Holy Medals in These Protestant Hands

I knew an elderly man in Ireland who had more holy medals in his trousers pockets than he had anything else, especially money.

He'd work his way through everything he knew about his faith before he could fish out enough coins to satisfy the paper boy on a Friday afternoon. It was always the same. The kid would stand there and watch as Gerry fished the coins of the realm from the panoply of intercessors he kept on hand.

I have become like that old man in this way. In my purse I have pewter ingots bearing the likenesses of a Buddha, Jesus, a nameless angel. A dog. One is simply a heart. All of them were gifts, tokens of affection from friends who wished me to remember them, to remember God, to love the world.

I have just added the likeness Jesus' Mother Mary to the group. Her likeness came to me from a neighbor whose name I can't remember but whom I see a few nights a week when I am out for a walk. He walks a small circuit and prays. His is a walking meditation. Last weekend, Ed came with me for my walk, and he remarked that our neighbor's Stamford Catholic jacket went back a few years because the school has been called Trinity for a while now.

The men got to talking, and our neighbor asked Ed if he were Catholic.

"I was raised Catholic..." Ed said.

"But not now," our neighbor said with a nod. "Would you take this and just say 'thank you' when you go to bed and when you wake up? You'll be one of 250 guys who do that." He handed Ed a medal bearing the likeness of Mary and because I was standing there, he handed me one too. I'm now one of the guys.

I don't exactly know what Mary means to my neighbor. I know only what she means to me. She is the mother of a young man who went the whole road for his friends out of his passionate belief that the kingdom of God is within each of us. She is the mother of the man who opened his heart to the world around him that we might experience radical grace and transform this world. What was it like to be her? I wonder that when I look at the medal.

Though I grew up in a Protestant tradition that has a long history of eschewing icons and ignoring good folk like Mary, I think these little ingots good things. Valueless as material objects, they are nevertheless effective reminders of the great and simple truth that we all seek to be one with the sacred.

Wonderful things happen if you go the whole road without ever pushing too hard.