Heading to a funeral today. It's at a church I never thought I'd go back to. The funeral is for a man that I've known for many years: he was the librarian at my high school and he was kind to me at a point in my life when I desperately needed kindness. His name is James. So it's not Saint James that will bring me back into a church, but librarian Jimmy. I'm apprehensive about going back to the little church that I converted in: although I head off tomorrow on a pilgrimage, religion, particularly Catholicism, makes me uncomfortable.
I need to remind myself that we're all just on our own journeys, and we're all human, and we all make mistakes.
...
After the service
A lot of the words of Saint James resonated with me today: Jimmy's life of generosity and kindness to his community fulfill St. James's words about good works being the heart of faith. My take on it: One can live without faith (ie: organized religion) but still display divinity through good works.
One of my very first jobs when I was a teenager was to help Jimmy in the library at the end of the school year sorting textbooks. I found a battered and water-damaged copy of Hamlet, and I asked Jimmy if I could have it, rather than throw it out. He exclaimed, colourfully, that the copy I was holding looked like someone had peed on it, and then he went and got a new-ish copy from his office. I don't know why he had it: it wasn't coded for library or textbook use. He gave it to me without any ceremony... but I remember that moment very clearly, even over fifteen years later.
I work now as a school librarian. And I still love Shakespeare.
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