When I Lost My Bigotry

I recently heard of the passing of Norma Johnston, a tribal elder of the Swinomish Nation and a friend of mine. Norma helped me get beyond my religious bigotry. Here’s that story.

In 1988 I bought a cabin on tribal land that I leased from Norma’s family. The cabin wasn’t far from La Conner, beautifully nestled in a quiet cove on Puget Sound a mile down channel from Deception Pass.

Norma was a wonderful woman with a beautiful spirit and a character filled with wisdom and faith. She was married to a man who had survived the Bataan Death March and three years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. When my lease came up for renewal I decided to meet with her. The first words out of her mouth were, “You don’t look so good, Pat. What’s the matter?”

At the time I was not in a good place in my life. I told her my mother had recently passed. I was single, alone, and terribly lonely. My work paid my bills but was hardly satisfying. I was 43 years old, seven years sober, but felt miserable.

Norma was a woman of deep faith. I had hardly finished my story when she put both her hands over my head and began to pray for me.

  • loudly
  • fervently
  • convincingly

Oh, how she prayed for me. it went on for 10 minutes or more. I was mesmerized by the whole experience. Before she sent me out the door she made me promise to meet up with her Sunday at her little Pentecostal church on the reservation, not far from my cabin.

In a former time I would have politely declined. I was not an evangelical kind of guy.

  • My spiritual roots are Roman Catholic.
  • I was blessed with a Jesuit education.
  • I studied from the texts of great Protestant theologians.
  • I deeply appreciate the Jewish tradition in Marsha’s family.

These traditions gave me my identity. But, I came to learn, somewhere along the line I had become a religious bigot dressed up in smarty pants. I had been taught to distrust emotion in any spiritual expression. But truth be told, my smarty pants days were long gone. I felt dumb as a rock. Besides that, I was in need of a friend and saw no other outstretched hand.

So I showed up at her little church, no bigger than a large living room with maybe 25 ecstatic believers in attendance. When I walked in everyone came over and made a great fuss over me. You would have thought it was the return of the prodigal son. And in some ways I guess it was.

When it got to prayer time the whole congregation gathered around, laid hands on me and commenced praying for me for the next 20 minutes.

The emotional intensity was off the charts. This outpouring of affection for me, by perfect strangers, shattered my cynicism, humbled my arrogant mind, and taught me there’s much about the spirit dimension of life of which I’m utterly ignorant. 

The broken man who had walked in, walked out much restored — albeit a little confused.

It now pains me to remember my bigotry and arrogance. Why on earth did I think I possessed the keys to the kingdom when I didn’t even possess the keys to my own heart? I learned if we eat only from our own table we’ll likely starve to death. It’s only when we share from a common table that we find the variety of spiritual nourishment we all need to survive.

Dear Norma continues to remind this recovering smarty pants to guard his humble and contrite spirit. Always!

God bless you, dear lady.

Just a thought…

Pat

Copyright © 2020 Patrick J. Moriarty. All Rights Reserved.

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