everyone in line.
There were several minor problems before it
was my turn, and the girl was obviously getting
haggard.
As I piled all my things on the counter, I
couldn’t help asking, “How do you manage to
stay pleasant? This must be a very difficult
job.”
The tiredness in her eyes disappeared, “You
know, you’re the first person all week who
didn’t think I was some sort of machine.
Thanks.”
As she started ringing up the pajamas, she
commented, “How many children do you have?
Or are you giving pajamas to all your nieces and
nephews?”
When I told her I had eight kids, she leaned
over and said, “Check down at the end of this
aisle. I know that they are putting out specials
on girls’ slacks. They are some real good buys.
With that many kids, you can use all the help
you can get.”
I thanked her, and as I walked away, she was
smiling at the next customer.
Almost without exception, I found that by
being considerate of the people around me, I
could get them to respond.
All these years, when 1 so disliked shopping,
I never realized that I was going to the store
simply to “get.” But one of the Christmas
messages is to “give.” That must include giving
of myself . . .giving a kind word to a tired sales
girl; giving a smile to the irritated shopper;
giving a bit of warmth to all these “neighbors.”
Now when I evaluate a shopping trip, there
are two things to consider .. .how many gifts I
found .. .and more important, how many
spirits I lifted.
A Sports Book...
About God
Rev. Andrew M. Greeley
Ordinarily I would argue that professional
football players are to be watched on television
and not read about in books. They don’t watch
me play football, why should I read their
books? I make an exception, of course, for
anything about the Chicago Bears (and Jeannie
Morris’s SHORT SEASON was magnificent).
But the ugly tragedy of the career of Lance
Rentzel seemed to have revelance beyond the
football field, so I read WHEN ALL THE
LAUGHTER DIED IN SORROW (despite the
fact that no Chicago Bear fan can possibly have
much sympathy for someone who had played
for the Dallas Cowboys). It is an extraordinary
book, perhaps something of a masterpiece. As
Rentzel’s psychiatrist says in an afterword, it is
not a book about professional football or about
psychotherapy; it is a book about growing up.
In a style which is simple and direct without
being either self-excusing or self-destroying, a
former “golden boy” tells of his struggle for
adulthood, a struggle which one senses he is in
the process of winning.
His story goes beyond what are ultimately
accidental phenomena - his successes in the
classroom and on the football field, his
marriage to a lovely actress, his arrest and the
horrible humiliations which followed. The
essence of the story concerns the struggle for
maturity and the triumph of hope over despair.
Both the struggle and the triumph are part of
the human condition; and Lance Rentzel has
succeeded in touching a phenomenon that is
basic to the humanity of us all. It is the
universality of an experience that is a
prerequisite for great writing.
Rentzel is Everyman, grasping for adulthood
and trying to come back from defeat,
discouragement, humiliation, and despair. But
he does not attempt to hide his own
individuality or responsibility under the
Everyman cloak. Not once in the whole painful,
poignant fascinating book does he deviate from
the perfect balance of universality and
individual responsibility. The feat is far more
impressive than catching an option pass from
Dan Reeves or throwing one to Bob Hayes.
Indeed, it makes football look like the
adolescent’s game that it is.
The book was not written as part of
Rentzel’s therapy, and it is not - unlike most
memoirs by athletes -- the work of a
ghostwriter. No ghostwriter in the world could
possibly produce something as authentic as
WHEN ALL THE LAUGHTER DIED IN
SORROW.
Lance Rentzel’s battle is far from over. The
press and the nightclub comedians will continue
to hound him. Cornerbacks and safetys will
know what words are the most likely to sting
him. He emerges from the book as a young man
whose personality and relationships are held
together by courage and hope and very little
else. But, in truth, that is all that any of us have
at our disposal; Rentzel simply has been
permanently deprived of the illusion that there
is anything else that can provide security
besides courage and hope.
A minor lesson of his book is the ugliness of
the American emphasis on being a “winner,” an
ugliness that anyone who has dealt with
athletes even on the grammar or high school
level knows all too well. Many of the reviewers
of WHEN ALL THE LAUGHTER DIED IN
SORROW have chosen to interpret this as the
main theme of the book. But clearly the issue
which concerns Lance Rentzel is much more
basic: Is it safe to trust? Can you let others get
close to you? Do you become worthless when
you fail? Can you run the risk of seeking depth
in your relationships and your search for
meaning? Can you be brave enough to be
serious? These are all religious questions, and
Rentzel has written a religious book. Any book
about the pains of growing up - and growing up
is what such questions are all about -- is
inevitably a religious book. One can only grow
up when one has begun to answer the question
of what sort of creature man is; and that is the
most basic of religious questions.
Rentzel touches only lightly on explicit
religion. He admits that his shattering
experience has forced him to wonder about
God and to question the purpose of human
existence. Well it might. Any experience that
forces us to face the God question honestly and
openly is potentially a positive experience.
In the final analysis, he must answer the
question of whether existence is gracious by
looking at himself - as we all must. There is no
stronger “signal of the transcendent” in the
human condition than hope. Lance Rentzel
must ask himself whether that powerful hope
which has enabled him to come back from the
ashes reflects a cause and an object of hope that
underwrites a universe that is ultimately
friendly. One prays that he will listen to the
forces of hope within himself. For WHEN ALL
THE LAUGHTER DIED IN SORROW is a
book about hope, and hence, whether the
author knows it or not, a book about God.
DESPAIR
DANANG, S. Vietnam -- An old woman weeps as she stands near the wreckage of
her still-burning home following a Communist mortar attack on her village near
Danang.
Kill Cruelty -
Not Connie!
Joseph A. Breig
Among my most cherished acquaintances is a
girl, now 13, who, when I first met her, could
hardly walk at all.
Cbnnie and I became dear friends while I
piloted her wheel chair during summer visits to
five galloping grandchildren who lived next
door to her in a city a hundred miles from my
home.
She was attending a special school and
receiving special therapy. Little by little, at the
cost of immense effort, she began to take a few
steps with the help of braces and crutches.
Never will I forget a sunny day when I
guided the wheel chair to the sidewalk in front
of her house, and watched while she practiced
walking.
It was nothing like seeing someone with (say)
a broken leg or sprained ankle, swinging along
on crutches. No; for Connie, it was a matter of
managing one grindingly laborious step at a
time, in a very agony of concentration and
perservarice.
Spunk? Connie had spunk by the ton.
I stayed close to her, hovering over her,
guarding against a fall, while she made her
painfully slow progress, her face set in the very
incarnation of determination.
It hurt me to watch. It hurt so much that I
found myself saying and repeating, “Don’t you
think that’s enough for today, Connie? Maybe
you should stop now.”
She only shook her head and went on
practicing.
If you and you and you - and I - were to try
half as hard with what God has given us, God
alone knows what wonders we might work.
A few weeks ago, I saw my Connie again.
Two years had elapsed, because my
grandchildren had moved to another state.
This time, Connie did not need me to
maneuver her wheel chair. She is managing it
for herself, thank you. But once more, I found
myself half-begging her to stop practicing with
her crutches; but now my pleas came after she
had been walking for an hour.
After all, a typewriter-chained chap like me
gets worn out watching ANYBODY walk for
more than 15 or 20 minutes. And here was
Connie, tirelessly trudging for nearly two hours,
determined to develop her muscles and skills,
determined to become more and more
self-reliant.
How proud God must be of the Connies of
the world, and of their parents, and of the
therapists and others who help them.
But we have come into a time of abominable
selfishness, filled with vile propaganda which
suggests, when it does not say outright, “Kill
Connie; give her euthanasia,” just as it says,
“Kill the infant in the womb before it can be
born.”
What needs killing is not children, but
hideous hardheartedness among adults.
Showing
Our ‘Thanks’
Rev. James Wilmes
Old Trinity Church in New York’s Wall
Street section, is said to be closely watched
during days of gloom and depression on the
Stock Exchange. According to an Associated
Press release, stock brokers are shy about being
seen going in during the noon-hour to pray.
They are thought to fear that investors, noting
their behavior, might decide to sell!
AP quotes one Trinity watcher as saying,
“I’m looking for the guy who looks like he’s
giving thanks.” Then and only then, he says,
will he figure it’s time to start investing again.
The whimsey has its point, and not merely
about the Market.
Why is there such a shortage of men and
women who look as though they are giving
thanks? The depressed and anxious world we
live in has need of them. Not the Polyannas
who smile determinedly no matter what. Nor
the paper-hangers, ever ready to paper over
every problem and pain. We need those who
continually, inwardly, give thanks - that our
trying times are times of birth, not death; that
high hope, good faith and the generous spirit
remain valid.
Let your thankfulness show, and many a
timorous watcher will decide to invest again in
the courageous, confident life.
RESOLUTION: Thank God for health by
taking invalids, cripples and shut-ins for a drive.
Thank Him for wealth by giving Him 10% of
profits. Thank Him for food by wasting less and
buying Food Stamps for those who can’t afford
to. Thank Him for clothes by helping teachers
clothe helpless students. Thank Him for faith
by pausing to say Grace in restaurants.
SCRIPTURE: “Has no one been found to
give thanks to God except this foreigner? “LK.
17, 16. “Paul took bread and gave thanks to
God before them all and began to eat. Then all
became more cheerful.” Acts 27, 35.
PRAYER: We give You thanks, Almighty
God, for all Your blessings. You live forever
and ever. Amen.