The Man in a Glass Box

In 1961 I began a four year pilgrimage to St. Joseph's Prep, a Jesuit high school at 17th Street and Girard Avenue in North Philadelphia. I was 14 years old, weighed maybe 100 pounds, and was scared as hell.

It took an hour each way to travel a tad over 15 miles from the western suburbs. Each morning I braved jammed trolleys, ELs (elevated trains), and subways. In snowstorms and rain, wind and heat, I carried a gym bag bottom heavy with textbooks and assignments. I had three hours of homework every night. Cicero and Virgil, Moliere and Steinbeck spoke to me of wars and brave men and broken hearts.  Over 720 days and nights, I persisted in leaving the quiet safety of my suburban home for chaotic city streets and the demanding hallways of a school that had been teaching boys since 1851.

Why?

Because I believed that this expensive (I had to work weekends and summers to help pay the tuition) pilgrimage would help shape my mind and my spirit. I hoped that the brilliant teachers and fellow pilgrims would give me the skills to find my way through college. And I trusted that, if I worked my tail off, I just might develop the endurance I would need to face whatever might come my way in the future.

I was right. Years later, when my mother was very ill, I wanted to complete my doctorate degree at the University of Pennsylvania before she died. My victories were always my Mother's victories, and, with her health failing, I wasn't sure if I could complete the research and write the dissertation in time. Tapping back into my Prep days, I presented my proposal, did the research, wrote the paper (295 pages), and defended in 11 months time. I taught during the day and worked every night and weekend. I knew how to work hard.

Eight months after my Mother wept openly as she watched me receive my Doctor of Education degree in the International House at the University of Pennsylvania, she died. Neil Gaiman wrote: "You have to believe. Otherwise it will never happen."

However, I never could have imagined that I would be taking yet another pilgrimage to North Philadelphia. And this time, not to the Prep, but to a man in a glass box.

After teaching for 17 years, I decided to leave public education and received training in a variety of counseling fields. For four years I saw clients with a wide range of concerns. My daughter was getting ready to attend college and salaries for public school teachers were starting to go up. After much reflection, I decided to reenter teaching. The problem was, with much better salaries, there were 500 applications for every opening. And worse, why hire a teacher with 17 years experience when you can hire someone fresh out of college at a much lower salary?

I was in a difficult place. My determination and hard work couldn't change the hiring climate. The upcoming college tuition and room and board and books were steep, and I wasn't getting invited in for interviews. The well worn academic paths I had learned at the Prep had served me well, but they weren't working now.

That was when I remembered the man in a glass box. My relatives had made visits to the shrine of Saint John Neumann in North Philadelphia. I remembered hearing how John Neumann had come from Bohemia and started the first Catholic diocesan school system in the United States. I also knew that he had been Bishop of Philadelphia in the mid 1850s and canonized a saint some years back.

I decided to visit his shrine and was stunned to discover it was only 1.1 miles from the Prep. I had not been in North Philly for some time, and made my way in late March to Broad Street, then east down Girard to North Fifth Street. The Church of Saint Peter the Apostle sat on the corner. Below the church was a low ceilinged chapel. And, in the front of the chapel, just before the altar, lay the body of John Neumann. He was clad in white bishop's garb, as if asleep, encased in clear glass.

It was very quiet, the sounds of Girard Avenue gone. A man in an expensive suit was kneeling at the altar rail, only several feet away from this priest who had been declared a saint, the only male US citizen ever done so. The man in the expensive suit was quietly weeping. They were not tears of joy.

I sat in a pew in that quiet place. Finely wrought applications and snazzy cover letters had not landed me an interview. Ernest Hemingway wrote: "The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them." I decided to trust this sacred man, in this sacred place. I asked humbly for his help. I asked if he could find a position for me where I might help kids to think and question and wonder. I asked if he might give me the strength and patience to find my path.

Two months later, I was called in for an interview. Two weeks after that, I was hired. I taught in that school district for 20 years, retiring in June 2010.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: "All that I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen." My trust that March day in a man in a glass box changed my life, and taught me that hard work, determination and belief in more than yourself is a worthy pilgrimage.

Copyright (c) 2013 by James Hugh Comey

More Than Life Itself: A Eulogy

Today is Mother's Day, 2013.  My mother, Mary Comey, died 17 years ago. Recently I came across the eulogy that I wrote for her funeral service at Saint Thomas Church in Villanova, PA. My brother, Dave, valiantly delivered the text. On this day dedicated to mothers, I offer excerpts from this tribute to the woman that I miss with all my heart.

A Eulogy

It's difficult, in just several minutes, to describe a life that spanned over three quarters of a century, especially when it's your mother. Yet there are qualities of Mary Comey that well up strongly in our memories.

The first of these qualities is determination. For those of you who didn't know my mother, she stood four foot eleven inches at her prime. Because of her physical size, some people, especially sales people, mistakenly assumed that she was small in her determination and her power of will. Each of us can remember watching her thoroughly exhaust, wear out and wear down furniture, clothing, appliance, and dozens of other types of sales people as she artfully used every manner of persuasion to bring them to precisely the amount that she had determined when she first entered their store. And each of us frequently found that she worked her persuasive magic just as effectively on us, usually right after we had declared in a loud voice that we were not going to budge, that we had made up our minds. There was little that could deter Mary Comey, not even death. In the last month of her life, when living became just too physically difficult for her, she convinced God that it was time for her to come to Him. She wouldn't accept no for an answer, and ever God Himself knew better than to mess with Mary Comey.

The second of her qualities was a rich love of telling stories, together with a remarkably creative imagination. All of our lives, we were treated to the most extraordinary tales by our mother. We heard about a Nazi spy she met who ran a boarding house in Saint Louis when she followed my father to the Midwest during World War II; the adventures she had as the Executive Secretary to the Director of the War Bond Division of the Philadelphia branch of the Treasury Department when all of the big celebrities of the day came into town, and the most wild adventures just going to the corner gas station or food store. When my mother went to the Wawa, almost anything was possible. It's no wonder that my brothers and I have been directly involved with the theatre and other media, and that each of us generates our living in a performance-based profession. It is also no surprise that all of her grandchildren have found themselves before some kind of artistic, athletic, or government-related audience. My mother lived life with high drama, and her legacy is that her children and grandchildren are carrying forward her joy of sharing their thoughts and feelings with others.

The third quality, and perhaps the one that most exemplifies and defines my mother's character, was her total devotion to her family.  All of her life, she lived within spitting distance of her brother and her sister. She was fiercely devoted to my father, John Comey. Other than a forced separation during World War II, my mother and father were inseparable for half a century. They consulted each other on every matter, often using their own special and robust form of communication. And for her three sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren, she traveled by plane, train, car, bus or walked up mountains so that she could applaud, cheer and hug each one of us after every event, regardless of its scope or importance. She always cried at our ceremonies because she deeply admired our efforts and our willingness to dare to try.

In a letter that she sent after we surprised my parents with a 50th anniversary party, my mother wrote, "I love you more than life itself." We were with her when she died, my father, brothers, and I, her family together as she wanted throughout her life. We will miss her powerful presence and her deep caring for our well being and happiness. We love you deeply, Mother, and ask that you not give God too hard a time if He should dare to disagree with you.

Copyright (c) 2013 by James Hugh Comey

Silence Is My Friend

There is a sound that has always comforted me. When the crash and bang of the world rings in my ears and I cannot think straight, I seek it. When a room full of people all seem to be talking at once, and department stores and fix it yourself warehouses are blaring announcements that are echoing inside my skull, I look for it.  When meetings with folks are trying to outshout each other, and highway traffic is swallowing my sanity, I need it desperately.

The sound I love is silence.

My good fortune was moving in fourth grade to a new house that had a steep slope behind it that led to 120 acres of untouched woods. It was my own personal sanctuary. I'd climb down the 70 degree slope and sit atop a ragged crag of high rocks for hours, watching and listening to Crum Creek meander through my woods. The conventional entrance was at Smedley Park, off Route I in Nether Providence, some miles left of the bottom of the hill. Few people would venture to the bottom of my hill and beyond. The tree branches each had their own voices, with giant, arthritic oaks groaning against the caress of fall breezes, and elegant maples swishing their leaves in elegant harmony on summer afternoons. Bird song and squirrel barks mingled with the rustle of tall cattails near a marshy area that ran down from the Springfield Golf Course. Snakes and toads and tiny fish by the edges of the creek swirled in the clear water. The sun smiled through the thick canopy of trees, warming the soil and my rock perch and me.

I sometimes wondered, as I sat alone, if what I was doing was normal. I did frequently come down into the woods with neighborhood friends and raft on the creek, and climb Indian Rock (someone had painted an outline of an Indian long ago), and explore caves. But I just as often sat solitary, atop my giant rock perch, soaking in the smells and sights and sounds of my quiet sanctuary. It felt akin to being in church.

A short time ago I happened to see Susan Cain speak on TED. Her speech was called "The Power of Introverts." I was transfixed. I knew from the Myers Briggs test that I was INTJ, the rarest kind of personality. (I have written about my discovery of this in an earlier blog.) But to hear a total stranger so accurately describe me was remarkable. Her TED speech was based on her best selling book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking (http://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Power-Introverts-World-Talking/dp/0307352145). I immediately read the book. Again, I was struck by the similarities of the people described in her book and myself.

One example is a very successful professor who was popular with his students and a sought after speaker. He played the part of the outgoing teacher, but then fled to his country home where he avoided parties and most social gatherings. When he was away from home, presenting at a conference, he walked outside, alone, between speeches, or, if it was too cold, hid in areas where he didn't have to engage in small talk. It wasn't that he didn't like people. He simply preferred quiet. Sensory overload was unwelcome, and schmoozing with strangers was alien to him.

My classroom was a very quiet place. Students engaged in conversations with me and each other, often on an intense level, but without shouting or interrupting each other. If I asked a question, I would wait quite a while before a hand went up. The silence in the room didn't bother me. When students would look at me, wondering why no one was saying anything, I would say, "Silence is my friend."

I didn't attend the retirement party for a cluster of educators who retired when I did. I knew what people thought of me without going to a noisy environment where I wouldn't be able to hear or think. And, like the professor, I do not have the schmoozing gene. Both of my brothers are outgoing and enjoy large groups where strangers meet and chat. My wife and kids are easy mixers in social situations. But, as Susan Cain so aptly describes in her speech and book, there are people like me, and her, and others, who often prefer to read over talk. We enjoy the company of a small group of intimates, in a quiet setting. Sensory overload can feel almost painful, and thinking and productive work is most often accomplished apart from others.

We, introverts, agree with Confucius that "silence is a true friend who never betrays." And, when the world becomes too loud, we gently ask, "Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods" (Ralph Waldo Emerson).

Copyright (2013) by James Hugh Comey