In Search of a Roundtable & More

Some of you reading this will remember Chuck Lathrop. He along with Jack Sullivan MM and Mary Anne O’Donnell MM, were the leadership of the Maryknoll Lay Missioners in the early years. He was a lay missioner with Glenmary Missionaries in Appalachia. I cannot remember how this wild-haired, mildly-quirky, guitar-playing, street poet from California made his way to Maryknoll, but we are all very blessed that he did.

Somewhere in the 70’s he wrote, In Search of a Roundtable, so prescient and a poem that has served as a prayer or reflection agenda for hundreds over the years. A few verses follow below. To read the full poem, go to: https://beingchurchin21stc.wordpress.com/scripture-about-and-prayers-for-the-church/in-search-of-a-roundtable-by-chuck-lathrop/

Concerning the why
and how
and what
and who of ministry,
one image keeps surfacing:
A table that is round.

It will take some sawing to be roundtabled,
some redefining and redesigning
Such redoing and rebirthing of narrowlong Churching
can painful be for people and tables…

Chuck eventually met Mary, a beautiful Irish woman and moved to Dublin where he’s lived for just about 4 decades. They have three children. About two years ago he was diagnosed with bladder cancer. Rather than slow down his creative poetic instincts, it has propelled him into a kind of new genre – poems from the oncology ward at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin. To date, Chuck has responded well to therapy.

This is not a typical Affiliate Monday Morning Update post - if there is such a thing…i.e., typical. But it’s almost the end of summer and maybe it can serve as a little slice of another’s life that can touch ours, possibly dramatically.  Here is just one example from the oncology ward.

Deep Breath (Formatted differently to fit this platform)

I know so well now This view of ear old North Dublin Out the Oncology Day Ward window -

Clouds and birds passing by; The birds in a hurry And the clouds taking their time

In this silent, silvergrey tableau

While inside, that ever-familiar “Beep beep beep - beep beep”, The machines delivering All manner of treatments From kind to not so kind

And again no loud voices

Allowing both time and space to think - Perhaps, at times, Too much time And too much to thing about

Like the last CT scan results- Every three months the scan And every three months the wait.

Every three months You hold your breadth

Deep breath

Waiting to breathe again.

-CS Lathrop 04/08/2024