Almost Famous

Another anecdote from my parents' visit: One evening we fell to talking about acquaintances from the town where I grew up, a little black dot on the Indiana map where drivers had to decelerate while traveling down a state highway, but never had to pause at irritating stop lights, at least while I was in school there.

One of these acquaintances was the middle school athletic director, who disappeared in anonymity, sometime after I left eighth grade. He is remembered for his strange gait and for claiming to have met Bobby Knight, the infamous IU basketball coach.

He probably also knew the famous Angela Ahrendts, a fellow alumna of my high school in a class a few years ahead of mine.  What, you've never heard of her?  Probably to most people, she isn’t famous. But on Saturday evening, my mom and I were flipping through W, the Wall Street Journal’s monthly magazine, and came across a profile of Angela, who was living large during Fashion Week. Now she is the CEO of Burberry’s, and responsible for pulling it into profitability. She lives with her husband and three kids on an estate outside of London. (Not only did we read, almost lasciviously, the article, but then we googled her to find out more, and to figure out if maybe our paths had crossed at some point.)

So how does it come to pass that a small town girl, from a place about as far from the London fashion scene as you can get, lands this dream job? Providence? (The article mentioned she wore a gold cross and prayed.) Connections? Hard work? Combination of all three, plus good karma?…

It’s hard not to envy such a person. On the other hand, the article offhandedly mentioned that her daughter spent 6 hours a day skyping her cousin, her best friend, back in Indiana. And that her husband, who manages the estate, once told his wife, when she came home barking orders, that he didn’t work for her. So maybe there’s a bit to pity in that life, too.

We all desire a little recognition of our talents. That old athletic director found his claim to fame in the brush with Bobby Knight. Mrs. Ahrendts hobknobs with the rich and beautiful. It’s easy to fall into the trap of why her, and not me? (not that I want to be CEO of a fashion house, but I wouldn’t mind the English estate.) Sometimes it’s hard to satisfied with a small life.

But then I watch a movie with the kids like Driving Miss Daisy. Here are Miss Daisy and Hoke, both living in the confines of their social roles, southern lady and chauffeur. They never go anywhere far; their influence on the lives of others is limited. But they develop a beautiful friendship that transforms their small lives into something extraordinary.

And really, it is the magnum opus of a lifetime to perfect our ability to love others.

Another prayer of Newman’s:


God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission -- I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in His -- if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep his commandments and serve Him in my calling.

Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve him. My sickness, or perplexity, or my sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about; He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me-still He knows what He is about.

From here.
(When I googled for this prayer, the text I was looking for was the one familiar to me from the Notre Dame campus ministry prayer book. Apparently it is still meaningful to another ND grad, Hannah Storm.)

Blessed JHNewman

While my parents were here last week, we went to a concert at our church by a choir in Louisiana who had come to town to raise money for their trip to Ireland. They sang a setting of “Lead, Kindly Light,” Newman’s poem, perhaps the same setting that was sung on the Titanic shortly before it sank.




While in college, I worked as a research assistant for a professor who was a Newman scholar. I wonder if perhaps she was in England this weekend for his beatification. The lovely coda to her story is that recently she was married, after at least ¾ of her allotted 4 score years, to a widowed colleague from the same department. I imagine them eating tea and scones at some little inn in Oxford after the beatification, enjoying delightful, scholarly conversations.

The lyrics from Newman's poem:

Lead, Kindly Light

"Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th'encircling gloom,

Lead Thou me on!

The night is dark, and I am far from home,

Lead Thou me on!

Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see

The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus,

nor prayed that Thou shouldst lead me on;

I loved to choose and see my path;

but now lead Thou me on!

I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,

Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years!

So long Thy power hath blest me,

sure it still will lead me on.

O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent,

till the night is gone,

And with the morn those angel faces smile, which I

Have loved long since, and lost awhile!

Meantime, along the narrow rugged path,

Thyself hast trod,

Lead, Savior, lead me home in childlike faith,

home to my God.

To rest forever after earthly strife

In the calm light of everlasting life."