Robbed Again!

Padre Julio, about whom I have blogged previously, Skyped me from Colombia this morning. He had been robbed again -- the second time in three months that someone broke into his car and took everything. This time the thief took both Fr. Julio's personal computer and the computer that belongs to the organization he founded, Por Amor a Los Ninos de Colombia (For Love of the Children of Colombia). It had recently happened, and I guess when he Skpyed me, he was at an Internet cafe, trying to figure out his next step and wondering where and when the good from this would come about!

I suppose I am a fairly appropriate person with whom to share this kind of news. After all, in addition to my regular muggings, I have been robbed on a few occasions. The first time washed away any sentimental affiliation with things. We had moved from Montana to South Carolina, where I was undergoing my initial military training, and had then gone on to California, where I was to be permanently stationed. (Of course, in the military one must realize that a "permanent change of station" is anywhere in length from six months to three years -- so much for permanence.) While I was in South Carolina, we had left many of our possessions, including my wedding ring (long story), in storage in Montana. After the move to California, I asked for annual leave, and we made a difficult and long trip back to Montana through the snowed-in Sawtooth Mountains, over which we had to creep with our tires in chains, only to find out that everything had been stolen. There was absolutely nothing left. Bit by bit, we replaced everything, except the wedding ring. I do not wear one to this day, but most people know immediately that I am married. There have been other times, each with its own special characteristics, but the most recent was finding upon return from two years in Jordan that our RV, in which we had been living in an isolated area on a mountain river in rural California and which we had left in the possession of a neighbor, had been broken into and everything stolen, including the door from the refrigerator, the air conditioning (leaving a hole in the roof), and all the wiring. The neighbor, it turned out, was wanted for kidnapping (her own child, in a divorced situation) in Louisiana and had been forced to return there. And then there was the house that we lost. We had rented out our primary residence when we moved from Pennsylvania to Washington, DC years ago. For years, the tenants paid the rent, taking out any money they needed for repairs, and renting out a second apartment that was part of the house and keeping the rent in exchange for taking care of the property. It was a great arrangement until they suddenly went incommunicado and stopped paying rent. Our attorney learned that the father, the sole breadwinner, had lost his job and was on welfare but had not conveyed that to us (perhaps we could have worked something out). When the attorney told the tenants to pay the back taxes or leave, they left, taking everything they could, including things that belonged to us. Then, to make sure that there was nothing left, they took an axe and broke every window and chopped down all the stairs. Oh, well, it was only a house.

Any time I might consider that I have problems, I recall the life of my best friend from college. Coping with a bubble baby (no immune system) and a child recently diagnosed with diabetes, together with a husband dying from cancer for whom doctors held little hope, she locked her house and left for her home city where the doctors were better able to treat her husband and her mother could help with her two children. Six months later, she returned with her husband in remission, planning to continue on with her not-so-easy life and found her house ransacked. Nothing of any value, including sentimental value, had been left. (The whole story is rather long and has an amusing, well, at least, a lighter, outcome; I have posted it on Mahlou Musings.)

I think the moral to these stories is that life is too short and too complicated to worry about possessions. Possessions, in the long run, do not really matter. (I don't think that is just the Franciscan me speaking. I think it is really true.) In the long run, we may never recover our possessions, but, in my experience, God will somehow turn these experiences into something that is good or something that gives good: good from bad, the story of my life and of the lives of many people I know.

Our earthly goods may be taken from us, in my case over and over. But that is not important. Our soul cannot be taken from us; we have to give it away of our own free will. Our hope cannot be taken from us; we have to give up on our own for God will always hold out to us a branch of hope. Our happiness cannot be taken from us for while we may not be able to control what is done to us, we can control how we react to it (as the aphorism goes).

Sure, I have been robbed, but I choose to let those things go, forgotten in past days that I am not going to relive, anyway. I choose happiness. Always. My happiness does not lie in having good things. It does not even lie in having good news. Rather, my happiness lies in the fact that the universe is bigger than I, that God is greater than I, and that, as we are told, all things will work together for our good. That does not mean that my life has no sorrow. Certainly, it does. Considerably much of it, truth be told. However, sorrow does not preclude happiness, just as happiness does not preclude sorrow.

The robberies I experienced gave me a very different outlook on life -- a more positive one and one less burdened with the need for things (now I can use more of my money to help others because I no longer feel a need to "buy" fine surroundings). The robbery my friend experienced led her, too, through the intervention that she sought, to the ability to cope with three difficult medical situations, and today both children have outgrown their medical problems and are married adults with families and her husband is still in remission from cancer. Good in the long term is something to be anticipated for Padre Julio as well. In the short term, however, please pray for him and the children of Palomar.